No Experience Required: Why Hiring Outside the Industry Has Helped Our Dental Practice
In today’s competitive dental marketplace, we have discovered unexpected benefits from recruiting talent beyond traditional dental backgrounds. I cannot remember a time when all seven of our dental offices were fully staffed.
The last few years have been difficult to find skilled, experienced clinical team members. While industry experience certainly has value, bringing in professionals from other sectors can introduce fresh perspectives and innovative approaches that revitalize a practice.
Here’s why looking outside the dental industry for your next hire might be the strategic advantage your practice needs.
Fresh Perspectives Drive Innovation
Candidates from retail, hospitality, or customer service sectors bring valuable patient-centered mindsets that can transform your practice culture. They’re often skilled at creating exceptional customer experiences that dental professionals with purely clinical backgrounds might overlook.
We have experienced firsthand the wealth of experiences that can transform operations, patient care, and business growth. These new ideas are fresh and create a great environment for innovation that was missed by purely dental-focused teams. We have found these new team members to see our operations with curiosity rather than complacency.
Many changes have taken place inside our practice because of a simple question asked: “Why?”
- “Why do patients need to fill out the same information on multiple forms?”
- “Why is the scheduling system done this way?”
- ”Why is new patient paperwork sent ahead of time?”
Outside hires are not constrained by dental industry traditions, and we love that.
Transferable Skills That Enhance Practice Performance
Team members from outside the dental industry bring valuable skill sets that can significantly elevate your practice’s performance. The capabilities often apply seamlessly to dental settings despite being developed in different industries.
Many roles in a dental practice—from office management to patient coordination—rely on universal skills that aren’t dental-specific: Exceptional communication abilities, problem-solving capabilities, organizational talents, adaptability and learning agility, and customer service excellence.
Professionals from hospitality, retail, and customer service excel at making people feel heard and valued. This has helped our patient experience leave lasting impressions.
They are empathetic and have excellent listening skills, which help calm our anxious patients and make them feel more comfortable.
Broader Networks Expand Your Reach
Professionals from diverse backgrounds bring connections from different industries, potentially introducing your practice to new referral sources, business partnerships, and marketing opportunities that otherwise remain untapped.
We recently hired an assistant who had no dental experience but has worked as a CNA in the nursing field. In his downtime, he enjoys playing games on his PlayStation. As he worked through his first 90 days, everyone noticed that he had caught on very fast, was a great employee, and the most significant part is that he’s a natural for 3D Scanning. He attributes his success with the Trios to his time spent playing games.
We have found that these types of hires also appreciate having a day job that does not require nights or weekends. They typically arrive without preconceived notions about “how things should be done,” allowing them to question established processes and identify inefficiencies that insiders might miss. This is just one example of our success in hiring outside the dental industry.
Your Practice Can Benefit Too
In a perfect world, we would have all EFDA’s who love their job and will stay with us until retirement. But in reality, life happens, people move, and people change jobs.
By welcoming talent from outside the dental industry, we are enhancing our teams, creating forward-thinking and competitive advantages through improved patient experiences, operational improvements, and innovative approaches to long-standing challenges.
About the Author
Jami Stockard, MAADOM
Jami Stockard is the Director of Operations at Access Dental Services, LP, in Missouri, a growing company with seven current locations. She has worked in dentistry for over 19 years, starting as a chairside dental assistant and then a practice manager.
