Best Jobs For Former Dental Hygienists [2022]

By Chris Kolmar - Jul. 13, 2022

It’s tough to be a dental hygienist nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a dental hygienist isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become dental hygienists in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many dental hygienists no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former dental hygienists to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Here’s a quick look at the top ten most common jobs for former dental hygienists :

  1. Jobs (Overview)

  2. Jobs (Overview)

  3. Jobs (Overview)

  4. Jobs (Overview)

  5. Jobs (Overview)

  6. Jobs (Overview)

  7. Jobs (Overview)

  8. Jobs (Overview)

  9. Jobs (Overview)

  10. Jobs (Overview)

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a dental hygienist would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — as a list, they’re kind of boring as hell. They’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former dental hygienists to do.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Here are some of the most interesting jobs of former dental hygienists:

  1. Office Manager Jobs (Overview)

  2. Adjunct Faculty Jobs (Overview)

  3. Clinical Instructor Jobs (Overview)

  4. Sales Associate Jobs (Overview)

  5. Adjunct Instructor Jobs (Overview)

  6. Manager Jobs (Overview)

  7. Volunteer Jobs (Overview)

  8. Substitute Teacher Jobs (Overview)

  9. Adjunct Clinical Instructor Jobs (Overview)

  10. Registered Nurse Jobs (Overview)

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

How We Determined the Most Common Jobs of Former DENTAL HYGIENISTS

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed dental hygienist under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a dental hygienist, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

  • Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
  • And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

That’s all for how we did it — below you’ll find the full ranked list of the most common jobs of former dental hygienists.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former DENTAL HYGIENISTS

Rank Job Title %
1 Dental Assistant 3.03%
2 Hygienist 2.76%
3 Office Manager 2.37%
4 Dental Hygiene Professor 2.24%
5 Dentist 1.71%
6 Adjunct Faculty 1.58%
7 Dental Assisting Instructor 1.45%
8 Clinical Instructor 1.45%
9 Sales Associate 1.32%
10 Adjunct Instructor 1.32%
11 Volunteer 1.18%
12 Manager 1.18%
13 Adjunct Clinical Instructor 1.05%
14 Registered Nurse 1.05%
15 Substitute Teacher 1.05%
16 Consultant 1.05%
17 Owner 0.92%
18 Sales Representative 0.92%
19 Administrative Assistant 0.79%
20 Teacher 0.79%
21 Server 0.79%
22 Certified Dental Assistant 0.66%
23 Treatment Coordinator 0.66%
24 Cashier 0.66%
25 Internship 0.66%
26 Periodontist 0.66%
27 Sales Consultant 0.66%
28 Instructor 0.66%
29 Clinical Manager 0.53%
30 Physician Assistant 0.53%
31 Oral Surgery Assistant 0.39%
32 Program Manager 0.39%
33 Professional Educator 0.39%
34 Teaching Assistant 0.39%
35 Customer Service Representative 0.39%
36 Supervisor 0.39%
37 Assistant 0.39%
38 Assistant Professor 0.39%
39 Clinical Supervisor 0.39%
40 General Dentist 0.39%
41 Office Administrator 0.39%
42 Doctor 0.39%
43 Team Leader 0.39%
44 Sales Manager 0.39%
45 Human Resources Coordinator 0.39%
46 Office Assistant 0.39%
47 Secretary 0.39%
48 Front Desk Receptionist 0.39%
49 Registered Dental Assistant 0.39%
50 Medical Assistant 0.39%
51 Co-Owner 0.39%
52 Front Desk Coordinator 0.26%
53 Clinic Trainer 0.26%
54 Assistant Manager 0.26%
55 Administrator 0.26%
56 Receptionist 0.26%
57 Dental Internship 0.26%
58 Resource Coordinator 0.26%
59 Tutor 0.26%
60 Prn 0.26%
61 Customer Service Trainer 0.26%
62 Instructor, Faculty 0.26%
63 Concierge 0.26%
64 Waitress 0.26%
65 Bookkeeper 0.26%
66 Front Office Administrator 0.26%
67 Customer Service Associate 0.26%
68 Staff Nurse 0.26%
69 Coordinator 0.26%
70 Surgical Assistant 0.26%
71 Assistant Office Manager 0.26%
72 Adjunct Professor 0.26%
73 Clinical Social Worker 0.26%
74 Administrative Support 0.26%
75 Emergency Medical Technician 0.26%
76 Operations Director 0.26%
77 Graduate Assistant 0.26%
78 Realtor 0.26%
79 Sales Specialist 0.26%
80 General Practice 0.26%
81 Co-Owner/partner 0.26%
82 Dental Office Manager 0.26%
83 Business Owner 0.26%
84 Patient Advocate 0.26%
85 Public Health Professor 0.26%
86 Coach 0.26%
87 Md 0.26%
88 Customer Service Manager 0.26%
89 Practice Management Consultant 0.26%
90 Chief Executive Officer 0.26%
91 Therapist 0.26%
92 Pediatric Dental Hygienist 0.26%
93 Bartender Server 0.26%
94 Home Health Aid 0.26%
95 Practice Manager 0.26%
96 Attorney 0.26%
97 Territory Sales Representative 0.26%
98 Program Director 0.26%
99 Medical Receptionist 0.13%
100 Laboratory Assistant 0.13%

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Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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