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Best Jobs For Former Dental Assistants [2023]

By Chris Kolmar
Jul. 13, 2022

It’s tough to be a dental assistant 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 assistant isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become dental assistants in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many dental assistants 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 assistants 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 assistants :

  1. Jobs (Overview)

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  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 assistant 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 assistants 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 assistants:

  1. Office Manager Jobs (Overview)

  2. Customer Service Representative Jobs (Overview)

  3. Sales Associate Jobs (Overview)

  4. Cashier Jobs (Overview)

  5. Registered Nurse Jobs (Overview)

  6. Receptionist Jobs (Overview)

  7. Server Jobs (Overview)

  8. Internship Jobs (Overview)

  9. Pharmacist Technician Jobs (Overview)

  10. Volunteer 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 ASSISTANTS

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

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former DENTAL ASSISTANTS

Rank Job Title %
1 Dental Hygienist 5.32%
2 Office Manager 2.67%
3 Customer Service Representative 2.43%
4 Sales Associate 2.14%
5 Administrative Assistant 2.12%
6 Dental Assistant/receptionist 1.25%
7 Cashier 1.23%
8 Oral Surgery Assistant 1.16%
9 Registered Nurse 1.1%
10 Surgical Assistant 1.05%
11 Receptionist 1.02%
12 Registered Dental Assistant 0.97%
13 Server 0.95%
14 Office Assistant 0.91%
15 Medical Assistant 0.89%
16 Dentist 0.86%
17 Internship 0.84%
18 Lead Dental Assistant 0.82%
19 Assistant Manager 0.81%
20 Certified Nursing Assistant 0.67%
21 Orthodontic Assistant 0.64%
22 Pharmacist Technician 0.63%
23 Volunteer 0.61%
24 Manager 0.6%
25 Teacher 0.55%
26 Dental Assisting Instructor 0.55%
27 Assistant 0.48%
28 Substitute Teacher 0.48%
29 Office Administrator 0.48%
30 Home Health Aid 0.47%
31 Front Desk Receptionist 0.46%
32 Research Assistant 0.46%
33 Front Desk Coordinator 0.44%
34 Secretary 0.41%
35 General Dentist 0.41%
36 Certified Dental Assistant 0.38%
37 Billing Specialist 0.34%
38 Customer Service Trainer 0.34%
39 Licensed Practical Nurse 0.34%
40 Treatment Coordinator 0.33%
41 Teller 0.31%
42 Waitress 0.3%
43 Technician 0.3%
44 Preschool Teacher 0.3%
45 Assistant Office Manager 0.29%
46 Associate 0.29%
47 Patient Coordinator 0.29%
48 Supervisor 0.29%
49 Teacher Assistant 0.29%
50 Associate Dentist 0.29%
51 Scheduling Coordinator 0.29%
52 Expanded Function Dental Assistant 0.26%
53 Coordinator 0.26%
54 Dental Receptionist 0.26%
55 Surgical Dental Assistant 0.26%
56 Sales Representative 0.26%
57 Warehouse Associate 0.26%
58 Security Officer 0.26%
59 Customer Service Associate 0.25%
60 Team Leader 0.25%
61 Surgical Technician 0.25%
62 Store Manager 0.24%
63 Unit Secretary 0.24%
64 Owner 0.22%
65 Patient Care Coordinator 0.22%
66 Medical Receptionist 0.22%
67 Insurance Coordinator 0.22%
68 Front Office Assistant 0.21%
69 Clerk 0.21%
70 Teaching Assistant 0.21%
71 Owner/operator 0.21%
72 Representative 0.21%
73 Front Office Manager 0.2%
74 Bartender 0.2%
75 Nanny 0.2%
76 Radiologic Technician 0.18%
77 Finance Coordinator 0.18%
78 Patient Service Representative 0.18%
79 Service Representative 0.17%
80 Specialist 0.17%
81 Personal Assistant 0.17%
82 Claim Processor 0.16%
83 Medical Records Clerk 0.16%
84 Barista 0.16%
85 Laboratory Assistant 0.16%
86 Data Entry Clerk 0.16%
87 Front Office Coordinator 0.16%
88 Bartender Server 0.16%
89 Human Resources Coordinator 0.16%
90 Practice Manager 0.16%
91 Phlebotomist 0.16%
92 Account Manager 0.16%
93 Executive Assistant 0.16%
94 In-Home Childcare Provider 0.14%
95 Laboratory Technician 0.14%
96 Business Owner 0.14%
97 Shift Supervisor 0.14%
98 Case Manager 0.14%
99 Dental Assistant Extern 0.14%
100 Dental Office Manager 0.14%

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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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