How to hire a clinical dietician

How to hire a clinical dietician, step by step

Here's a step-by-step clinical dietician hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a clinical dietician job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new clinical dietician
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the clinical dietician you need to hire. Certain clinical dietician roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A clinical dietician's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, clinical dieticians from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   Here's a comparison of clinical dietician salaries for various roles:

   Type of Clinical Dietician	Description	Hourly rate
   Clinical Dietician	Dietitians and nutritionists are experts in the use of food and nutrition to promote health and manage disease. They advise people on what to eat in order to lead a healthy lifestyle or achieve a specific health-related goal.	$15-50
   Nutrition Internship	Nutrition interns are individuals who are on the job training for the tasks performed by licensed nutritionists or dieticians. The interns provide a nutrition care process that includes prescription of parenteral and enteral recommendations and analysis of laboratory values... Show more	$11-25
   Nutritionist	A nutritionist is a health professional who helps patients choose the right things to eat and advise them on the health effects of certain foods. By being experts in food and nutrition, nutritionists assess a patient's dietary habits and create plan menus for them... Show more	$14-38

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Patients
   • Patient Care
   • Medical Nutrition Therapy
   • Nutrition Education
   • Rehabilitation
   • Nutritional Risk
   • CMS
   • Educational Programs
   • Diet Modifications
   • Therapeutic Diets
   • Food Preparation
   • Food Selection
   • Healthcare Professionals
   • Eating Disorders

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage the anemia status of patients by reviewing necessary lab data and initiating or adjusting medication doses.
   • Facilitate interactive education program for mental health youth patients.
   • Write articles for local and national newspapers and newsletters and advise hospital catering departments about the specific dietary requirements of patients.
   • Develop hospital protocol for pediatric TPN ordering guidelines.
   • Calculate tube feeding recommendations as well as TPN administration recommendations.
   • Develop nutrition assessments and provide individual nutrition interventions for post-surgical/medical patients entering rehabilitation.

   More clinical dietician duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the clinical dietician job description is a good way to get more applicants. A clinical dietician salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a clinical dietician in South Dakota may be lower than in California, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level clinical dietician. Additionally, a clinical dietician with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average clinical dietician salary

   $58,442yearly

   $28.10 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level clinical dietician salary

   $32,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 15, 2025

   Average clinical dietician salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$89,173	$43
   2	New Jersey	$73,120	$35
   3	Massachusetts	$70,252	$34
   4	New York	$69,670	$34
   5	Maryland	$67,066	$32
   6	North Carolina	$58,905	$28
   7	Illinois	$53,969	$26
   8	Missouri	$52,830	$25
   9	Texas	$52,401	$25
   10	Pennsylvania	$52,147	$25
   11	Florida	$51,314	$25
   12	Ohio	$50,329	$24
   13	South Carolina	$50,276	$24
   14	Oklahoma	$49,200	$24
   15	Tennessee	$43,831	$21

   Average clinical dietician salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	University of California	$92,073	$44.27	3
   2	University Hospitals	$84,477	$40.61	11
   3	Dean Health Plan	$76,542	$36.80
   4	St. John's Episcopal Hospital	$71,991	$34.61	1
   5	CarolinaEast	$70,156	$33.73	2
   6	Tenet Healthcare	$69,327	$33.33	86
   7	Bethesda Health	$69,137	$33.24	9
   8	Northeast Rehabilitation Hospital Network	$67,997	$32.69	2
   9	Hca Hospital Services Of San Diego	$67,953	$32.67
   10	University Health System Inc	$66,177	$31.82	23
   11	Sutter Health	$65,892	$31.68	11
   12	Dignity Health	$63,801	$30.67	94
   13	Fresenius Medical Care North America Holdings Limited Partnership	$63,566	$30.56	32
   14	AHMC Healthcare	$63,122	$30.35	4
   15	Mission Regional Medical Center	$62,735	$30.16	61
   16	USMD Health System	$62,509	$30.05
   17	Community Health Systems	$61,765	$29.69	86
   18	John Muir Health	$61,584	$29.61
   19	OSU Medical Center	$61,374	$29.51
   20	Sodexo Management, Inc.	$61,208	$29.43	158

4. Writing a clinical dietician job description

   A clinical dietician job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a clinical dietician job description:

   Clinical dietician job description example

   Do you have the career opportunities you want in your current role? We have an exciting opportunity for you to join Essentia Health as a Food Service Supervisor!Take advantage of the parks, shopping, entertainment options, and affordable housing in Detroit Lakes, MN! You'll find more than 400 lakes within 25 miles of the city limits. Spend time outdoors connecting with nature, boating, fishing, mountain biking, snowmobiling and more. Plus, you'll enjoy easy access to Fargo, which is just a 45 minute drive away.At the Essentia Health - St. Mary's Hospital in Detroit Lakes, MN, we want to ensure your needs are met. Our benefits are exceptional and Include:• Tuition Reimbursement/Assistance Program• Paid Personal Leave• 401k (with Essentia Health annual match)• Life and Disability Insurance options• Adoption Assistance****Position is accountable for the daily operations of nutrition services within the facility. Collaborates with the Nutrition Services leaders and with operational leadership to provide optimal nutritional care for residents/patients. This position utilizes both clinical and supervisory leadership skills to identify opportunities for performance improvement. In the role of the clinical dietician, this position identifies and assesses the nutrition needs of residents/patients. Initiates interventions to achieve and maintain individual's nutritional status. Provides education to residents/patients and the public. Acts as a resource to the department and the facility.
   Licensure/Certification Qualifications:
   
   Registered Dietician by the Commission on Dietetic Registration
   
   Current Dietician licensure in the state(s) of employment preferred, CFPM preferred.
   
   ****
   
   Essentia Health is an integrated health system serving patients in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota.
   
   Headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota, Essentia Health combines the strengths and talents of 13,500 employees, including more than 2,100 physicians and advanced practitioners, who serve our patients and communities through the mission of being called to make a healthy difference in people's lives.
   
   Essentia Health, which includes many Catholic facilities, is guided by the values of Quality, Hospitality, Respect, Joy, Justice, Stewardship and Teamwork. The organization lives out its mission by having a patient-centered focus at 14 hospitals, 70 clinics, six long-term care facilities, three assisted living facilities, three independent living facilities, five ambulance services and one research institute.
   
   Essentia Health is accredited as a level 3 Accountable Care Organization, the highest level of certification possible, by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
   
   ***
   
   Be a part of an organization that invests in you. We are actively reviewing applications for our Food Service Supervisor opening. Submit your application and help us raise the bar in patient care!
   
   We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find clinical dieticians for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any clinical dieticians they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level clinical dieticians with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   To find clinical dietician candidates, you can consider the following options:

   • Post your job opening on Zippia or other job search websites.
   • Use niche websites that focus on engineering and technology jobs, such as healthcarejobsite, health jobs nationwide, hospitalcareers, medreps.com.
   • Post your job on free job posting websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting clinical dieticians requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new clinical dietician

   Once you've found the clinical dietician candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new clinical dietician. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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