Sometimes the obvious is so obvious, you don’t really see it. That’s the case with my new interest in dental careers. The entire industry — meaning every role that makes up a dental practice —has been suffering workforce shortages for years. And here I’ve been waiting months for a simple cleaning without connecting the dots.

We’ll come back to dentistry career paths in a minute, but first some background.

In my work, I’m always watching for careers that may be overlooked despite providing growth opportunity and low-barrier entry. In most cases, an overlooked career option will not check every box. It might allow quick entry or it might pay a strong initial wage or it might provide meaningful advancement, but probably not all three. As they used to say in print shops, pick two. (In that case, it was a choice between fast, cheap and good.)

Related to careers, you want to make the choices with care. If quick employment isn’t essential, taking some training could ensure a higher wage. But if you can withstand lower pay, solid growth potential could justify jumping in quickly.

With that two-out-of-three formula in mind, here’s a look at roles in dentistry that I’ve been learning about.

Of course, careers for dentists themselves immediately spring to mind, but the required licensure and eight years of higher education makes this far from entry-level. We’ll pass that by for now. Ditto for dental hygienists, who need two years of training and licensure. And double ditto for dental therapists, the relatively new level sandwiched between hygienist and dentist.

These all are roles that need workers, so you should research them if they catch your interest. But for now, we’ll focus on four other options that will place you in the dental industry much more quickly.

Dental assistant

Where the hygienist can do things like conducting exams and cleanings without supervision, the assistant does support-level work such as helping the dentist during procedures.

Here’s the tricky part: You’ll frequently hear that dental assistants must be trained and licensed, but in truth, positions exist for workers without those qualifications. For example, Minnesota’s dental board makes a distinction between which duties dental assistants can conduct with or without a license. Many states have no minimum training requirement, while others offer tiered certifications.

One way to check for licensed and unlicensed options is by scanning the postings in your area. A very quick perusal of Glassdoor last week for Minnesota yielded a dozen or more openings which clearly stated they were hiring unlicensed dental assistants (sometimes titled “chairside assistants”). Of these, several provided assurances of training and advancement. The wages posted hovered around $20 to $24 an hour, with a couple closer to $30.

If you’re wondering why clinics would make this offer, the answer comes back to worker shortages. In a 2023 nationwide survey of dentists, 90% of respondents told the American Dental Association (ADA) they were either “extremely” or “moderately” challenged to fill these openings. In a separate survey, the ADA found that one-third of responding dental assistants were planning to retire in the next five years. That’s called a perfect storm.

Office administration

While these roles are harder to track because of the different titles clinics use, they also appeared on the ADA survey as positions that go unfilled. In general, the duties will range from patient greeting to recordkeeping to full-on office management. Related postings in my search last week showed high school degrees as the low-entry point, with wages ranging from $16 to $24 an hour.

Sterilization technician

This worker might be found in larger clinics or in a separate facility, charged with sterilizing the instruments used in patient care. These jobs were posted at about the same wage as the office roles, again requiring high school degrees as the low-entry point.

Lab technician

Despite being a somewhat specialized role in which the worker makes crowns, dentures and bridges, lab tech positions were posted with only high school or some post-secondary training required. There were few postings the day I checked but wages seemed to land around $20 to $24 an hour.

What do you think — does the field of dentistry interest you? If so, you’ll need to conduct your own research to learn where you might fit. Perhaps I can help. It’s far from comprehensive, but I have a short packet of information I developed for a talk last week. Just send me a note if you’d like a copy.

Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.