Dental Lab Tech?

Started by prayer power
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prayer power

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I want to ask for some advice regarding the dental lab experience. I have an interview coming up for this position, and I was wondering how valuable this experience might be. I have been trying to find a dental assistant job, but all the ones that I have applied looked for someone who is experienced . So I have also applied for the dental lab technician positions, and have an interview soon for the job. The only problem with this job is that I have work full time, from 8 to 5, with a min. wage.

Anybody please feel free to make any advice regarding this.
 
prayer power said:
I want to ask for some advice regarding the dental lab experience. I have an interview coming up for this position, and I was wondering how valuable this experience might be. I have been trying to find a dental assistant job, but all the ones that I have applied looked for someone who is experienced . So I have also applied for the dental lab technician positions, and have an interview soon for the job. The only problem with this job is that I have work full time, from 8 to 5, with a min. wage.

Anybody please feel free to make any advice regarding this.
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Good thing i ran into your post. Caz i have both dental assisting and lab technician experience. I worked as an assistant for about a year and felt like i learned everything there is at a dental office so i decided to work at a lab to get more experience and improve my manuwl dexterity. I can tell you right now working as an assistant is much more fun and you learn much more from watching a dentist. You interact with more people and u just work in a nicer environment. ppl who work at the lab are usually introverts. And its not a fun job. You have no experience so they will make you do delivery and pick up of cases from dental offices. And most likely pour the model with impression and set it up in a base with pins. Unfortunately thats as far as what you will get to do as a rookie. If you arw lucky they might actually let you practice full contour wax up of tooth when you have free time. Ive been doing alot of these wax up to practice since we will be doing it in dental schools. So only benefit you will gain from working at a lab is that MAYBE they will let u do wax up. You will understand what a good crown prep and bad crown prep looks like and also just kinda understand general tooth and mouth anatomy. Anyway lab tech is better than nothing ao good luck. Let me know if you have other questikns
 
prayer power said:
I want to ask for some advice regarding the dental lab experience. I have an interview coming up for this position, and I was wondering how valuable this experience might be. I have been trying to find a dental assistant job, but all the ones that I have applied looked for someone who is experienced . So I have also applied for the dental lab technician positions, and have an interview soon for the job. The only problem with this job is that I have work full time, from 8 to 5, with a min. wage.

Anybody please feel free to make any advice regarding this.
Click to expand...

2 people in my class had been rejected the first time applying...then did a lab tech job for a year and got in...but I think there are better things to do
 
Thanks for the information kenkim. When I was there for the interview, the interviewer told me that I will mostly make dentures. Do you have any input on this? Also, I have realized it's very hard to find a dental assisting job, since I do not have the x-ray certificate with no experience. How did you find the dental assisting job?
 
McKnightRider said:
2 people in my class had been rejected the first time applying...then did a lab tech job for a year and got in...but I think there are better things to do
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Your classmates apparently found the magic formula to gain admission to dss.
 
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prayer power said:
Thanks for the information kenkim. When I was there for the interview, the interviewer told me that I will mostly make dentures. Do you have any input on this? Also, I have realized it's very hard to find a dental assisting job, since I do not have the x-ray certificate with no experience. How did you find the dental assisting job?
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Every job listing, which I've found said that they required a minimum of 1-2 years of experience. They also listed skills such as proficient at x-rays, four handed dentistry, and blah blah... But you know what? I still sent in my resume to every single one of them with my cover letter explicitly stating that I had no experience.

I thought that my cover and cv were good... but with each week that passed by with no response, I revised them. Cut the fat and made it more concise each time. It took me about 3-4 weeks to find a job and I sent my stuff out to every listing every single day. What did I get?

I received a total of 4 replies out of about 120ish~ applications that I sent out. Although out of those 4... 1 was a bogus interview, 2 were real, and 1 was from a sympathetic dentist telling me to reconsider my career choice because it is currently dog excrement but nonetheless he still offered to give me advice even though he could not offer me a job lol. (He said that the only reason he replied to me was because he thought that my cover letter was well written). Now that just reminded me that I should tell him that I got into d-school.

So yeah, don't expect it to be easy if you've no experience unless you are want to spend like 20 grand on DA school... but I'd totally take the harder path to save that 20k and a year or so!
 
I'd suggest shadowing/volunteering at an office. Show them that you're competent, good with patients, punctual, and a fast learner. If anything, you'll learn a lot from your time there. To get my DA position, I went to an understaffed office and shadowed. When someone had to take a leave they hired me. Goodluck. =)
 
Try applying to dental chains. They are most likely to hire people with zero experience. Sure the pay sucks, but the experience is what you're going after.
 
prayer power said:
When I was there for the interview, the interviewer told me that I will mostly make dentures. Do you have any input on this?
Click to expand...

I worked in a fixed partial lab (that means crown and bridge work), but I knew some guys that worked in a denture lab. A denture lab is .... something else. How big of a lab is it? 2-3 people or more than 5? Small labs can be a somewhat.... how can I put this...rough. Did you get to see where you would be working (ie your work station)? Like I said, I worked in a crown and bridge lab, so I did plaster model work (pouring up impressions) and was the courier. However, I did get the chance to do wax ups. I even made a gold crown from start to finish (impression all the way to a polished crown.) It looks really good when you can take something you've made in a dental lab in to an interview! Also, just being able to talk about your experience is a huge help. I believe this is part of the reason I got an acceptance to dental school.
 
This is a cool thread! I have actually been looking for a job as a dental lab tech for a few months now. I think I've talked to about 50 dental labs in my area, but unfortunately all the dental labs here in my area are small and family owned, so no one was hiring. The two dental labs that are actually big, accepted my resume, but they were not looking for someone with no experience...and I don't have any aside from pouring out models and making night gaurds and bleaching trays from my job as an assistant.

Also, I have heard from others that it gets really boring working at a dental lab, since you don't get to interact with people and they're small. I was also told since I had no experience I'd be doing all the running around work. Basically what KenKim said. So, I knew that looking into it, but I wanted a different feel of the dental world.

The reason I even wanted to work as a dental lab tech is because I already have had 2.5 years of dental assisting experience and a friend of mine who just recently graduated from dental school suggested that I find a job as a lab tech (since I moved and was looking for one) as he said lab work is a huge part of dschool so i could get a good head start on it. Unfortunately, that didn't work out for me cuz of the area I live in.

Also, I get where your coming from about no one wanting to hire an assistant without experience. I ran into the SAME problem when I first started looking; every dentist wanted an assistant that had 1-2 yrs of experience and X-ray certified, and a bunch of other qualifications that, at the time, i didn't understand. So what I did was I coughed up my own money and took a class to get xray certified. After that i continued to apply to a million jobs (even though they wanted someone with experience). I don't know if that will work, but I have known for it to work for people. For me, it didn't. I got my job through networking. My physics lab partner and I were texting and I told her I was pre-dental, she told me she worked in a dental office. The next day in class she told me to send in my resume, that day i got an interview and got the job. I was very lucky--but my point is....ask around if you know someone in a dental office. They don't even have to be close to you or even your age...just ask, maybe they can help out. I did have about 60 something hours of shadowing before my job. You could also ask your dental office if they know of a local dental office that will hire someone with no experience.

But don't give up. I applied to a lotttt of places, and it took a while. Ask around. Go to a dental office near ur house, ask if they are looking for an assistant (most likely they aren't) but then after that ask them if they know of an office that may be hiring....There's bound to be a dentist out there willing to help you. You may have to sacrifice your pay, but the experience is worth it!
 
I have kind of been going through the same thing, trying to get a dental assisting job. My advice would be, if you're willing to put it some time every week, talk to a dentist who knows you well, like someone you are shadowing. Then ask them if they can train you to be a dental assistant. I asked a dentist I know and he was very willing to help out. You probably won't be payed for a while, but once you get enough experience, you'll probably have a better chance at getting a job.
 
Lab tech experience would've been invaluable in dental school. There was one boy in my class who worked in a dental lab for a couple of years and for the first two years (simlab) he crushed pretty much everyone. Eventually other people caught up but for so long it was "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy". To be fair everything he made was beautiful. If I could go back I would absolutely work as a lab tech. Shadow/volunteer as an assistant in your free time because it looks good on applications but I worked as an assistant before dental school and it wasn't as valuable as lab work would've been. I had to set my own dentures and wax crowns at the beginning and I would've saved myself so much time if I'd known what I was doing earlier.
 
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