The shortage of dental assistants is felt by many practices to be a pressing pain point. A story from the Stankovic dental practice in Hanover, told in the Queens & Sons of Dentistry podcast, shows just how unconventional staff recruitment can be: practice owner Dr Nebo Stankovic discovered his current trainee Sarah at the checkout of a supermarket.
An encounter at the supermarket checkout
Dr Stankovic describes the situation as follows: late one evening, rather exhausted from the working day, he was buying a few small items and noticed the young woman at the till – with the vague impression that she did not fit the picture, without being able to place it properly. When he saw her there again a few days later, he spoke to her and learned that she was still at school, was taking her school-leaving examinations and was only working there as a side job. Sarah, for her part, describes how the checkout job gave her no pleasure and merely served to earn a little money.
Initiative as a first test
The way the practice owner framed the approach is remarkable: he did not offer a job directly. Instead, he referred her to his Instagram account and held out the prospect of possibly having a more suitable position – if she liked what she saw there, she should write to him. The ball was thus in her court. Dr Stankovic explicitly justifies this approach: a little initiative is part of it; anyone who clears this hurdle has passed a kind of small test right at the start. Sarah wrote to him and first took a look at the practice. In the job interview she scored, by her own account, with honesty: she said openly that she brought no experience whatsoever and did not know what to expect – but that she was open to anything. She was taken on.
From a mini-job at reception to a training place
While still in the twelfth year at school, Sarah started at reception on a mini-job basis: welcoming patients, filling in documents, making telephone calls, booking appointments. Over around two weeks of induction she looked over the shoulder of the receptionist at the time and then started small – her first task, by her own tongue-in-cheek recollection, was cleaning the coffee machine. Despite initially being overwhelmed by the new system and the many new people, she fought her way through. She found the difference from retail striking: a more relaxed atmosphere, a clean environment, pleasant colleagues, no shouting and less stress.
After a year in the mini-job and with her school-leaving examinations passed, she faced the question – like many of her generation – of what to do next: study, train, take a year out? Looking back, she describes herself as “completely lost”. Dr Stankovic again sought an open conversation and offered her training as a dental assistant. She accepted and is now in her first year of training.
Why the practice owner believes in dental assistant training
In the podcast, Dr Stankovic sets out his fundamental view: he has repeatedly seen young people lose two or three years of their lives because they only take casual jobs after school and want to find their bearings – which he considers a shame. His advice is therefore to complete an apprenticeship first, ideally a shortened one, and afterwards still to decide whether a degree or further training and professional development should follow. In his view, training as a dental assistant is among the apprenticeships with the greatest added value:
- It conveys structure, organisation and hygiene
- It teaches responsibility towards patients and colleagues
- It creates foundations that support any later profession
- It means – unlike a mini-job – genuinely holding one's own in the world of work
How an owner recognises potential
What Dr Stankovic paid attention to in the selection is also interesting: Sarah comes across as authentic and likeable, brings an intrinsic motivation towards hospitality and has a perfectionist streak – qualities he specifically wants to nurture. She also learns very quickly, recognises priorities and completes tasks accordingly. Developments have proved him right: after just six months the trainee became his main assistant at the Hanover site – within a team of 35 staff across two locations. By his own account, he sees enormous potential in her and wants to keep, support and motivate her within the company in the years ahead. The practice is deliberately organised like a small business, with separate areas such as reception, front office, back office, treatment rooms, accounting and marketing – an environment in which individual strengths can be deployed and developed in a targeted way.