A dental career portfolio is a one-stop shop for providing your peers, employers, colleagues, and more with an overview of your skills, qualifications, and experience. Whether you’re looking to advance your career, demonstrate new achievements and accomplishments, or simply put together a collection of information that shows your growth through the field of dentistry, a dental career portfolio can do all of these things and more.
Read on to discover why building a dental career portfolio is important, including why it’s essential to career progression, when to update your portfolio, and more. You can also download our free eBook for a comprehensive guide to your dental career portfolio.
Why Is A Dental Portfolio Essential To Career Progression?
Dentistry is a diverse profession and working dentists gain varied skills alongside your clinical skills and experience. Having a comprehensive collection of your work is important to demonstrate CPD, and a dental portfolio is ideal. A dental career portfolio shows your proficiency in a chosen specialty such as orthodontics or paedatric dentistry, demonstrating your skills in that particular area. It can also give insight into any work you’ve undertaken such as in a hospital setting or dental practice.
A good dental career portfolio can also illustrate any advanced skills you have such as implants or aesthetic dentistry, showing how far you have come in your career thus far. At a glance, your portfolio can show any potential employer how qualified you are in areas such as communication and leadership, adaptability and commitment to improvement; all of which will help you secure competitive positions. Any presentations or publications undertaken also show your range of knowledge and ability to teach peers and students alike.
How Often Should A Dental Portfolio Be Updated?
When you first become a qualified dentist and begin to work in the field, it’s likely that you will have new opportunities, achievements, and experiences to include all the time as you advance through your career, which you should continue to include in a dental career portfolio. As you settle into your career and become established, it’s likely that you need to update your portfolio less and less.
You should aim to update your portfolio when your yearly dental registration is due for renewal, so it can remain up to date with your latest accomplishments. Updating doesn’t always mean adding—-on occasion, you may wish to remove materials that are outdated. You should also update your dental career portfolio before any job interviews to make sure all your skills are on display.
The London Dental Institute eBook can serve as your guide to updating your portfolio with detailed steps on what to include. Download for free today.
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What Does A Dental Career Portfolio Demonstrate?
A dental career portfolio should function as a collection of demonstrated skills, qualities, and achievements that sets you apart from your peers as an outstanding dental professional. Below are a few examples of what to include in your portfolio and what they demonstrate to the reader.
- Resume: Your resume is the best chance to summarise your entire career history, as well as educational achievements. It will also include your contact details, GDC Number, current job role, and future goals, so a potential employer can review your progression.
- Qualifications: Include qualifications that show your commitment to your career, such as undergraduate degrees, postgraduate degrees, and any other training you have completed.
- Publications: Anything with your name on it counts, even if it was a contribution to a piece of work with your peers. Any publications written for teaching courses, magazines, or blogs, should all be included. The best publication is in a peer-reviewed journal, as these are assessed by academic professionals in your field. This demonstrates your knowledge of your chosen subject.
- Teaching: Teaching demonstrates communication skills and a strong basis in the knowledge being taught. Teaching experiences include any time you have used your skills to teach others, such as colleagues or participants of a course.
- Research: Showing research experience will demonstrate your analytical skills and any opportunity you have taken towards improving your patient care counts as research.
- Audits: Audits inform current levels of practice towards the gold standard. They demonstrate commitment to improvements in patient treatment and care. Audits are subject to a specific process involving identifying current levels of care and implementing any improvements.
- Leadership Roles: Any management or leadership positions held should be included as they show the reader that you understand that dentistry is more than just clinical skills. Managing cases alongside your colleagues, clearly communicating with your dental nurse during treatments, and taking initiative when actionable feedback is given are all highly sought-after skills you can demonstrate in this section.
What Is A Dental Career Portfolio Used For?
A dental career portfolio is essential to show your CPD, let new colleagues get to know you and your experience, and demonstrate your usable skills to potential employers. This collection of relevant information provides a key insight into your work ethic, career aspirations, and clinical expertise. Career progression is key in the field of dentistry, and a good dental career portfolio can set you apart from others.
The Complete Guide to Your Dental Portfolio is available as a free eBook to guide you through the dos and don’ts of creating your portfolio, and how to create a comprehensive collection of your skills to advance your career.
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Download the Complete Guide to Your Dental Portfolio eBook
The Complete Guide to Your Dental Portfolio is available as a free eBook and includes answers to all your questions on how to create the best dental career portfolio. This eBook also includes helpful tips and tricks about what to include in your portfolio, as well as just why it’s so important to make it as comprehensive as possible. There are also extra digital downloads to help you make your portfolio the best it can be.
