Part 3.5 — No Love for the DDS/DMD
I. A little Detour
I’m going to deviate a bit from our regularly scheduled programming for this post. This post is equal parts me venting, a PSA, and a call to action…all, not so neatly, jumbled into one.
As I was applying to non-clinical product jobs, there was one aspect of the application form itself that bothered me to no end: No matter what portal I used (Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, Linkedin, etc) there seemed to be a lack of recognition of the DDS/DMD degree.
Don’t get me wrong. I realize that in the world of product management and tech in general, certifications and degrees don’t mean much if you can’t “walk the talk”. Additionally, to play devil’s advocate, I could argue that a dental degree is irrelevant for most of these product jobs so there’s no need for it. However, noticing how other professional degrees (e.g. JD, MD, etc) were listed, I started wondering: “Maybe there’s a problem with how dentists are generally perceived?”
II. PTSD
“No offense, but I hate the dentist!” If you’re a dentist, there’s a **97% chance that you’ve heard this at some point. And for those who aren’t, there’s probably a equally high chance that you’ve said this to a dentist! All this to say that as I diligently applied to jobs, it seemed like I was facing a similar perception problem that I was used to in the clinic.
III. A Call to Action
So what do you do? Well, I for one, tried emailing and giving feedback to a few of these job application aggregator sites asking them to add DDS/DMD as an option. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. I got swiftly denied because there wasn’t enough demand for it. From a product perspective, they were right…how many DDS/DMD holders were actively applying for these product jobs and needed that as an option anyway?
At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. And so, here’s the call to action portion of this post:
If there are more of you out there like me, reach out! Share your story! The more people realize how valuable a DDS/DMD degree can be outside of just the dental chair, maybe we can get them to add those 6 darn letters in the drop down menu under Degree.
Next up: Part 4 — Applying and Interviews!
**calculated using very non-scientific methods, but confidence in result is high based on personal experience.
