 Hello everybody, Andrea Mayeski here with Dental L Tutoring. So if you are a new dental hygienist or dental assistant assistant, it doesn't matter where you live. I will be helping you guys how to look for a job, what questions to ask, what to expect, and just simply real world advice, okay? Because you have probably asked your teachers in school well, how much should I be asking for, what do I expect, blah, blah, blah. And I find instructors in school are usually very negative. I don't know if you guys had the same thing, but when I was asking, when I was in school back in the day, you know, we would ask things like well, how much should I be asking for, what are some warning signs of offices not to work at, what should I wear, you know, to the interview, things like that. So I'll be talking a little bit about all of that. So the first question is, how much money to ask for? This does unfortunately depend on where you live, but ask those hygienists in your area. So you might be wondering, how do I ask hygienists in my area? I don't know anybody. Join a group on Facebook. There are groups like the Dental Hygiene Network, the Dental Hygiene Canada Network, something like that. Look for one in your area, like Canada, states, whatever, but look for one in your area and just simply post and say, hi, I live in London, Ontario, Canada. What is the going rate for a hygienist starting out? Same thing for a dental assistant, because we can't answer you unless we're from your area. I'm in the London, Ontario area. For a new hygienist, they seem to think they can make $40 per hour. When a hygienist has been working for 13 years, you can't even make $40 per hour. You're lucky to make like $35 per hour, because that's just what it is. Dental assistants, I'm not too familiar because I haven't been a dental assistant for a while, but I do have a lot of like dental assisting friends. And in my area starting out, it could be 18 to 20 an hour, you know, but it does depend on your area. Please ask around because if you ask for too much, they won't even talk to you. But if you don't ask for enough, that's not a good thing either because then you'll be making less than everybody else and probably having to work twice as hard. Let me tell you, number two is every office is different. If you work for one office and for just whatever reason, you can't stand it. Maybe the staff isn't very nice. You have to work really hard, like 9am to 9pm without a thank you. Don't stick around in an office you don't like and can't stand. I know this probably isn't the best thing to talk about for a new dental assistant or dental hygienist, but it's true. So don't stick in an office that you can't stand. Okay, if for some reason they are horrible, look for another job and then leave when the time comes. There are amazing offices out there and there are horrible ones out there. I have worked for my fair share and looking back, I think, why did I stay in that office for so long? They were awful. Came home every day, tired. I felt horrible. Had to do it again the next day from 9 till 9. No lunch break. No thank you. Don't do it, okay? You don't know how the office is until you start working there. There's no way to know. People might look happy. They might look nice and it's a horrible office. Or it's the most amazing office but the office looks like a hole in the wall and hasn't been renovated in like 80 years. You just don't know. Okay, so don't be afraid to look elsewhere if you don't love the office. Another thing that I like to mention for new dental hygienists and new dental assistants is if you don't get your hourly rate that you want and they say something to you like, well, you're new, so let's just try you out here first. That's okay. That's completely understandable but then say in three months I would like to talk about this again because my rate is this much. You want to pay me $2 less. Okay, you know, but once I show you how amazing I am, in three months I want to talk again to get that $2 an hour more. And make sure you meet with somebody in three months. They will not come to you and say, okay, it's been three months. Let's talk about giving you more money. They won't. You need to say something, okay? If that scares you away and you don't want to do that then work for an office that pays you the amount you want now. But I talk about how to ask for more money in another video. So I'm not going to talk about that too much now but do a search in my channel for that because I have tons of videos of how to ask for more money, especially if you haven't had a raise in years. You will get one after listening to my video. Trust me. Okay. Another thing to talk about is, okay, how should you act? Please, you guys, show up on time. Wear scrubs. Do not wear like sweatpants, t-shirts, I've seen it all. Wear scrubs. Show up on time. Put your hair up. Look presentable. Iron your scrubs. I can't say that enough. Look presentable. Did I say that yet? Show up on time. Did I say that yet? So many hygienists, so many assistants are not doing that. Please do it, okay? Feel free to ask questions. Hopefully somebody will be there to train you your first day, second day, but be prepared to jump right into it. You will be terrified. You will be nervous, but fake it until you make it, okay? Everybody's nervous their first day. Everybody's nervous their first week. It probably took me two weeks to get completely comfortable. Not even completely comfortable, but comfortable enough to feel good at what I was doing. That's normal. We all have to go through that, okay? So that's totally normal. Let's see. Make sure to determine when you are getting paid. Is it every week, every two weeks? Is it hourly? Is it per salary? Make sure to know that info. So after two weeks, you're not thinking, okay, when do I get paid? Then you somehow find out you were supposed to fill out a time sheet that's hidden away in the lunch room. Since you haven't filled that out, you don't remember your hours. Keep track of your hours just in case things like that happen. Keep track of your hours in case they do it wrong. It happens all the time. Keep track of your hours and keep track of when you take a lunch break because sometimes you are paid for that lunch break. Probably not, but sometimes you are. It might be assumed that you're taking an hour lunch break, so they're not going to pay you for that. But if you only take half an hour, well, they should only not be paying you for the half an hour, not the full hour. Make sure to keep track of that. Another thing, if you guys have questions after your first day, after your second day, if you ever have questions, come to me. I am so happy to help. Another thing, too, is if you need to, I do have a course called Dental LRDH where you, it's pretty much everything you need for a new dental hygienist. Not for a dental assistant necessarily, but more for a dental hygienist because we have to book our own appointments. So we have to post our own appointments. We have to know when to book the patient's next appointment, how to talk about perio, gingivitis, all of that. But as a new dental hygienist, that's very overwhelming. So I do have all of that for you if you need help. For a dental assistant, the stressful thing for you is just probably the different procedures. Do search for different procedures in my YouTube channel because I do talk about a lot of them where I am more than happy to help you. If you were a student in my board exam prep course, I do have classes on that anyway, so hopefully you did take that. But still, if you have any questions, let me know. Those are kind of the main things that I can talk about for new dental hygienists and new dental assistants. If you're going through the interview process, just apply everywhere, but just make sure to get paid for what you deserve. Do not ask for too crazy low. If they offer you really, really low, thank them and then say no thank you or something like that. Don't accept a job just because you need one. I hate to say it, but they are trying to really low ball a lot of us. It doesn't matter where you live, but for dental hygienists, dental assistants, they are trying to low ball us, not a good thing. Okay, what else? Those are kind of the main things. But if I forgot something, comment below and then I will do another video just for new dental hygienists, new dental assistants to talk about all the fun stuff that you probably haven't been helped with before at your school because nobody seems to want to talk about it. So thank you guys for watching. Make sure to click like and I'll see you guys in the next one.