Dental recruitment is going through a difficult period in the UK, and this is beginning to affect the profession.

According to Dental Elite, who advise dental practices on recruitment, practice sales, acquisitions and finance, it is not just smaller, independent practices that are struggling to recruit, but the large groups and corporates as well, even in the South East.

An article published on Dental Elite's website (http://bit.ly/2CYQAAv) presents the example of Anushika Brogan, Managing and Clinical Director of Damira Dental Studios Ltd, who revealed that a role advertised in Oxford in 2017 attracted just one candidate who had ten other interviews lined up.

An expert panel set up by Dental Elite examined how difficulties in getting a performer number has had a knock-on effect on recruitment. Processing performer numbers can now take longer than a year, which makes it difficult to source new recruits from other European countries – who also often need six months of vocational experience and must be prepared to take on a lot of administration in their UK roles.

The expert panel also considered that new dental graduates are thought to have a greater fear of being sued than previous generations of dentists, which has affected their delivery of UDAs – meaning that more practices are struggling to meet their UDA target, impacting profits and the bottom line.

James Richards, Classified Advertising Manager at BDJ Jobs, was asked for his perspective on the recruitment problems in dentistry and said: 'Last year employers received fewer applications than previous years as the market has swung in favour of the job seeker rather than the employer. This could be attributed to uncertainty due to the general election and Brexit, as well as young dentists leaving the NHS as documented by the BDA (http://bit.ly/2xVhCpe).

'We have seen many examples of job listings with a high number of views but only a few applications, for example a current listing has been viewed over 600 times but only received eight applications. In 2017 we surveyed visitors to BDJ Jobs and of all the jobseekers who replied to the survey, 63% indicated that they had found a job on the site for which they applied. Positively, of these, 82% found a job for which they received an offer. In order to convert the other 37% of jobseekers into applicants we are working with employers to help improve the content of their adverts so they sell their role appropriately and develop their employer brand.

'In the survey 32% of job seekers stated they used BDJ Jobs to research recruiters by visiting employer profiles. The employer profiles are free for all advertisers and can help convey what makes their practice a great place to work. When buying a car or another expensive item consumers research the product before buying; the same applies with recruitment.

'Our team is here to help. We can provide guides to writing job adverts and set up employer profiles so that you get the most from our services.'