Why your job advert isn’t getting responses.

First the honest version: the market is against you. But “the market” doesn’t explain why the practice down the road did find someone. The difference is almost always in the text, and in how fast you move afterwards.

How tight is it really?

Tight, and it will stay that way. The Dutch capacity body advised a substantial increase in training places — dentistry intake from 259 to 345 and now towards 386 a year, and the Oral Hygiene degree course in stages from 334 to 381 places. The catch: anyone starting their studies this year won’t be chairside until around 2030. Until then every practice fishes in the same pond, and the Dutch healthcare authority also lists staff shortages as one of the two big challenges in dental care.

The conclusion: you can’t make the pond bigger. You can have the best bait.

Seven things that work

• 1. State the salary. There is no collective agreement, so “in line with the market” means nothing. A concrete range is the first thing a candidate filters on — the current figures are here.
• 2. Be concrete about the rota and the hours. “24–32 hours, Fridays off, no evenings” says more than a paragraph about your informal atmosphere.
• 3. Introduce the team. People come to work with people. Two sentences about who you spend the day with do more than a mission statement.
• 4. Turn the requirements list around. Ten requirements and three lines of offer is the ratio of a market that no longer exists. Write down what the candidate gets; what you ask for fits in three points.
• 5. Use real photographs. Your reception, your treatment room, your team. Stock photos say: there is nothing to see here.
• 6. Respond within 24 hours. In this market a good candidate has three other interviews tomorrow. Wait a week to reply and you no longer have a candidate.
• 7. Make applying small. No covering letter, no ten-field form. Name, phone number, done — you get to know each other at the table.

A structure that reads

Heading: role, hours, location and salary range. First paragraph: about the candidate, not about you — what will you be doing here and what do you get out of it. Then an honest description of the day, then the offer, then one clear button. Anyone who still doesn’t know after the heading what the job pays and which days it costs will click away.

And measure it

A good advert produces serious responses within two weeks. If it doesn’t, either the text is not the problem or the offer isn’t — and that is useful information. Change one thing at a time: first make the figure visible, then the channel.

No time or appetite to get good at this? You don’t have to be — we recruit with a practice visit as the starting point, and then the writing is our problem.

Sources

• KNMT — Capaciteitsorgaan verhoogt instroomadvies
• Capaciteitsorgaan — Capaciteitsplan 2024-2027, eerstelijns mondzorg
• Rabobank — mondzorg kampt zeker tot 2030 met tekorten
• NZa via MedischOndernemen — personeelstekort als kernuitdaging