Many graduating residents use the AAO Career Center to seek associateship opportunities or positions with corporate dental companies. As your goals evolve during your first 10 years of practice, the service also provides a reliable means of connecting with orthodontists interested in hiring or bringing partners into their practices – or in selling their practices.

The AAO Career Center, which is overseen by the AAO Council on Orthodontic Practice (COOP), is free to members including providers (doctors listing opportunities) and job seekers. Only AAO members may register as seekers and search for opportunities on the service. Non-members – including orthodontists, corporate dental groups and non-orthodontist-owned multispecialty groups – may list opportunities after paying a fee.

Registered seekers may:

  • Complete and display profiles and upload their resumes/CVs;
  • Search for practices for sale and orthodontic employment opportunities; Searches may be national or may be state-or region-based. When new opportunities are posted that match a seeker’s geographic and opportunity-type parameters, the seeker is notified via e-mail;
  • Send messages to providers who have listed opportunities;
  • Contact providers anonymously if desired, including an information sharing option to reveal only what they wish to share.

AAO Career Center is an Efficient and Effective Search Tool

When Dr. Agata Bartels was about to finish her orthodontic residency in 2014 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, her husband was finishing medical school and wished to pursue a residency in urology.

“We found out in February that he would be going to the University of Connecticut for his residency,” Dr. Bartels told the AAO for a 2016 Bulletin feature. “I wanted to start looking for an orthodontic position nearby immediately, but I was concerned about the fact that I no longer had contacts in the northeast. I went on to the AAO Career Center and found it easy to use. It was a very time-efficient way to find opportunities. Within a few weeks, I had three interviews, two of which came through the AAO Career Center and one through CareerBuilder.com.”

Dr. Bartels ultimately accepted an associateship position with Dr. Shyam Desai, with whom she connected via the AAO Career Center. Dr. Bartels is one of five orthodontists serving patients at the practice’s offices in Bridgeport, Stamford, New Haven, Norwalk and Danbury, Connecticut.
Learn More about Orthodontic Job Search Experiences
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Seeking to Purchase a Practice?  Find Sellers on the AAO Career Center

Student loan debt may hold some recent orthodontic graduates back from purchasing practices soon after graduation. As an orthodontist’s career progresses over the subsequent years, however, a purchase may become an option.

Since the beginning of 2016, more than 175 practices for sale have been listed on the AAO Career Center, including 60-plus current listings. Purchasers have access to all aspects of the service that are available to those seeking employment, including searches for registered orthodontists who have listed their practices for sale.

If you have questions about the AAO Career Center, you may email [email protected] or call 860-437-5700 (Monday through Friday 7:30am – 7pm EST). You may also visit the support center here: https://ymcareers.zendesk.com/hc/en-us.