Healthcare

Orthodontists

Examine, diagnose, and treat dental malocclusions and oral cavity anomalies.

Sector: Healthcare
Preparation: Zone 5 — extensive preparation needed
O*NET code: 29-1023.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Making Decisions and Solving Problems

a major part of the work — rated 84/100 for importance.
Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge

a major part of the work — rated 83/100 for importance.
Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships

a major part of the work — rated 83/100 for importance.
Developing and Building Teams

a major part of the work — rated 80/100 for importance.
Documenting/Recording Information

a major part of the work — rated 78/100 for importance.
Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

a major part of the work — rated 78/100 for importance.

Examine, diagnose, and treat dental malocclusions and oral cavity anomalies. Design and fabricate appliances to realign teeth and jaws to produce and maintain normal function and to improve appearance.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Active Listening

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Complex Problem Solving

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Critical Thinking

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Monitoring

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Speaking

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.

Knowledge

Medicine and Dentistry

Needed at expert level (86/100), and rated 99/100 for importance.
Customer and Personal Service

Needed at a high level (70/100), and rated 81/100 for importance.
English Language

Needed at a solid working level (52/100), and rated 67/100 for importance.
Biology

Needed at a solid working level (53/100), and rated 67/100 for importance.

Abilities

Problem Sensitivity

Needed at a high level (70/100), and rated 78/100 for importance.
Oral Comprehension

Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Inductive Reasoning

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Near Vision

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 5 — extensive preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

Graduate school — a master's, a PhD, an MD or a JD, depending on the field.

Experience

More than five years of related experience is common before the title is yours.

Training

This is a long runway. Start the prerequisites early or the timeline slips a year at a time.

What it pays

These are typical healthcare compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Orthodontists specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

Mayo Clinic · Johns Hopkins

$130k – $300k

Regional Health Systems

$100k – $180k

Clinics & Private Practice

$80k – $130k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

You are in front of the public, so the job is partly performance.From “Performing for or Working Directly with the Public”
Long-running relationships carry the work; the same people come back.From “Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships”
Part of the job is other people’s output, not only your own.From “Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others”
You own decisions rather than execute someone else’s.From “Making Decisions and Solving Problems”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Orthodontists. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

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See your fit for Orthodontists

Ten questions, about 90 seconds. You get your match against Orthodontists and 782+ other real careers — with the reasoning shown.

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.