Dietary Aide job description
297 verified openings in Allied Health & Therapy
Dietary aide is a title O*NET files under dietetic technicians, 29-2051, beside Diet Clerk, Diet Assistant, and Dietetic Technician Registered, and that federal occupation is what the numbers here describe. A dietary aide opening and a registered dietetic technician opening are not always the same work in practice, so check the duties a posting actually names. The O*NET record covers assisting with food service and nutrition programs under a dietitian's supervision, which stretches from the tray line to counseling individuals. BLS reported $37,640 as the May 2025 median, the tenth percentile at $29,720 and the ninetieth at $54,020, over 31,560 jobs.
Core Duties and Responsibilities
Watching what patients eat and what their weight does, then reporting the changes and the problems to the dietitian, is what technicians rate first. Nutritional assessment follows, taking a dietary history and building a program from it, and so does preparing a major meal from recipes at group quantities. Beyond that: supervising food production or service, planning menus and diets against established guidelines, writing schedules and job specifications, sitting in on interdisciplinary care meetings, and standardizing recipes or testing new products.
Common Skills and Technologies
The talking counts for most here, speaking a shade ahead of active listening, and after that the ratings flatten out: reading, writing, monitoring, instructing, and problem solving all land within a hair of each other. MEDITECH covers the clinical side and Microsoft Office the rest, and Office is the piece employers single out. Inventory management and enterprise resource planning software show up as well, which is where the food budget gets watched.
Education, Training, and Career Path
About a third of technicians surveyed came in with an associate's degree and a quarter with a certificate, but some college courses, a high school diploma, or less than that account for the rest, so the range employers accept is wide. In O*NET's five-zone scale the work lands at Three, the middle. Dietetic Technician Registered marks the upper end of the range and is worth naming on a resume.
Sources: O*NET 30.0, 29-2051.00 Dietetic Technicians, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-2051.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 29-2051, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes292051.htm.