Certified Nursing Assistant Resume (CNA) | Examples, Tips & Templates

To communicate all these in a single page, you need a perfect Certified Nursing Assistant Resume – a winning resume that gets you more interviews and makes you confident to apply for the highest-paid CNA jobs.

That’s where we can help you. Perfect resumes do not come by accident – they’re a result of understanding the current HR practices, following the guidelines, and targeted writing of each section.

This article will guide you:

• To pick the perfect resume format, layout, and template.
• With tons of examples to write each section of the resume.
• With DOs and DON’Ts in writing your CNA resume.

Read to the end to learn how to write a CNA resume better than 95% of the other candidates.

If time is a constraint for you, we have created the finest ready-to-fill resume templates on the internet – with our resume builder, you can create a perfect CNA resume in less than 10 minutes. Still, we recommend you to read through the guide👇

New Graduate CNA Resume Example

If you need further inspiration, examples, and keywords to fill up your CNA resume, refer to these other medical professional resumes:

• Dentist resume
• Dr resume
• Physician assistant resume
• Dental assistant resume
• Medical assistant resume

Certified Nursing Assistant's Salary & Employment Rates

The average Certified Nursing Assistant salary is $30,000/ year 💰 (Payscale.com). However, many CNA professionals get overtime and bonuses for their service.

There are about 1.5 million CNAs working in the USA in 2020 and the numbers are expected to increase by 8% over the next 10 years according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. The certification is having high demand as a result of the expansion of healthcare in the USA and many regions in the world.

How to Make a Certified Nursing Assistant Resume?

Writing a resume is just like admitting a patient to the hospital – you can’t skip the set procedures. The hiring manager reading your resume is a professional in their trade and they expect the same professionalism from you.

Writing a certified nursing assistant’s resume would initially look like a complex surgery for you, but when we break down the process into simple digestible pieces, you’ll see it so simple like checking the vital signs of a patient – a defined process with simple steps.

To start with, we should define the layout of your resume followed by the resume format and the template.

The Layout of a Certified Nursing Assistant Resume

The layout of your resume defines the sections you’re going to include and their order – the headings as well as subheadings.

Having your resume layout defined at the beginning helps you create the resume faster without missing any important sections.

In defining your resume layout, give priority to the information your recruiter is looking for.

We recommend the following layout for a Certified Nursing Assistant resume:

• Header: name and contact information.
• Professional summary/ Objective summary
• Work experience.
• Education.
• CNA skills.
• Additional sections (certifications, interests, and achievements).

Certified Nursing Assistant Resume Format

In your CNA resume or any medical professional resume, there’s an order in which you should write your experience section so that it's easy for the recruiter to read and understand the information.

Simply put, the format defines the order you should follow in writing your professional experience section.

There are three standard resume formats:

• The functional format: priority is given to the related skills and the experience is ordered based on them
• Reverse chronological format: most recent experience is listed first and the rest follows the reverse chronological order
• Hybrid format: a combination of the functional and reverse chronological formats

For Certified Nursing Assistants and other medical professionals, we suggest using reverse chronological order to write your experience sections. Because your recent experience would be the deciding factor in making hiring decisions in healthcare-related jobs.

Resume Template for Certified Nursing Assistants

A resume template is about the overall look and feel of the CV. In this, you’ll think about the colors, fonts, font sizes, document margins, and such details.

The right resume template would create an exceptional first impression for the hiring managers. Resume writing standards have changed from boring biodata-type documents to more compressed, well-designed, and attractive pages.

We have created a ton of awesome resume templates for CNAs and other medical professionals saving you hours of valuable time. Pick the template that suits your personality and tailor it to create your resume within 10 minutes.

Let's discuss how to write each section with examples and tips.

Start Your Certified Nursing Assistant Resume with a Header

The header of your CNA resume should include your name and contact information. As this is the first thing on your resume, recruiters often spend their first second reading your name.

The mistake most candidates make in this section is making it cluttered with unnecessary information.

Here's what to include in your header and what to leave out 👇

A good & a bad header

CORRECT

Jesse Pinkman

CNA

jessepink@gmail.com

(276)254-8654

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessep

INCORRECT

Jesse Pinkman jessepink@finecarehome.com

(276)254-8654

11, main street, apt 56,

Washington DC

USA

A good header is a clean and concise one with limited information enough to find out the candidate and their contact information. Put your first name and last name. Include the basic contact information such as your email and the contact number. If you have an updated personal website or a LinkedIn profile, include that at the end.

Professional Summary

In the professional summary, you should highlight the reasons why the recruiter should consider your application. This summarizes your key skills, expertise, and experience into two sentences.

A great resume summary is a sales pitch about the candidate – it's the cover letter on your resume. Ideally, you should tailor the summary to each job you apply for – a customized statement that fit the context of your potential employer would attract them to read your resume further.

Writing a great professional summary is not difficult if you follow the right steps. In your first sentence, state the level of experience you have, your key skills, and your interest to join the organization – the second sentence should highlight your previous achievements, the problems you solved, the challenges you faced, the solution you gave, and the results you achieved as a CNA.

Professional summary for an Experienced CNA

CORRECT

A compassionate caregiver with 7 years of experience in diverse healthcare settings seeks to join MK Elderly Nursing Home to extend my expertise. In my previous job, I led a team of 12 CNAs to manage an elderly home of 50+ providing exceptional service and care. CNA, CPR, BLS.

INCORRECT

Certified nursing assistant with elderly home experience seeks to join a similar position that pays better.

The correct example highlights the candidate’s achievements with numbers – demonstrates the key skills – and provides specifics of the work carried out.

Resume objective for an entry-level CNA

If you’re an entry-level CNA or someone looking for a career transition, you should write an objective summary. This is similar to writing a professional summary – the only difference being that in the objective summary, you should highlight your enthusiasm for the profession and your interest to join the company.

CORRECT

A dedicated CNA who was recently certified (2021) seeks to join a hospital CNA team to advance my expertise in all types of patient care. I have extensive 200+ hours of clinical training which included children's care, elderly care, general medical, and ETU.

INCORRECT

Freshly graduated CNA looking for a job in a hospital or an elderly care facility

Prove Your Experience as a Nursing Assistant

Whether you’re applying for a senior certified nursing assistant position or an entry-level CNA job, your work experience would be the most critical component the recruiter would make judgments about your profile – everything else including your skills, education, and extracurricular activities come next.

The good news is you can write a compelling experience section with any level of work experience to convince the hiring manager that you’ve what it takes to be successful on the job – and we should say, that you don’t have to be a great writer to do that.

Follow these guidelines and our comprehensive examples to write your experience section.

• Write clear and concise sentences.
• Focus on your achievements and accomplishments in your career rather than writing job roles and responsibilities.
• Numbers in sentences attract the hiring manager’s eyeballs – in addition, numbers add credibility to your statements.
• Start your experience sentences with power verbs. Eg: Carried out, Managed, Led, Provided, Assisted, and Collected.

You need a specific set of skills to become successful as a CNA – each patient and scenario you face would be different and challenging. A great CNA experience section answers these questions:

• Can you manage such challenging situations?
• Have you already done that in your previous job? If so, how?

Example Work Experience Section for a Senior Certified Nursing Assistant Resume

INCORRECT

Aug 2015 to Present

Certified Nursing Assistant

Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, OH

• Helped the nursing staff to carry out their tasks
• Provided medical assistance to patients
• Assisted nurses in patient care and reporting
• Recorded patient information

CORRECT

Aug 2015 to Present

Certified Nursing Assistant

Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, OH

• Led a team of CNAs to carry out the daily patient care – achieved a customer satisfaction of 94% in 2018 which was an all-time high
• Delegated the patient care, documentation, and administration work among the team
• Introduced a distant patient communication system for patients with virus infections to reduce spreading to healthcare staff
• Educated patients and their family members on their physiological disorders, treatments, and side effects
• Provided social and emotional support to those in need

Your senior CNA experience section should focus on demonstrating your leadership, communication, administration, as well as technical skills.

Example Work Experience for an Entry-Level Certified Nursing Assistant

INCORRECT

Jan 2020 to Present

Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, OH

Assistant Certified Nursing Assistant - apprenticeship

• Assisted patients in admission
• Cleaned patient rooms
• Patient stability measures were taken
• Checked patient vital signs

CORRECT

Jan 2020 to present

Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, OH

Assistant Certified Nursing Assistant - apprenticeship

• Worked collaboratively with registered nurses, specialist doctors, and other medical professionals to provide an exceptional patient care
• Valued patient advocacy and helped patients with the information required to make medical-related decisions from choosing doctors to financing, legal, and social support
• Assisted patients in admittance to filling the documents and record vital signs such as temperature and blood pressure
• Treated 10+ elderly patients a daily to bathe, dress, and feed themselves

Entry-level Certified Nursing Assistants should demonstrate their key technical knowledge of patient care and medical procedures.

Now, the question is if you do not possess the required experience to write, would you have a disadvantage over other candidates?

The answer is relative. While having solid CNA experience does not guarantee you the job, not having experience does not make your resume dismissed. The hiring manager only sees what you write on your resume – not what you did on the job.

Even if you’re applying for your first job as a Certified Nursing Assistant, don’t leave your experience section empty – consider your training sessions and apprentice work as your professional work experience.

Reinforce Your Resume with Your Education

In your CNA resume, though education is not a priority section the recruiter checks, your academic background is noteworthy – the more educated you’re, the better chance you have of getting hired.

The nursing assistant program – academic studies, and relevant clinical training sessions would be the only critical component of your education section. However, you could also list your high school diploma or bachelor’s degree.

The education section should be a short section with only relevant information – you could list the key learning outcomes of your education, GPA, the institution, and the years of graduation.

Education

CNA Resume Skills

In the job advertisement or job description, the recruiter would mention the type of skills they’re looking for in a nursing assistant – pick the skills that match your profile.

A CNA should possess a specific set of soft and hard skills. Hard skills are the technical skills required to perform the tasks – soft skills are the personality traits required to become exceptional at work. Aim to write about 4 to 7 skills.

Soft skills:

• Empathy and compassion
• Patience and flexibility
• Teamwork
• Interpersonal skills
• Communication skills
• Attention to detail
• Problem-solving
• Leadership
• Willingness to learn
• Decision making
• Time management

Hard skills:

• Knowledge of medical terminology
• Emergency care
• Infection control
• Administrative skills
• Measuring and recording vital signs
• Patient care
• Assisting patients to walk using gait belts
• Brushing dentures
• Mouth care for unconscious patients
• Giving partial bed baths
• Perineal care for female patients
• Shaving – cleaning, and trimming fingernails
• Feeding paralyzed patients
• Feeding patients using G tubes and NG tubes

There’s a massive list of hard skills that a CNA should possess. You could read more about CNA skills in this comprehensive guide.

Additional Sections for a Certified Nursing Assistant Resume

You’ll realize every applicant applying for a CNA job has the same qualification: The Nursing Assistant Certification. So, how would the recruiter pick 10 resumes out of 200 resumes they get?

It is the additional qualifications that get you the interview – the basic computer and system certificate you acquired – the Red Cross volunteer program you took part in – your bi-lingual skills would add value eventually to stand out from the rest.

In addition, these smaller resume sections attract the eyeballs of the recruiter – making additional sections a great place to showcase your key strengths.

The type of additional sections you should put on your resume would depend upon your personal profile. Here we have highlighted the typical sections used by CNA applicants👇

Computing Skills

Basic computer literacy would be valuable to carry out your job duties. As a CNA, you will get to work with different computer systems and software. Most hospitals use Hospital Management Systems (HMS) to report, store, and manage patient information.

Also, basic data entry in Excel and understanding of using mobile applications would be added advantages.

Skill Certifications

Skill certifications are a great way to stand out and get into the highest-paid positions. The best way to find out the relevant skill certifications for CNAs would be to refer to CNA job advertisements.

Here’re some certifications relevant to CNAs:

• Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) certification
• Basic Life Support (BLS) Certification
• CPR, First Aid, AED Certification

Languages

Your bi-lingual skills would look impressive on your resume – as a CNA, you’ll get to work with patients who speak different languages – having proficiency in English would help you manage most cases, however, more languages the better.

When you’re listing your language skills, consider including the level of proficiency in each of them so that the hiring manager would have a clear idea.

We got some awesome resume templates where you can list the languages you speak with the level of fluency in each.

Hobbies and Interests

Put your hobbies and interests on your resume as an additional section if and only if they add value to your profile – do not use this as a filler.

Read our hobbies and interests guide to have a complete understanding of what to include in your interests section and how to write them.

Tips for Improving Your Certified Nursing Assistant Resume

If you followed the guide to this point, you would have already created an exceptional CNA resume. Use these final tips to further improve it:

• Modern resumes follow the ONE PAGE standard – remove unnecessary sections and non-value-adding information to optimize the resume length.
• Identify the most demanding skills and certifications recruiters are looking for – make an effort to acquire some of them – you can mention a skill certification on your resume as soon as you get official admission to the course – put in parentheses that you’re still following the course.
• Pick a modern resume template – the first impression is a powerful weapon.
• Use a tool such as Grammarly to proofread your resume for grammar and other mistakes.

Checklist:

• Limit your header to your name and contact information.
• Write a professional summary if you’re an experienced candidate and an objective summary if you’re an entry-level candidate.
• Make a list of achievements and accomplishments for your experience section – do not limit the experience section to the roles and responsibilities.
• Use a consistent format to present your education.
• Write a combination of relevant soft skills and hard skills.
• Use a couple of additional sections to make a pleasant surprise to the hiring manager.

Complement Your resume with a Cover letter

A cover letter is a one-page document that highlights the applicant's specific interest in the job. In this, you should demonstrate your key skills, expertise, and experience that is relevant to performing the duties as a CNA.

Keep your cover letter to 3 to 4 short paragraphs.

Our resume builder has a cover letter builder that helps you create stunning cover letters within 10 minutes.

The cover letter is a critical component of your entry-level job application. Make it your sales pitch to communicate to the hiring manager why you’re so interested in the job.

Frequently Asked Questions