Hence, we have prepared a detailed, completed guide and even some bonus tips to write your resume and get the job you want! Whether you are looking for ICU Nurse resume or Nurse Practitioner resume or Doctor resume, we have got you covered! Let's dive right in!
How to write a professional resume?
- Past tense, third personal, formal, professional language
- Proofread-remove all errors
- Use simple language, no jargon unless it is industry specific
- Use full form as well as abbreviations wherever applicable
- Use as many numbers and action verbs as possible
- Use compatible document format: word or PDF
Research to write a perfect resume
Research is the first step for a lot of tasks-going to watch a new movie, buying a new appliance, writing a professional certified nursing assistant resume.
You need to research your role, your job duties, potential employers and industry to get an insight on current trends and job market scenario. It will also help you find out how to best present your resume so that you can stand out.
(Source: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes311131.htm)
After the research you should also decide upon a resume format from various options such as functional, reverse chronological and combination or hybrid. These formats provide the right layout to present your information in efficient manner.
If you have notable experience, you should go with the reverse chronological resume format. You can also check out some of the certified nursing assistant resume examples to better idea.
Nursing assistant resume header
- Your name
- Your contact number with area code
- Your professional and formal email address
- Your LinkedIn profile link
- Your home address and formal photograph (not mandatory)
Nursing assistant resume summary
Resume summary should be 3 to 5 bullet points long with a mention of your role. You need to talk about the total years of your professional experience, your exceptional achievements and key skills along with any recognitions and acknowledgements.
The resume summary is for the important aspects of your profile that are extremely impressive and important and help you stand out as a nursing assistant professionals.
Every professional resume needs selling point, to impress the hiring manager you need to use the numbers wherever possible so that the information is quantified well.
Nursing assistant experience
You need to describe your professional experience in bullet points and your work history should be described in reverse chronological order. While mentioning your past jobs, you need to write your job titles, employer name and employment period.
You should include all your usual nursing assistant duties and responsibilities, you can also mention any unique case you may have provided assistance with. While describing your job experience, you should highlight your skills and showcase how well you work under pressure and how passionate you are for the role of nursing assistant.
Education section
Your education section must have relevant degrees because a simple high school diploma may not suffice, you need medical knowledge and training hence a medical degree is a must.
while describing your education details you need to mention the degree or course name, the education institution and the majors or relevant subjects.
You can also include any training, extra courses or programs details and so on to make your education section more valuable. You can also mention any exceptional academic performances.
As a healthcare professional, you may also focus on theoretical training as well as practical training because in the medical field, theory is just as important as practical.
Nursing skills section
Your skills may be mentioned in professional experience, resume summary, education and training sections and so on. So why create a separate section for key skills alone? Well for one, to highlight the key skills properly.
Secondly, in other sections you may have included various skills as a way of backing the experience or such other details, while the skills mentioned in skills section are your biggest strengths and also most important ones for your role as nursing assistants.
- Administer medication
- Administer care
- Checking vital signs
- Patient care
- Patient comfort
- Patient safety
- Observational skills
- Updating healthcare team
- Interpersonal skills
- Communication skills
- Maintaining patient dignity
- Transport patients
- Personal care
- Daily living
- Patient assessment
- Patient advocacy
- Medical conditions
- Nursing assistance
- Taking care of elderly patients
- Vital signs
You can also explore a number of job descriptions for the certified nursing assistant and pick up relevant skills for your nursing assistant resume along with referring to various certified nursing assistant resume examples.
Certified nursing assistant (& licenses)
Medical professional resume must have the information of licensing and certification. Only a certified nursing assistant can actually practice as a nursing assistant. Any health care professional needs some kind of license and certification to actually practice as professional with patients and provide medical services.
Medical professionals deal with real human lives meaning, not anyone can come up and start providing services as it becomes dangerous, unethical and illegal. You need proper qualifications and proof of such qualifications to actually practice.
Various states and countries have different laws and regulations for medical health care professionals as well as medical services that can be provided. You need to be aware of the same and have the proper certifications and licenses.
Practicing without any such qualification proof can result it criminal offence and punishment for the same, if your employer hires you without such proof, they may end up in court as well. You should be very careful with such practices, organizations and fraudulent entities.
You can describe your certifications and licenses with the details of title, numbers, the body that provided the certification or license and also the year when you acquired them.
Extra
Any extra information can be helpful when you are trying to stand out to get shortlisted and impress the recruiter.
You can create extra sections for any extra information you may have that is relevant and important for your role of nursing assistants.
Such extra information may include:
- Your language proficiencies because you communicate with doctors as well as patients from various backgrounds
- Your experience or exposure with various trainings, workshops, seminars, events, online course and programs and so on
- Your personal interest in relevant fields such as night school for doctor studies or personal interest in particular branch of medical field such as pediatrics or geriatrics and so on
Your experience, skills and knowledge are the requirements of the role which means that the your fellow job seekers will also have those aspects on their CNA resume, to stand out and impress the recruiter, you need to provide something different, something extra and the above information can help you with that.
Beating the ATS
Beating the ATS or applicant tracking systems is the easiest and also the most important aspect of writing a nursing assistant resume that is good enough to get you your dream job.
Hiring manager of various companies, organizations, industries across the globe use the ATS to scan and filter the resumes and job applications they receive. The software works on parameters set by the recruiters which are nothing else but the relevant keywords.
The key words and terms of your role, job description, job duties, employers, industry and everything in between that may be relevant including skills.
Most important is the job description, you need to pick keywords from your job description to ensure your nursing assistant resume has all the keywords.
- Certified nursing assistant
- Nursing assistants
- Vital signs
- CNA resume
- Patient care
- Communication skills
- Health care professionals
- Medical skills
- Elderly patients
- Nursing assistants spend
- Certified nursing assistant CNA
- Patient advocacy
- Emotional support
- Soft skills
- Healthcare team
- Family members
- Resident vital signs
- Daily living
- Patient documentation
- Patient assessment
- Medical conditions
- Clinical experience
- Patient records
- Transport patients
- Personal care
- Patient dignity
- Patient confidentiality
- Interpersonal skills
- Labor statistics
- Medical records
- Strong clinical skills
- Medical terminology
- other healthcare professionals
- Nursing home
- Safety guidelines
- Patient comfort
- Patient safety
- Blood pressure
- Assisted residents
- Timely flow
- Staff members
- Physical stamina
Cover letter
The cover letter is beneficial because it enables you to add more keywords and use the space to get a bit informal and more descriptive compared to your nursing assistant resume.
Your cover letter helps you convince the hiring managers to give you at least a shot at the position and job by inviting you for an interview. In the cover letter you should address the hiring manager directly and talk about your journey and inspiration which will reflect your passion and genuine interest.
You should also talk about your skills and experience along with your knowledge. You may even want to talk about any exceptional and remarkable instance or case from your career and experience.
Cover letters may not be mandatory most of the times and it may be optional to upload them in a job application however it helps your chances of convincing and impressing the hiring manager which in turn improves your chances of getting hired.
The cover letter body is similar to usual letters, it has the details of recipient as well as the sender, an address, the subject, letter body and the signature at last.
References
The references are in a way evidence of your competency whether it is your skills or experience or knowledge or work ethic or dedication or anything else necessary for a job that a hiring managers may look for in potential employees.
References provide reassurance when the hiring managers tend to scrutinized the information provided on your nursing assistant resume. You can add up to 3 references on your nursing assistant resume. You need to let them know that you have mentioned them on your resume as your references along with their names, contact numbers and email addresses.
When you are choosing the references, choose the ones that are sure to have positive opinions about you as a nurse assistant professional and back your skills and experience that you have mentioned on your nursing assistant resume.
Conclusion
In conclusion, your nurse assistants' resume should be better than the nurse assistant resume examples you come across and the way to do that is to follow the guidelines and tips discussed in this article. More than half the work is done when you write a really good professional resume so that you can get the interview.
You should keep in mind that the presentation of your profile may be even more important than your gained experience and skills because the presentation can make you look like a good employee or a bad one, regardless of your experience and skills, which is why it is important to put in extra efforts when you are writing and preparing your professional nursing assistant resume.
You can also check out our resume examples & templates collection along with our resume writing guides, they will help you navigate the layout and exact options of presenting your profile details in various sections. Good luck with the job search!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How long should a professional nursing assistant resume be?
A standard professional resume consists of 1 to 2 pages, your nursing assistant resume should also be 1 or 2 pages long and not more.
How to choose the references to include on a nursing assistant resume?
References are important because they can provide reassurance to the hiring managers about your capabilities but wrong references can have the opposite effect.
You need to choose the references that have worked with you for a long time period and know your skills and experience well. They should have a positive opinion about you, they can be your superiors or your colleagues as well.
You should contact them and confirm their approval to be mentioned on your resume as references along with their contact details such as contact number and email address.
Which are the top skills for the nursing assistant resume?
There are many soft skills and hard skills required for the role of nurse assistants, we have discussed them at length in the article above. Here are the top skills you may not want to miss:
- Taking vital signs
- Patient care
- Communication skills
- Medical skills
- Emotional support
- Patient advocacy
- Nursing assistance
