Resume Writing Tips for CNAs

The main objective of a CNA resume is to grab the attention of potential recruiters and hiring healthcare facilities. Hence, resume writing tips for CNAs should be given due consideration. The right CNA resume will help attract the right employers and help you in getting the best job opportunities.

When writing your CNA resume, always keep in mind that all your essential skill sets need to be properly highlighted. The clinical or practical skills of CNAs are the most important ones that attract the attention of recruiters. These clinical skills are the ones that are most likely to fetch you a job interview. You do not necessarily need to overdo with the highlighting of skills; try to be as precise as possible. You just need to ensure that the resume is to-the-point, but at the same time differentiates you from the rest of the CNAs applying for the job.

The CNA resume needs to be of around 2 pages. You also need to attach your cover letter with the same. This will fulfill the standard requirement of 3 pages for your job application. Following are some resume writing tips for CNAs:
 
1. Contact Details: At the start of your resume, mention all your relevant contact details. These contact details need to include information about your name and address, your telephone number as well as your email id. If there is a suitable job opportunity which matches with your qualification and experience, then the recruiter can easily refer to these contact details and get in touch with you. Hence, it's best to include all the important contact information at the start of the resume, so that is it easy to search.

2. Career Objective: It is important to remember that your career objective on the resume should be in alignment with the type of job that you wish to apply for. Different types of jobs require different types of skills and objectives, and hence you need to ensure that your resume is tailor-made for the specific career opportunity that you are applying for. For instance, the career objective of a Hospital CNA will be different from the career objective of an Elderly Care Center CNA. This is because of the simple fact that the CNAs in these different healthcare settings are responsible for different duties.

When writing your career objective, mention in brief how your skills would be effectively utilized in that particular job, and how you will be able to help. Following are 2 different career objectives – the first one is for a Hospital CNA while the second one is for a CNA working in a retirement facility: 

• Career Objective: To be employed as a Hospital CNA and develop my career in the nursing field. 
• Career Objective: To effectively make use of the CNA skills to provide good health-care assistance to the elderly patients who need care and support.
   

3. CNA Skills: The job of a CNA is skills oriented. Hence, it becomes very essential to highlight all the clinical skills in your resume that you have learned during your CNA training such as:
 Measuring as well as recording the patients' vitals, such as their blood pressure, pulse rate, blood sugar levels and so on.

• Certified for skills of cardiopulmonary restoration. 
• Ability to maintain cleanliness and hygiene, change linens as well move patients.
• Total understanding of different kinds of documentation needed for transfer of patients. 
• Ability to inform and educate the patients as well as the patient's friends and family members about the medical needs. 
• Ability to provide assistance to multiple patients simultaneously without getting confused about their individual health-care requirements. 
• Experience in helping patients in their day-to-day tasks such as bathing, feeding and dressing. 

4. Educational Qualification: Under this particular heading, list out the training details of the CNA program that you undertook. If you have undergone any specialized training, do not forget to mention about the same in your educational qualification. Specializations in Pediatric or Psychiatric care can be mentioned here in this section.

5. Work Experience: Under this section, mention all the relevant work experience that you carry as a nursing professional. Also, mention the details of your employer along with the designation that you carried while working with them such as Junior or Senior CNA, Associate CNA and so on. You also need to mention certain other details of your employment such as whether you were employed full time or part time, were you a permanent employee or were you on contractual basis, and so on. You also need to give a brief job description of the various duties that you performed on the job. For instance, you can show your work experience as follows:

Worked with St. Thomas Hospital, Chicago, as a Senior CNA from Feb 2010 to April 2012 on a permanent basis. You can then describe your job duties in brief.

6. Voluntary Work: Any kind of voluntary work that you were involved in also needs to be mentioned as it helps in creating a good impression on the employers. You need to mention all the situations where you have put in an extra effort to provide health-care assistance to patients. It reflects good on your personality and increases your chances of getting the job.

7. References: You can also mention names of 2 to 3 references whom you know on a personal and professional level. This information will be useful to the employers to verify your background and help them in the selection process. You need to mention all the relevant details like contact information and designation of the references. Also, make sure that you inform these people in advance that you are giving their reference so that they are well aware about the same.

These are some of the resume writing tips for CNAs. CNAs can follow these guidelines to build a good resume that catches the attention of potential employers and helps them grab the right career opportunities.