CNA resume examples & templates

Certified nursing assistants, known as CNAs, assist elderly, ill, disabled and injured patients in performing daily living tasks that they can’t do on their own. With job market growth for these healthcare professionals outpacing the overall occupational average, an exceptional CNA resume is your key to landing the best positions.

If you are a CNA or want to become one, you’ll find everything here that you need to know about preparing a winning resume to land the job that’s right for you. You will need to showcase your empathetic nature while also dazzling the hiring manager with your skill set. Learn here how to craft a CNA resume to get yourself an interview stat. 

Resume guide for a CNA resume

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This resume guide and corresponding CNA resume example will cover the following:

• How to write a CNA resume
• Choosing the right resume format for a CNA
• How to add your contact information
• Using summaries
• Adding your CNA experience
• Listing education and relevant experience
• Picking the right resume design/layout
• What the CNA market looks like, and what salary you can expect

How to write a CNA resume

Before you start working on your resume, you need to know what to include. Here’s a breakdown of the main sections you will need.

• The resume header
• The resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• The employment history section
• The resume skills section
• The education section

When you’re working on your CNA resume, you need to make sure that you position it well for the job. That means doing your research and finding out all there is to know about the company. You should lead with your unique selling proposition. That is the heart of your application. It tells the hiring manager what sets you apart from the sea of other worthy candidates. 

Here’s a quick rundown of the ways that you can take your CNA resume to the next level: 

• Highlight accomplishments instead of your daily duties and tasks. It’s not about what you did, but the effect that your actions had on patients. Lead with human-interest stories that showcase your nursing prowess above all else.
• Make sure that your resume looks the part. Hiring managers spend just seven seconds looking at each resume that comes their way. Choose a clear, professional template.
• If you will be submitting online, pepper your resume with appropriate keywords to get it past the ATS screening software. You may also want to use an ATS resume template.

Choosing the right resume format for a CNA

There are innumerable ways to format a certified nursing assistant resume, and it’s impossible to declare which is “best.” Perhaps the best way to define a well-designed resume is that you’ll know it when you see it.

A resume is mostly a collection of lists: ways of contacting you, past employers, past schools, and job-related skills. The formatting possibilities for all this information are limited only by the imagination. But it has to look good at a glance. Take a look at the CNA resume example provided, which hits all the right notes.

The failsafe reverse chronological order is ideal for structuring most resumes. It provides a straightforward overview of your career highlights in the employment history section. But if the CNA position you’re pursuing would be a radical departure, or your job background has not followed a linear path of employee positions, you might want to consider alternative resume formats. A functional format starts with a skills or experience section to highlight all your best qualities before continuing to a work history section where you can place previous positions.

Explore the various resume templates in our resume builder and choose one that best suits your situation. You can also take a peek at our resume examples to see how they should look.

Include your contact information

Next, you should include your contact details within your resume header. Much like a business card, there are some core elements that hiring managers expect to see here.

Make sure that this section of your resume is easy to read. You should include the following:

• Full name & title. Your first name, last name, and the word ‘CNA’.
• Professional email address. Include a clean and professional email address like firstname.lastname@gmail.com.
• Phone number. Add a number where you can be reached.
• Location. Simply include your city and state. You don’t need to put your whole address. If you are willing to relocate, you can add that detail here.
• LinkedIn. While you don’t need a LinkedIn profile as a CNA, if you have one and it’s up to date, you can include a link to it.

Don’t include:

• Date of birth: This is an issue as it can lead to potential age discrimination.
• Personal details: There’s no need to include your marital status, social security number, passport number, etc.

Make use of a summary

The first thing that appears below the header in a certified nursing assistant resume should be a summary of the candidate. 

The summary (sometimes called the profile or personal statement) is the one place in your resume where you should write in almost complete sentences—though not quite. 

Without using the word “I,” this profile/summary tells hiring managers what you do and what you’re good at, and it’s obvious what kind of job you’re looking for. This summary describes the “professional you” in a nutshell, using clear, concise and descriptive language. 

Notice that it doesn’t say “I am looking for a job as a….” or “I have three cats, and in my spare time I enjoy scrapbooking”, etc. It cuts straight to the chase, describing your qualifications as a certified nursing assistant. That’s all you need.

You can also include action verbs to add some tension. For example, you may include demonstrated, excelled, achieved, transformed, or oversaw. Be clear about your power here.

Present an image of yourself as a CNA. Tell a story that the hiring manager will love. Rather than simply sharing details of your professional life, show them that you are next level. 

You can find adaptable car sales resume examples summary below:

Outline your car sales work experience

Unless you’re brand-new to this occupation—perhaps you’re still in school or changing careers—employment experience is the best selling point in your CNA resume. If you have relevant work experience, put this first in the employment history section.

List your past employers, where they’re located and when you worked there. Then provide bullet points below each job describing what you achieved. Be specific, using strong action verbs and quantifying your experience with facts and figures whenever possible.

As a general rule, you should list your CNA job history in reverse chronological order (last job first, first job last). But as a possible exception, your most impressive and relevant work experience should take precedence. If you worked as a CNA three years ago, but you’re currently working as a dog groomer, put your CNA experience first. 

A word about bullet points: these can take up a lot of vertical space, with wasted space on the right side of your resume, making it hard to fit everything onto one page. One solution may be to arrange bullet points in columns. You can add results-based points beneath each role. 

When doing so, make sure that you don’t go too generic. Here’s an example of what not to do in this part of your CNA resume: 

• “Assisted Daily Living Activities (DLA)”
• “Ensured patient comfort and safety”
• “Offered basic wound care”

It’s better to be more specific and talk about what impact your actions had. Add in some statistics and further details wherever possible. Here’s an example of how that may look: 

• “Assisted Daily Living Activities (DLA) and came up with new approaches to improve patients’ overall quality of life”
• “Ensured patient comfort and safety according to the trust guidelines”
• “Offered basic wound care to patients lowering the attending nurse’s workload by 10%”

Take a look at the CNA employment history resume sample below:

How to write a CNA resume with no experience

If you have recently become a CNA, you might lack direct experience on your resume. However, everyone has to start somewhere and you are no different. You can still write a resume that turns the hiring manager’s head. Here are some tips to help you get started:

• Include mention of your transferable skills. These are competencies that you’ve learned in previous roles and apply here. They may include communication and organization.
• Explain why you have decided to become a CNA. What has led you to this position? Why do you want to help patients? Show some empathy in your resume summary.
• List prior work experience. Whether you were previously an office secretary or a barista, chances are you learned how to collaborate with others. Include these experiences and accentuate the overlap you have between the two roles.

You should also make sure that you list your registration and affiliations on your resume. While you may not have a wealth of CNA experience, your training will speak for itself. 

Include the relevant key skills that make you a great CNA

Every certified nursing assistant's CV should have a skills section for highlighting both hard and soft skills on their resume. Hard skills are technical, while soft skills tend to be the same as transferable skills.

When you sit down to create this CV list, beware of clichés like “team player” or “self-starter.” Unfortunately, it's a common pitfall to list the same skills that hiring managers have read thousands of times before. These end up becoming “fluff”—fancy language that conveys nothing of value.

Strive for original language that says something new, in a way that no recruiter has ever read before. Also define your skills in solid and pragmatic terms, applicable to everyday work situations and professional challenges.

Our resume builder gives you several pre-written key skills to choose from plus proficiency ranges you can set. Bonus: you can also write in your skills.

Here’s what the skills box looks like in our CNA resume template. 

While you should list your main competencies in your skills section, it doesn’t end there. You also need to pepper the rest of your resume with these talents. Try to put them into context.

• Include your leadership skills when you’re talking about supervising other workers
• Highlight your communication skills when writing about dealing with families
• Be clear about your knowledge of medical procedures and how you offer support

If in doubt, you should look at the job posting. You will find that the hiring manager has outlined the skill set that they expect applicants to have. 

Detail your education & relevant CNA certifications

Writing your education section shouldn’t be hard. If you attended college, say so in the education section for your CNA resume, stating the college name and location, when you attended and any noteworthy details like an exceptional grade point average.

Include any degrees you obtained and by all means your certification(s) as a nursing assistant. Any other training you have undergone that has helped shape your CNA qualifications is relevant here.

Whether or not you should mention the high school you attended in a CNA resume depends on your postsecondary education. If you have a relevant college degree, prospective employers likely won't care where you went to high school. If not, clarify that you did graduate from high school or the equivalent.

Here are some other training and qualifications you may want to include: 

• Basic CNA qualifications. First up, you need to list the fact that you have full CNA training and are up to date when it comes to your registration.
• Specialized training. If you have taken your nursing training to a new level, say so. For example, you may be a Certified Hospice and Palliative Nursing Assistant (CHPNA). Alternatively, you may have completed Certified Medication Aide (CMA) courses.
• CPR and first aid courses. This training is often delivered by the American Heart Association (AHA) or the American Red Cross.
• Leadership training. Should you have undertaken any leadership courses in your free time, these may help you get ahead. List them here.

Make sure the training and qualifications that you list align with the role of a CNA. Take a look at our adaptable example for education and certifications below: 

Pick the right resume layout and design for a CNA resume

Your CNA resume has to look as good as it reads. These are some basic considerations for resume layout, design and formatting. 

Fonts. Font sizes. Margins. Spacing. Balance. All caps here but not there? Words underlined or bolded? Icons or no icons? How much text on the page and how much white space? Even for a one-page resume, there are dozens of design choices to be made. Make the right choices, and your resume will look great. But make the wrong choices, and it will tend to be overlooked in nine cases out of 10 due to basic human psychology.

This is why we strongly urge job applicants to use a professionally designed resume template like those Resume.io offers. The design is already done for you—all you have to do is write the text. 

Simply browse through our selection of field-tested templates, find one you like, click on it, and you’re in. Our step-by-step resume builder prompts you to enter your own contact info, profile/summary, employment history, education and skills—everything we’ve discussed above. But you have no worries about the design and formatting because all of that is done for you.

CNA text-only resume example

CNA job market and outlook

As of 2022, there were 1,406,800 nursing assistants and orderlies working in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the sector is expected to grow by 4% between 2022 and 2023. Now may be the ideal time to land your next job. 

What type of salary you can expect as a CNA

The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the average pay for this job is $38,130 per year or $18.33 per hour. However, that may vary depending on how specialized your role is.

Key takeaways for building a CNA resume

The nursing sector is expected to grow at a rate of 4%, meaning that there are plenty of jobs available. If you want to land a role, ensure that your CNA resume tells a compelling career story. Don’t merely tell the hiring manager what you did—focus on the impact you had. 

Want to get ahead of the competition? Use our online resume builder to streamline the application process and create a stellar CNA resume in no time at all.