Caregiver resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in caregiver job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 13
- Caregiver (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Personal care (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Companionship (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Dementia care (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Alzheimer's care (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Meal preparation (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Medication reminders (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Transfers (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Mobility assistance (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Fall prevention (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Light housekeeping (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Transportation (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Care log (used in Lorena's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 2
- CPR and First Aid (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Valid driver's license (used in Lorena's sample resume)
Soft skills · 3
- Family communication (used in Lorena's sample resume)
- Patience
- Reliability
16 of 18 appear in Lorena's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Personal care, Companionship
Weak: Skills: Personal care, Companionship
Strong: Provide in-home personal care and companionship for 3 regular clients across 30–36 hours a week, including one client with Alzheimer's disease
Transfers, Care log
Weak: Skills: Transfers, Care log
Strong: Help with bathing, dressing, toileting and transfers, and keep a daily care log that families and the care manager read
Meal preparation
Weak: Skills: Meal preparation
Strong: Handle meal preparation for diabetic and low-sodium diets, plus grocery shopping and lists
Medication reminders
Weak: Skills: Medication reminders
Strong: Give medication reminders from pre-filled pill organizers and tell the family the same day about any missed dose
Strong bullets come from Lorena's sample resume and our caregiver bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a caregiver post asks for Caregiver and you've used it, say Caregiver, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a caregiver post says "Personal care", write "Personal care", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Caregiver — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Personal care. A bullet like the one under Caregiver in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
Which of these does your resume say?
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Applying to one post? Scan its keywords against your resume.
Keep going
/ Questions
Caregiver keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a caregiver resume have?
There's no magic number. Lorena's sample resume uses 16 of the 18 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a caregiver post says "Caregiver", write "Caregiver" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Lorena's sample, Caregiver is in the summary and Personal care shows up in a bullet under Caregiver. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
How should I list CPR and First Aid and Valid driver's license on my resume?
Spell them the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
All 88 rolesSee which of these your resume already says.
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