Certified Nursing Assistant resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in certified nursing assistant 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 · 11
- Activities of daily living (ADLs) (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Resident care (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Vital signs (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Patient transfers (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Fall prevention (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Intake and output (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Specimen collection (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Infection control (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Dementia care (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Long-term care (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Med-surg (used in Marisol's sample resume)
Tools & software · 2
- Hoyer lift (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- PointClickCare (used in Marisol's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 3
- Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- CNA certification (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- BLS (used in Marisol's sample resume)
Soft skills · 2
- Teamwork (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Compassionate care
17 of 18 appear in Marisol'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.
Resident care, Long-term care
Weak: Skills: Resident care, Long-term care
Strong: Provide resident care — bathing, dressing, toileting and feeding — for 10–12 residents per shift on a 40-bed long-term care unit
Vital signs, Intake and output, PointClickCare
Weak: Skills: Vital signs, Intake and output, PointClickCare
Strong: Take and record vital signs, weights and intake and output in PointClickCare, flagging changes to the charge nurse
Patient transfers
Weak: Skills: Patient transfers
Strong: Use Hoyer lifts and gait belts for patient transfers; the unit went 11 months without a transfer-related injury
Dementia care
Weak: Skills: Dementia care
Strong: Support residents living with dementia with calm redirection and consistent routines, as part of the unit's dementia care team
Strong bullets come from Marisol's sample resume and our certified nursing assistant 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 certified nursing assistant post asks for Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and you've used it, say Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a certified nursing assistant post says "CNA certification", write "CNA certification", 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 Activities of daily living (ADLs) — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Resident care. A bullet like the one under Certified Nursing Assistant 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.
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/ Questions
Certified Nursing Assistant keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a certified nursing assistant resume have?
There's no magic number. Marisol's sample resume uses 17 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 certified nursing assistant post says "Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)", write "Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)" 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 Marisol's sample, Long-term care and Med-surg are in the summary and Resident care shows up in a bullet under Certified Nursing Assistant. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a certified nursing assistant resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in certified nursing assistant posts include Hoyer lift and PointClickCare. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and CNA certification 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
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