CNA resume examples for new and experienced nursing assistants

Example resume

Example

Jasmine Carter

Certified Nursing Assistant | Long-Term Care and Memory Care

jasmine.carter@example.com · (317) 555-0134 · Indianapolis, IN

Summary

Certified nursing assistant on the Indiana nurse aide registry since 2022, with three years in long-term care and memory care. Cares for 10 to 12 residents a shift on a 40-bed unit, documents in PointClickCare and trains new aides. CPR and BLS certified. Looking for a day-shift CNA role in a hospital or a rehabilitation unit.

Experience

Certified Nursing Assistant, Memory Care Unit

Sep 2023 - Present

Maple Grove Health and Rehabilitation Center · Indianapolis, IN · Full-time, day and evening shifts

• Care for 10 to 12 residents a shift on a 40-bed unit: bathing, dressing, toileting, feeding and repositioning every 2 hours.
• Take and chart vital signs, weights and intake and output in PointClickCare, and report changes to the charge nurse.
• Transfer residents with gait belts and mechanical lifts, with no lifting injuries to residents or staff in 2 years.
• Trained 6 new nursing assistants on the unit's routines and memory care approaches during their first week.

Certified Nursing Assistant

Jun 2022 - Aug 2023

Riverbend Senior Living · Carmel, IN · Part-time, weekends

• Helped 14 assisted living residents with daily care, meals and walks, and kept their care logs up to date.
• Took part in fall prevention rounds every shift; the wing had no falls with injury over 10 months.

Education

State-approved Nurse Aide Training Program (classroom and supervised clinical hours), competency exam passed

Feb 2022 - May 2022

Eastfield Community College · Indianapolis, IN

High School Diploma

Aug 2017 - May 2021

Lawrence North Valley High School · Indianapolis, IN

Skills

• Activities of daily living (ADL) assistance
• Vital signs and intake and output
• Safe transfers (gait belt, mechanical lift)
• Dementia and memory care
• Infection control
• Skin care and repositioning
• PointClickCare charting
• Clear reports to nurses

Languages

• English · native speaker
• Spanish · A2 · elementary

Interests

• Volunteer at a church food pantry
• Choir

Jasmine has three years as a certified nursing assistant in a nursing home and an assisted living community. Her CNA resume fits on one page and gives a director of nursing what they check first: the registry, the setting and the number of residents.

What this CNA resume does well, and you can copy:

• the headline under her name says the credential and the setting she knows;
• every job names the unit and the number of residents a shift, so the reader can compare with their own floor;
• the bullets name the real work (ADLs, vitals, transfers, charting) and add a number a manager tracks: falls, injuries, aides trained;
• the training program and the exam appear under education, with the dates.

You can start from the same layout or pick another one among our resume templates: you can switch templates at any time without retyping. More CNA resume examples for other settings follow below, in the summary and experience sections.

Nursing assistants work under the supervision of licensed practical nurses and registered nurses. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they clean and bathe patients, help them dress and use the toilet, turn, reposition and transfer them, measure vital signs, serve meals and help patients eat, and report health concerns to nurses. A recruiter reads your certified nursing assistant resume against that list:

• Are you on the registry? The BLS states that nursing assistants who pass the competency exam are placed on a state registry, and must be on it to work in a nursing home.
• Which setting do you know? Nursing care facilities employed 36% of nursing assistants in 2025 and hospitals 32%, followed by assisted living and home health.
• How many residents or patients a shift? Your usual load says more than any adjective.
• Can you lift and transfer safely? Name the equipment you use.
• Can you work our shifts? Nights, weekends and holidays are common in care that runs around the clock.

The median annual wage for nursing assistants was $42,260 in May 2025, and the BLS projects about 203,300 openings a year for nursing assistants and orderlies from 2025 to 2035. Pay belongs in your research, not on your CNA resume.

Your certification is the first thing a facility checks. Federal rules for nursing homes set the minimum: a state-approved nurse aide training program of at least 75 clock hours, including at least 16 hours of supervised practical training, then a competency evaluation (42 CFR 483.152). Before hiring you, a nursing home must verify your status on the state registry. Other requirements, such as continuing education or a background check, vary by state, and so does the title: the BLS notes that only some states call it Certified Nursing Assistant.

On the resume, write the title used by your state's registry, the state, your status and the month you were certified. Leave the registry number out: the employer looks you up on the registry.

Two or three sentences under your name: your credential, your setting and years, your usual load, one result, and the job you want. Skip “caring and hardworking”: every CNA resume says it. For more examples, see our resume summary guide, or our guide to the resume objective if you are just starting.

Give every job the same structure, newest first:

• the job title with the setting: “Certified Nursing Assistant, Rehabilitation Unit”, not just “CNA”;
• the facility, its city and state, and the dates in MM/YYYY;
• a first bullet with your load (residents or patients a shift, clients a day), then two or three results.

Bullet examples you can adapt, with your own numbers:

• Assist 9 residents a shift on a 28-bed skilled nursing unit, including 3 who need a two-person transfer.
• Help 6 to 8 post-surgical patients a shift walk, eat and wash, and report pain or confusion to the RN right away.
• Reposition bedbound residents every 2 hours and check skin daily; the unit went 6 months without a new pressure injury.
• Feed and monitor intake for 5 residents on modified diets, and record every meal percentage.
• Support hospice residents and their families in the last days of life, with quiet, respectful care.
• Visit 5 home health clients a day for bathing, dressing, mobility and medication reminders.

Pick 6 to 10 skills for your certified nursing assistant resume from the job posting, ones your bullets prove. The basics come from the training every nurse aide takes (vital signs, height and weight, personal care, feeding, skin care, transfers and positioning, infection control), and the rest changes with the setting:

Add the charting system you used (PointClickCare, Epic, MatrixCare...) and two or three soft skills with a proof: patience with residents with dementia, clear reports to nurses, teamwork during a short-staffed shift. The full method is in our guide to skills for a resume.

Right after the exam, your training takes the place of work history. A new CNA resume puts the program near the top and treats the clinical hours like a job:

• Training program: the school, the dates, the total hours and the supervised clinical hours.
• Clinical rotation: the facility, the setting, the number of residents you cared for and the skills you performed.
• Registry and exam: “Competency exam passed 10/2026, on the state registry”.
• Care you have given: caring for a family member, volunteering at a senior center or hospital, babysitting, camp work.
• Jobs outside healthcare: retail, food service or warehouse work prove that you show up, work fast and stay on your feet.

For a first job outside healthcare, our resume with no work experience covers the basics.

• Reverse-chronological: newest job first, so the reader sees where you work now.
• One page: enough for nearly every certified nursing assistant resume, even after many years.
• No photo, no date of birth, no Social Security number, no registry number: that is not the practice in the United States.
• A simple layout: one column, standard headings, a readable font, saved as a PDF unless the portal asks for Word.

Hospital systems and nursing home chains often screen applications with software. Run your file through our ATS resume checker: you get a score out of 100 and the reason for every lost point, so you can see whether your certification, setting and skills are read correctly.

Some nursing assistants go on to train as an LPN or a registered nurse. When you apply to a nursing program or a new role while still working as a CNA, keep your CNA job at the top with your load and results, and add the program with its expected end date. Once you are licensed, our nurse resume example shows how the same experience reads on an RN resume. Prefer working in a clinic, with patients who come and go? See our medical assistant resume.

• No setting in the job title: “CNA” alone doesn't say whether you know a hospital floor or a memory care unit.
• Only duties: “assisted residents with ADLs” is on every CNA resume; your load and your results are yours.
• No registry status, or an expired CPR card, when the posting lists them as required.
• A resident's name or health details in a bullet, even to tell a good story.
• The same resume for every posting: a hospital and a home health agency don't use the same words.

• Career pages of nursing homes, hospitals and home health agencies, where most openings are posted with an online application.
• Job boards: Indeed, LinkedIn and healthcare job sites, with alerts for “CNA” and “nursing assistant” in your area.
• Your training program, which may share openings from local facilities.
• Staffing agencies for per diem shifts, if you want flexible hours.

If the posting asks for a cover letter, our cover letter generator writes one from your resume and the job posting, and you edit it word by word. Before the interview, prepare your answer to tell me about yourself.