06/2013 - 09/2019, Home Health Caregiver, Mount Western Care Group, Hartford
- Provided optimal healthcare to several patients in the comfort of their own home.
- Monitored vital signs, administered medications, and kept up-to-date records of patient progress.
- Assisted patients with various life activities including but not limited to: bathing, dressing, eating, eating, and exercising.
- Reported any changes in a patient's mental or physical health and addressed the situation appropriately.
- Practiced patience and compassion even in the most challenging of situations.
04/2010 - 07/2013, Home Health Caregiver, Hartford Medical Outreach Group, Hartford
- Worked with elderly patients and assisted them in their everyday lives.
- Assessed the physical condition of patients.
- Administered medications and implemented individualized treatment plans.
- Maintained all documentation in compliance with agency standards.
- Aimed to continually provide patients with the highest level of care possible.
08/2009 - 08/2011, Master of Science in Nursing, University of Hartford, Hartford
08/2005 - 05/2009, Bachelor of Biology, Quinnipiac University, Hamden
- Spanish
- Optimal Patient Care Skills
- Compassion and Kindness
- Cleaning and Sanitation Skills
- Multitasking Skills
- Physical Endurance
- Clean Driving Record
- Household Management Skills
Caregivers are one of America’s biggest labor forces – more than 1 in 6 adults report taking care of an elderly or disabled family member. While many of these positions are unpaid, or informal caregiving roles, more than 3 million Americans are employed as paid caregivers in nursing homes, adult day services programs and directly in clients homes. These jobs are also known as health or personal care aides, and the employment opportunities in this field are growing at an astonishing rate – 36 percent over the coming decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Caregivers take on a wide variety of tasks for their clients – everything from grocery shopping and meal preparation to transportation and basic medical procedures. This is an excellent time to enter such a rapidly growing industry, so how do you craft a resume to boost yourself to the top of the application pool? This guide, along with our resume templates and custom builder tool, will show you how to:
- Craft the right resume for the unique caretaking environment you plan to work in
- Convey the most essential personality qualities for this demanding, yet rewarding work
- Make yourself stand out in terms of education and training
- Tailor your previous experience in other fields to the requirements of caretaking
Note: The word caregiver can sometimes be interchanged with caretaker – someone who cares for a building or animals. If these jobs are what you’re looking for, check out our guides for janitor and zookeeper.
There are more than 600,000 senior citizens with cognitive disabilities in the United States, and that number is projected to double by 2030, according to a 2011 study. This may increase both the demand for caregiver jobs and the variety of positions in the future, possibly assisted by improving medical and pharmaceutical technologies.
The inner workings of caregiver jobs
Given the high cost of nursing home care in the U.S., many families look for caregivers who can make elderly, ill and disabled family members comfortable in their own homes. Just over half of care workers are employed in these types of services handling daily cooking, cleaning, transportation and medical tasks. Many others work in assisted living communities, nursing homes, hospice care and facilities for adults with disabilities. In such facilities, caretakers move, bathe and change patients, clean up after meals and messes, and help patients take their medication or follow routines. They also spend time getting to know patients and encouraging them to lead social and fulfilling lives.
- Caregivers play a big role in the health and wellness of the patient. About half of caregivers serve as an advocate for the care recipient when dealing with doctor’s offices, government agencies or community services, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving.
- Caregivers may also have the skills to work in other areas of social work or the medical field, including as a medical support assistant or a nanny.
When writing your resume, it’s important to address the ways in which you are equipped for both the rewards and challenges of caregiving. In this position, you will have the chance to connect with people from a variety of backgrounds and to be a friend and confidant to people with less mobility, but you must also deal with unruly and sick patients and have stamina for long days and heavy lifting. Because of the challenging nature of this work, the turnover rate in assisted care facilities is very high. That means a large percentage of caretakers leave the job soon after starting. This costs the facility a lot of time and money in the training and replacement process. While the high turnover rate is a pain for employers, it also means that they’re waiting for your polished resume to land on their desk. So how do you make that happen? Let’s dive into the details.
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The profile summary: a warm welcome
Your profile summary should convey the warmth and charm that makes you a good candidate to nurture and care for others. While these personality traits are important, the summary also includes a small dose of your experience, education and skills. Take a minute to brainstorm how you stand out as a caregiver. Maybe it’s many years of experience or maybe you are licensed in the medical field. Maybe you’re extremely well-liked and requested by patients because of your ability to comfort people. Maybe you’ve even won an award for your work. Whatever your standout quality, use it as a strong start to your profile summary.
Compassionate caregiver with 5 years of experience working in private homes and assisted living. Able to cook, clean and transport patients, and perform light medical tasks. Awarded Hartford County’s Helper of the Year for service to disabled patients.
When you’re new to the job
This may be your first experience as a caregiver, and that’s OK! There’s plenty of room for you in a field with 36 percent projected growth. The trick is molding your current experience to the demands of this new position.
Most care recipients reside in their own homes but one in three live with their caregiver, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving. The vast majority of caregivers live within 20 minutes driving distance of their recipient.
Your experience in customer service, childcare or education can all be valuable in showing that you have the right personality traits to care for others. For the profile summary, try stating your intention to work in caretaking and then back up your claim by giving related activities that point to your abilities.
Experienced tutor and nanny seeking a position as a caregiver. I have 6 years of experience taking care of children with disabilities, planning educational activities and managing everyday routines like bathing, cooking and cleaning.
Your experience: lessons from the job
When applying to a more organized caregiving role, in a nursing home or assisted living facility for example, experience that shows you can stay committed to the position is a big plus. If you have at least three caretaking roles of 6 months or longer, you can leave off any positions that don’t highlight the right skill set or were so short that they might prompt your future employer to inquire why the job didn’t work out.
If you’re just starting out in the workforce and simply have no experience relating to any type of caretaking work, try volunteering in a nursing home or doctor’s office. This type of experience might be short term, but it can be just enough to show interest in the field on your resume – not to mention real-life connections that may be useful in the job hunt.
If you’ve never worked as a caregiver before, then three service-related positions will be your best bet. Just make sure to highlight how the skills you used in those jobs transfer to caregiving. It’s also important to tailor your resume for the type of caregiving you’ll be doing. If you’re working in a nursing home, you can reasonably assume you won’t be doing day-to-day grocery shopping or vacuuming floors. But these tasks are likely to be essential when you’re working with just one client in a private household. Then, make sure to highlight in your experience any relevant tasks mentioned in the job description.
- Aided patients with bathing, dressing and personal hygiene tasks
- Completed weekly grocery shopping and planned and cooked meals according to special dietary restrictions
- Developed educational activities and monitored playtime for 2 young adults with disabilities
- Played board games with elderly patients and encouraged them to pursue social lives
- Administered medicine every 3 hours and kept notes on patient progress
- Transported patient between home and doctor’s office 5 times weekly
Education: the knowledge to get the job done
Caregiving is a great entry-level position because it allows for full-time work and meaningful connection with others without the burden of an expensive 4-year degree. In fact, most states don’t require official training or licensing for caregivers, especially those who work directly in client’s homes. Some nursing homes or assisted living programs do look for caregivers with some medical knowledge and training so that they can complete tasks like administering shots, changing bandages and monitoring medication.
Many community colleges offer state-approved non-degree nurse assisting degrees that may be a resume boost if you don’t yet have experience as a caregivers. We recommend listing one of these degrees with the year first, followed by the name of the school, degree program and location.
2010 – 2012: Chester Community College, Associate’s in Nurse Assisting, Montpelier, VT
If you have a four-year degree in a related field, it’s a good idea to include that as well,
The skills section: making others feel at home
Your skills are the bread and butter, the meat and potatoes – the *insert any other food combination you wish* – of your job as a caregiver. You’ll be expected to use them every day to keep patients comfortable and happy. Your skill section can be broken into two categories: hard skills and soft skills. Soft skills are your personality traits and innate qualities that make you a nurturing person – things like good decision-making, compassion, good communication skills and attention to detail. Your hard skills require training and knowledge of the particular field you’re working in. In this position you may be asked to perform light clinical tasks, housekeeping and/or the bathing, dressing and transportation of patients.
Large companies or healthcare facilities may use Applicant Tracking Systems or ATS to narrow down the application pool. These programs scan for keywords and send only the top-scoring resumes to the hiring manager’s desk. You can give yourself the best chance of defeating the ATS by incorporating keywords from the job description into your profile summary and skills section – just make sure a human would still want to read your resume, don’t make it too artificial!
To tailor your resume to each position, you can create a Master List of skills you possess. Brainstorm everything that might be applicable, then cherry-pick the most relevant skills for the position you’re applying for. You can use this master list to update your resume each time you apply for a new position.
Hard skills listing example:
- Medical knowledge and light tasks including dressing wounds and administering medication
- Meal planning and preparation
- Cleaning and home organization
- Bathing and dressing patients
- Transporting patients to appointments
Soft skills listing example:
- Positivity
- Punctuality
- Compassion
- Good judgement and decision making
- Detail-oriented
- Listening
Layout: neat and clean
All your experience, skills and education won’t amount to much if a hiring manager can’t make heads or tails of your layout. It’s important to put the proper amount of care and attention into the look and feel of your resume. One of the simplest but most important steps is proofreading and correcting your writing for grammatical or spelling errors. Another key component is your layout. For a caretaker position, you’ll want a clean and straightforward resume that conveys professionalism. It’s best to avoid color or flashy pictures and let your experience do the talking.
So where do you find a resume template with that perfect balance? Resume.io’s field-tested templates make it easy to input your details and customize your resume in no time. For this position, we recommend templates in the Professional and Simple categories. You’ll most likely be uploading your resume to a job portal, but you may be emailing it to a hiring manager as well. It’s important that your resume retains its formatting no matter where it’s displayed. A PDF is the tried-and-true file format for a resume that won’t change from computer to computer, and our resume builder makes it easy to download a PDF in just a few clicks.
Key takeaways
- As the population ages, the need for caretakers will boom. That means your job prospects should look great over the coming decade.
- Different caretaking situations have different needs so it’s important that your resume is structured to suit the demands of institutional work versus private clients.
- Related positions in childcare, education or customer service can be molded to meet the demands of a caretaking role.
- A clean and simple resume format with correct grammar and spelling is the way to go when it comes to standing out to a hiring manager.
And if you’re looking for the perfect tool to finish your resume and start working with patients right away, check out resume.io’s field tested templates and easy to use resume builder.
