Nursing Assistant resume examples & templates

In short, a nursing assistant resume is a one page document naming your state registry entry, the assignment you can carry on a shift, and the documentation you complete at the end of it.

Those three matter more than anything else on the page because a staffing coordinator is working out two things: whether your registry entry will verify today, and whether you can be handed a full assignment without a week of hand-holding. Therefore, a resume that answers both in the top third gets called.

Resume guide for a nursing assistant resume

How to write a nursing assistant resume

Overall, it takes five blocks: contact header with the credential, summary, registry and training, experience with the assignment in every entry, skills. One page for nearly everyone in this job, including aides with fifteen years of service.

The registry sits near the top because it is a gate. An employer cannot put you on a unit as a nurse aide without verifying it, so the file that makes verification instant moves ahead of the file that does not.

Run the finished file through the ATS resume checker before you apply. Large systems and nursing home groups parse applications into a structured record before anyone reads them.

Choosing the best resume format for a nursing assistant resume

Reverse chronological, one page. Employer, setting, unit type and bed count, shift, dates, then three to five bullets with numbers in them.

However, skills-based and functional formats hurt you here. After all, a coordinator reads this job for continuity and shift coverage: which setting, which unit, which shift, how long you stayed. As a result, a format that hides the timeline reads as a timeline worth hiding, and in a field with this much turnover, tenure sells.

Include your contact information

First, put the credential initials next to your name and the registry number underneath. Similarly, shift availability belongs there too, because the shifts that stay open are nights, weekends and holidays, and an aide who names one is reading the employer's real problem.

Make use of a summary

In short, use four lines: credential and registry status, setting and years, the assignment you carry, and the documentation you complete.

Right vs wrong: the same nursing assistant summary, twice

For example, the right column can be verified and scheduled. The left column, however, cannot, and a coordinator filling tomorrow's shift is doing both.

Outline your experience

Then list employer, city, setting, unit type and bed count, shift, and dates. Then bullets that each carry a number.

• Instead ofProvided personal care to residents
  UseCarry an assignment of 11 to 13 residents on a 48 bed post-acute unit, 5 of them total care
• Instead ofAssisted with transfers and mobility
  UseComplete roughly 30 transfers a shift, including 3 two-person mechanical lift residents and 4 sit-to-stand
• Instead ofDocumented resident care
  UseChart activities of daily living, intake and output, blood glucose and restorative entries each shift in the unit record
• Instead ofTrained new staff
  UsePrecept new aides through a structured first two weeks; 19 of the 23 I precepted are still employed

The nursing assistant registry entry a verifier can check, and the Section GG notes behind it

Two things decide whether you are hired and whether you are kept: an entry a stranger can verify, and charting that the people funding the unit can use.

Start with the federal floor, because it sets the number in your state. Federal regulation requires a nurse aide training and competency evaluation program to "consist of no less than 75 clock hours of training", including "at least 16 hours of supervised practical training" (42 CFR 483.152(a), eCFR current as of 10 September 2026). That is a floor, not a standard, and many states sit well above it.

So write your state's number, because that is the one being compared. Utah requires a program to "provide at least 100 hours of supervised and documented training by a licensed nurse" and the candidate to complete "at least 24 of the required 100 hours of supervised practical training in a nursing care facility" (Utah Administrative Code R432-45-5). An aide who writes "100 hour program, 24 hours clinical in a skilled nursing facility, written knowledge and manual skills exams passed" has told a coordinator in one line what most applicants never mention.

Registry expiry and moving states

Write the expiry and the renewal condition, not just the number. The Utah Nursing Assistant Registry states that certification "is valid for 2 years" and that renewal requires "a minimum of 200 paid nursing or nursing related services under the direction of a licensed nurse during the 24 months following initial certification or last certification renewal" (Utah Nursing Assistant Registry, checked September 2026). That is why your dates matter: a period out of paid nursing work can cost you the certificate, not just a line on the resume. If you are near that line, say when you last worked in a nursing-related role.

If you are moving states, say what stage you are at. Transfers run through an application, not an automatic switch. Utah requires an out-of-state aide to "submit Reciprocity Application", to "be current and active in that state", and to supply "a copy of your current and valid CNA certificate card" (Utah Nursing Assistant Registry, checked September 2026). A resume crossing a state line should therefore carry the certificate you hold with its state and number, the state you have applied in, and the date you applied. Without them the reader assumes a delay of unknown length.

Charting and Section GG for nursing assistants

Now the charting, which is where aides are undervalued most. Your notes are the raw material for the assessment that funds the unit. Section GG of the Minimum Data Set, "Functional Abilities and Goals", is coded from what actually happened rather than from a resident's best day: the CMS manual instructs that if "the resident's functional status varies, record the resident's usual ability to perform each activity. Do not record the resident's best performance and do not record the resident's worst performance, but rather record the resident's usual performance." It draws on "reports from qualified clinicians, care staff, or family documented in the resident's medical record during the assessment period", within an admission window of "the first 3 days of the Part A stay" (CMS, MDS 3.0 Resident Assessment Instrument Manual, Chapter 3, Section GG, October 2025).

In fact, "care staff" is you, and the three-day window means the notes written in a resident's first seventy-two hours are the evidence base for coding. An aide who charts usual performance accurately, shift by shift, is doing assessment work, and almost no nursing assistant resume says so. Therefore, write it: the items you chart, the system you chart in, and the fact that your entries feed Section GG and the restorative record.

Build a snapshot of your key skills

Then list twelve to sixteen entries in four groups, named not described.

List your education and certifications

Registry entry first, then the training program with its hours, then the rest with dates.

Choose the right layout and design

Finally, keep a single column, plain type at 11 or 12 point, clear headings, no photograph, no rating bars. After all, nursing home groups and hospital systems parse these into a structured record before a human opens them, and a star graphic beside "mechanical lift" reads badly to a charge nurse.

Nursing assistant job market and outlook

Indeed, this is a very large occupation with slow growth and enormous replacement demand, which makes tenure the thing worth proving on the page.

Where the jobs sit:

What salary you can expect as a nursing assistant

The median annual wage for nursing assistants was $42,260 as of May 2025, with the lowest 10 percent earning less than $33,940 and the highest 10 percent more than $51,980. Meanwhile, orderlies, counted on the same BLS page, had a median of $38,290 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025).

Setting moves that more than tenure does: $47,050 in government outside education and hospitals against $38,040 in home health services, a spread of roughly 24 percent for the same certificate (BLS, May 2025). It is, in fact, the largest lever available to you.

Also, shift differentials, weekend and holiday premiums and overtime come next, which is why naming your availability in the header is worth real money. Beyond that, increases come from added roles rather than added years: restorative aide, medication aide where the state permits it, shift lead, preceptor, and hospital roles such as monitor technician or patient care technician.

Finally, the ladder from here is the licensed route. The certificate is credit toward practical or vocational nursing and then registered nursing, and a resume already showing charting accuracy, restorative documentation and precepting shortens that conversation with every program and every employer who might help pay for it.

Key takeaways for a nursing assistant resume

1. Above all, put the registry state, number, status and first certified date on one line near the top.
2. Also name your program's total hours and clinical hours, since states differ widely.
3. Similarly, say "no lapse in status" if it is true, because it removes the commonest hiring delay.
4. Put the assignment in every employer line, with the total care count.
5. In addition, name lifts and transfer equipment by type, not as "assisted with mobility".
6. Lastly, say which items you chart and that your entries feed Section GG coding.
7. Show tenure and precepting, because turnover is what a facility is trying to buy its way out of.

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Nursing assistant resume questions, answered