Pharmacy Technician Resume Examples (Guide for 2023)

Looking for a pharmacy tech job? You might want to work on your pharmacy technician resume. And this guide is just the medicine for you! The one that allows you to show your experience. The one that will let you highlight your education. The one filled with the right pharmacy technician resume skills. After all, it’s the best cure for all your recruiter’s needs. 

So read on and find out how to write a pharmacist tech resume that will help you get the job you’re after.

This guide will show you:

• A pharmacy technician resume example better than 9 out of 10 other resumes.
• How to write a pharmacy technician resume that will land you more interviews.
• Tips and examples of how to put skills and achievements on a pharmacy tech resume.
• How to describe your experience on a resume for a pharmacy technician to get any job you want.

Here's a sample pharmacy technician resume made using our resume builder.

Want to save time and have your resume ready in 5 minutes? Try our resume builder. It’s fast and easy to use. Plus, you’ll get ready-made content to add with one click. See 20+ resume templates and create your resume here.

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Sample resume made with our builder—See more resume samples here.

Looking for other jobs in healthcare, too? See one of our guides:

• Dental Assistant Resume
• Medical Assistant Resume
• Nursing Student Resume
• Patient Care Technician Resume
• Pharmacist Resume
• Lab Technician Resume
• Lab Assistant Resume
• Medical Technologist Resume
• Pharmaceutical Sales Resume
• More Sample Resumes for 500+ Jobs

Remember that writing a good Cover Letter for Pharmacist can boost your chance to get the job!

Pharmacy Technician Resume Example

1

What's the Best Format for a Pharmacy Technician Resume?

Let's try an experiment.

Count to seven.

That's how much time the average pharmacist spends looking at each resume, according to our HR statistics report.

That's hardly enough to read your contact info, isn't it?

It's why you need to use the best format for your pharmacy technician resume.

Use a well-respected layout like the reverse-chronological format. It shows your best features, fast.

Use clear, legible fonts, eye-friendly headings, and regular white space to give the reader's eyes a rest.

Finally, save it as a PDF. The PDF format keeps your layout intact no matter what computer it shows up on. Other formats can make your resume look like a pile of spaghetti.

Want to make sure your resume will hook every recruiter and get you that interview? Get our free checklist and learn what makes a job-winning resume: 46 Things You Need To Do Before You Send Your Resume.

Pro Tip: Make sure the job offer accepts pharmacy technician resumes as PDFs. Some Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) trip on that format. Check the job description to know for sure.

Not 100% sure the reverse-chronological format is best? See our guide: "3 Resume Formats: How to Choose the Best One [Examples]"

Imagine it's next month. You've got a great job as a pharmacy tech. You've got great hours. You're making good money. You like who you work with. And you owe it all to your pharmacy technician resume objective, or resume summary.

Why?

Because they're the bridge that made the pharmacist say, "This applicant has it." Use a resume summary if you've got piles of experience. Use a resume objective if you don't. Here are some pharmacy tech resume samples to make it all clear:

Pharmacy Technician Resume Example (Summary)

Can you spot the good/bad points in the two pharmacy technician resume samples below?

Now that's not terrible. Neither is a moped. But you don't want a moped. You want a Ferrari. Like this:

Vroom, vroom. The pharmacist is sitting up straight. He's stopped fiddling with the desk magnets his kids gave him last Christmas.

When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.

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When you’re done, our free resume builder will score your resume and our resume checker will tell you exactly how to make it better.

Now. What if you lack experience? In that case, look at the two pharmacy technician resume samples below:

Pharmacy Technician Resume Example (Objectives)

A resume objective is for candidates with no experience. Compare these two pharmacy technician resume examples:

That's not bad, but it's not one in 200. You need to be that one in 200. To get there, don’t focus on generic pharmacy technician duties, use achievements. Like this:

Impressive! But you could never do that because you don't have that kind of experience. Do you? Most people have a lot more experience than they think.

Think through your past jobs and education. Write down anything that might look good on a pharmacy technician resume.

It could be as simple as a one-hour continuing ed class, a friendly word from an employer, or a thank-you letter from a customer.

Pro Tip: Your resume summary or pharmacy tech resume objective is the elevator pitch for your job application. Write it last. That way you'll have plenty of material.

Need a pharmacy technician resume template? There's one at the top of this post. For more help with your resume summary or resume objective, see our guides: Best Resume Summary: 21 Examples & Guide and 20+ Professional Resume Objective Examples for Any Career

Why is it so hard to get pharmacy tech jobs with no experience? Because experience proves you can do the job. If you don't have it, don't panic. I'll show you how to get some fast in just a minute.

First, let's look at how to list the experience you do have. Start by making a master list of all your achievements. They could be as simple as a pat on the back from an employer, an award, or any other kind of kudo.

Then, for each pharmacy technician resume you write, cherry-pick from that master list. Show your most recent job first. Write 4-6 bullet points, mixing responsibilities and achievements. For example, see the pharmacy tech resume samples below.

Pharmacy Technician Resume Samples (Experience)

Nice. Remember Sue? The pharmacist who's hiring? She's thinking, "This is the best of all 200 resumes so far." And all it took was some measures and numbers. Compare it to the pharmacy technician resume sample below:

See that? No metrics. No measures.

I know, I know. You don't have experience like that.

But if you think hard, you'll find some "wins" in your past you can use.

And if you're willing to work just a little, you can make more.

How to Write a Pharmacy Tech Resume with no Experience

It can be really hard to get pharmacy tech jobs with no experience.

But it's not hard to get enough experience to make any pharmacy technician resume shine.

For one thing, you can volunteer. Even one day a week of volunteering, or a few days in a row, looks great on a resume.

For another, join a professional association. That can show you're serious about your career.

Finally, if your pharmacy tech training included hands-on work experience, list that too.

Take a look at the right/wrong pharmacy technician resume samples below:

Two Pharmacy Technician Resume Examples (No Experience)

That's not a pharmacy technician resume experience list. It's a VIP pass to the trash. Why waste your time on something like that, when you could do this:

Remember, Ferrari. Not moped. Yet it's not hard to earn an experience section like that. The job candidate above only volunteered for 20 hours total.

Pro Tip: Put hands-on training in the Experience and Education sections of your pharmacy technician resume. If you joined a pro association, put it in your Additional section.

Did you see how the "right" pharmacy tech resume samples above used powerful "action words?" You can do that too. See our guide: "240 Examples of Action Verbs for a Resume"

You don't need a formal education to get a pharmacy tech job.

But it certainly doesn't hurt. If you went to school, show it. Even a short stint at a trade school can be the thing the pharmacist zooms in on.

Start with the basics:

• School Name and Location.
• Length of Program.
• Name of Program and/or degree.

Then add powerful details that fit the job description. For example, see the pharmacy technician resume samples below.

Two Pharmacy Technician Resume Examples (Education)

Not exactly the Michael Phelps of resume education sections, is it? You can almost see the pharmacist reaching for "delete."

But look at the pharmacy tech resume sample below:

See that? Details. The delete key is now the furthest thing from our hiring pharmacist's mind.

The beauty of this is, anyone can do it. You just have to think about your education. What little things did you do that might make a pharmacist say, "Wow?"

Pro Tip: For the real A-level stuff, customize your resume for every pharmacy technician job description you apply to. For help, see this guide on how to customize a resume. 

To make your pharmacy technician resume's education section stand out like a neon green warning label, see our guide: "How to Put Your Education on a Resume [Tips & Examples]"

Let's look in again on Sue, our hiring pharmacist. Do you think she looks at every one of the 200 resumes she gets? Would it shock you if I said she doesn't?

Your brilliant pharmacy technician resume might not even get to her if it lacks the right skills keywords. Say what?

That's right. Hiring managers use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to rank resumes depending on the keywords in them. That means if you use the right words, you'll get the jump on everyone else.

Here's how:

First, start with a list of keywords pharmacists are looking for.

Second, find the resume skills keywords valued by this pharmacist.

Third, prove you have those skills in the other sections of your resume.

Look at this pharmacy technician resume sample to see how it works:

Pharmacy Tech Resume Sample (Skills)

From a real-world pharmacy technician job description, we get the following skills keywords:

Compassion, teamwork, communication, accuracy, payment processing, inventory management.

Now, if you put only those skills on your resume, the pharmacist will smell something rotten in Denmark. (Or Texas. Or Pennsylvania.)

So look at other pharmacy tech job offers online to find other skills you have.

Math skills, stress management.

Finally, prove you have those pharmacy tech skills. Here's how that works in a sample pharmacy technician resume education section:

Example

• Responsible for compassionate customer service and accurate payment processing in a fast-paced pharmacy.
• Received 90% positive feedback in random customer satisfaction surveys.
• Was the frequent "go to" for resolving customer complaints and employee disputes.
• Managed inventory. Decreased inventory mistakes by 25%.

See that? Pick the right pharmacy tech resume skills. Beef them up. Then prove them.

Zoom. You're a Ferrari.

Now do the same thing with your education section.

Pharmacy Technician Resume Skills Examples

Need some sample pharmacy technician resume skills to get started? Use the skills list below as a springboard.

Not only will this method get your pharmacy technician resume past the ATS, it'll have pharmacists tripping over their counting trays to hire you.

Pro Tip: Don't settle for just the skills above. Dig through pharmacy tech jobs online to find more skills for your resume. When you find a new skill you actually have, put it in your master list.

Want more details about how to make the best pharmacy tech resume skills list? See this guide: "99+ Example Skills to Put on a Resume"

Take a look at a few real pharmacy technician job descriptions online and you'll find one word in all of them:

"Certified."

Most pharmacists are looking for certified techs. That could mean national or state certifications that prove you're a CPhT.

If you've got multiple certifications, create another pharmacy technician resume section called "Certifications."

Put the most important certification first, like a state pharmacy tech certification, or a national certification from the PTCB or NHA.

Then put any other supporting certifications after that.

Like this:

Certifications

• CPhT Nationally Certified Pharmacy Technician
• Compounding Certificate, NPTA
• CPR and First Aid Certification

A certifications list on your pharmacy technician resume shows the pharmacist you're qualified at a glance.

Also, add “CPhT” to your name, at the top of your certified pharmacy technician resume.

If you're registered with the Selective Service System, add that to your certification section too. Selective Service registry is required for some government pharmacy tech jobs with the Department of Veterans Affairs or other governmental body. 

Pro Tip: Not sure what certifications you need? Find out by contacting your state's Board of Pharmacists here. Also check out the ExCPT exam here.

Want to know what else to put on a resume for a pharmacy technician? See this guide: “What To Put On A Resume To Make It Perfect [Tips & Examples]”

Let's make your resume really crackle.

Do it by adding an additional section to catch the achievements that don't fit in other sections. You can call it Interests, Activities, or whatever best fits the material.

The key is not to clutter it with lots of extraneous stuff. If Wonder Woman had an "interests" section, she wouldn't put "I like cats" in it. Even though she does like cats.

Instead, it might say:

Activities

• I enjoy jumping through windows.
• Expert at swordplay and blocking machine gun fire.
• On Tuesdays I practice for an hour with my glowing lasso.
• I enjoy rescuing Chris Pine off a beach.

That's the kind of thing you need in your "Activities" section. Except your bullet points will prove your skills.

Look at the following pharmacy technician resume sample.

Pharmacy Tech Resume Sample (Activities)

Activities

• Active member, National Pharmacy Technician Association (NPTA).
• Take frequent NPTA Continuing Education classes.
• Regular listener to the NPTA "Director's Corner" podcast.
• Volunteer at the Tri-County Soup Kitchen Sunday mornings, making chowder.
• Drive for Meals on Wheels twice a month.
• Take weekly CrossFit classes to keep in shape.

Do you think a pharmacist would be impressed by those?

The best part? It's not hard to build a bag of goodies like that.

At most, it takes joining an association or taking a few (free, quick) online classes. At least, it's thinking through the things you already do.

Pro Tip: Need some activities for your pharmacy technician resume? Try taking a few cheap or free, 1-hr online classes or just listening to the NPTA podcast!

Need more tips to make a great "other" section for your pharmacy technician resume? See this guide: "+20 Best Examples of Hobbies & Interests To Put on a Resume (5 Tips)"

Here's something you hear from crowds of entry level pharmacy techs online:

"It's almost impossible to get a job."

How can that be? There's a pharmacy tech shortage, isn't there?

Sometimes all it takes is a little push.

A professional association can add a ton of spice to your resume.

For one thing, membership in a group like the National Pharmacy Technician Association looks great on a resume.

For another, the association itself will open up new networking opportunities you'd never get on your own.

For yet another, NPTA members get dozens of quick, free continuing ed classes. Any one of them can give a pharmacy technician resume extra zip.

So if you're an entry level pharmacy tech looking to make your resume a little juicier, give serious thought to membership in a professional association.

Pro Tip: Once you join a pro association, take advantage of it. Most host networking events that can lead to real pharmacy tech job offers. Some have free online classes and other resources.

Need more great advice to help you get that perfect pharmacy tech job? See our guide: "Common Job Interview Questions and Best Answers"

Cover letters are just trash-bound paper airplanes.

Right?

Wrong.

It's true that 60% of all pharmacists will skip cover letters. But the other 40% consider them essential.

You need a pharmacy tech cover letter for that other 40%.

The good news? It's easy to write a good one.

First, address the pharmacist by name.

Second, show that you're enthusiastic about this job offer. To do that, mention something from the job description. Then share an achievement that matches it.

Example

I noticed you're looking for a pharmacy tech who can help with inventory management. At my last pharmacy job, I spearheaded a project that reduced inventory waste by 28%.

Third, cite a couple more achievements to prove you'd be a great fit.

Finally, end with a "call to action." That can be as simple as, "I'd love to talk more with you. My contact info is below."

Pro Tip: After you send your pharmacy technician resume, don't forget to follow up! A phone call or an email a few days later can make get you noticed.

Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

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See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Want to write a great pharmacy tech cover letter to match your resume? See this guide: "How to Write a Great Cover Letter in 8 Steps" and our guide: Pharmacy Technician Cover Letter Examples & Guide

Without the right contact info, your pharmacy technician resume is like a car with no gas.

First, add your:

• Full Name
• Updated Phone Number
• Professional Email Address

Like this:

Sherry Yatinda, CPhT, sherryyatinda@gmail.com, 201-876-1443

If you're a CPhT, add that info to your full name.

Also include links to your online presence, like your LinkedIn profile or Twitter handle.

Why?

Because 87% of all hiring managers find job candidates only through LinkedIn.

That means you'll need to take your LinkedIn profile to the next level.

To do that, see this guide on how to make the best LinkedIn profile you can.

Pro Tip: The best pharmacy technician resume in the world can be ruined by one bad moment on Facebook. Defend your resume with this guide to cleaning up your online presence.

Want more resume samples to help you build a professional pharmacy technician resume? See our guide: "How to Make a Resume: A Step-by-Step Guide (+30 Examples)"

To make the most of your pharmacy technician resume, use these strategies:

• Customize your pharmacy technician resume to fit each job description. Start with a master list of all your achievements.
• Have a resume summary or objective, plus sections for experience, education, and skills.
• Add extra sections that showcase your verifiable achievements.
• Remember that a good pharmacy technician resume cover letter is the icing on your job search cake. Follow up in a few days for maximum effect.

Got ideas or questions about how to make a professional pharmacy technician resume? Give us a shout in the comments section!

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Sources

• https://www.pharmacytechnician.org/npta/Online_CE_Courses.asp
• https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/NewsEvents/ucm431929.htm