Care Assistant CV Example and Writing Guide

It’s one of the most underappreciated jobs, but also one of the most crucial. As a care assistant you play a key role in helping the most vulnerable people in society live healthy and dignified lives.

It requires a precise mix of compassion, patience and a strong work ethic to cope with the challenges of the job. And the best way to prove you’ve got the skills to succeed in the care industry is with a carefully written care assistant CV.

Keep reading to see care assistant CV examples that’ll make writing your own easy. And you’ll get a simple step-by-step guide to writing a CV for care assistant jobs that’ll get you more interviews than any other CV you’ve written previously.

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Not looking for a care assistant role? We’ve got a great selection of advice for other careers too. Take a look:

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Care Assistant CV Template

Now for the job-winning care assistant CV formula.

1. Use the Best Format for Your Care Assistant CV

A care assistant has a broad range of duties that involve assisting disabled and/or elderly clients with tasks they can’t manage themselves. They need to be sensitive as well, getting to know their clients and providing emotional support to those who may not have other forms of social contact.

So your care assistant CV has to show you can effectively blend the practical side of providing care with the emotional intelligence to sensitively interact with vulnerable clients. Thankfully that’s not as hard as it sounds. There’s an easy way to format your CV to make sure it impresses from the start. Here’s how.

• Use chronological CV format. It’s the best format for your CV for care assistant jobs as it’s the standard format that recruiters know best.
• Make sure you create a clear and readable CV structure. Set left-alignment only for your text, have one-inch margins and leave a double space between your CV sections. 
• Choose a good CV font. Serif fonts like Times New Roman or Garamond are often considered more readable. But you won’t go wrong with clean, modern sans serif fonts like Calibri or Arial either.
• Remember that the length of a CV is 1–2 pages, and when you’re finished writing, save your file as a PDF to keep everything neat and intact.

Read more: How to Create a Professional CV Layout

2. Create Your Care Assistant CV Personal Profile

Now for the first section of your care assistant CV. It also goes by other names such as CV summary or personal statement, but whatever you call it your CV personal profile has one simple purpose. It acts as the introduction to your CV. In just 3–4 lines you have to introduce yourself as a candidate and catch the hiring manager’s eye. 

Think of it as a way of saying:

1. Who you are.
2. What you can offer to the employer.
3. What your career goals are.

And you’ll structure it differently depending on what stage of your career you’re at. Here’s what to do if you’re writing a CV for a care assistant with no experience.

• Prepare a list consisting of all of your previous work experience and skills. Think of your education and any other jobs you’ve had previously.
• Then choose 3–4 points from your list that are transferable to a care assistant career and match up with the job requirements. 
• Finally, use those points, mixed with enthusiasm for the role, to write your personal profile. 

And if you have more experience and you’re writing a senior care assistant CV, then do this.

• Make a list of your professional experience and skills, all the factors that make you an effective care assistant.
• Next, take another look at the job advert and make a note of the skills and experience required. Then you can choose 3–4 points from your personal list that match up with the requirements in the advert.
• Finally, use those matching points to craft your CV summary and tailor it to the job you’re targetting. 

And in both cases, leave writing this section until last. After all, it’s a summary and it’s not easy to summarise something you haven’t written yet.

Read more: How to Write an Effective CV Summary

3. Write Your Care Assistant CV Work Experience Section 

Hiring managers want new employees who can jump straight in and start working with clients with confidence. And they’ll look to your work experience section for proof. Here’s how to write it properly.

• List your jobs in reverse chronological order. Your most recent role goes first and then you go backward from there.
• Include the same basic information to start each entry. Your job title, the name of your employer and the time period of your employment, using ‘current’ as the end date if you still work there.
• Then write up to six bullet points describing each role. Spice them up by starting them with action verbs. Good examples for a care assistant include alleviated, supported and treated.
• Don’t just write a list of your duties. Make sure you also include professional achievements and use numbers to strengthen your claims. A good way of structuring your bullet points is by using accomplishment statements.
• And freshen up your work experience section for every job application you make. Target it by reading the job advert to see what the hiring manager needs and tailor your experience accordingly.

Read more: What to Include in Your CV Work Experience Section

4. Include an Education Section in Your Care Assistant CV

It’s tempting to think you can just gloss over this section, but including your education on your CV is still essential and it has to be structured properly. Follow this advice and you’ll be fine.

• If you have a university education, write the name of your uni, its location, the name of your degree, and the dates you completed your studies. 
• If you’re a school-leaver then it’s the name of your school or college, its location and the dates you attended. For A-levels mention each subject individually. If you’ve left school within the last two years then you can also mention your GCSEs. No need to list every individual subject but do point out passes in maths and English as this is a basic requirement for many entry-level jobs.
• Put your education section before your work experience section if you’ve only just left school or uni and have limited work experience.
• Career-specific NVQs in health and social care should be included in this section, too.

Read more: How to Write Your CV Education Section

5. Demonstrate Key Skills for Your Care Assistant CV

I mentioned earlier that care assistant duties are broad and complex. It’s not just the physical act of care, the emotional and human side of your work is equally important. So how can you prove you’ve got the abilities to succeed and somehow fit that long list of skills into a one or two page CV? 

• Start by heading straight back to the job advert. This time list all of the skills it mentions as job requirements and also note down any other general care industry skills that come to mind.
• Now make a list of your own skills, use your work experience and education sections to help jog your memory.
• Then put your two lists side by side, see what matches and choose five to ten of those to include on your CV. Make sure it’s a mix of soft skills and hard skills.
• And for each entry in your CV, add a sentence that shows how you demonstrate that skill e.g. Time management. Meticulously adhered to assigned times for all tasks, including travel times to ensure all clients received care without delay.

These would all be fantastic skills to include on your care assistant CV.

Key Skills for a Care Assistant CV

• Communication and interpersonal skills
• Monitoring and recording patient data
• Confidentiality
• Dressing wounds and administering medication
• Hygiene and health and safety
• Time management
• Adaptability
• Interpersonal skills
• Meal preparation
• Domestic assistance
• Administrative assistance

Read more: Best List of CV Skills Examples

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

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6. Add some Extra CV Sections

The fact is, you can finish with your skills section and still have an acceptable CV. But consider this, there are 1.5 million people working in adult social care in England alone. The care industry is a huge sector in the UK and there’s a lot of competition. If you want to really stand out you need to go above and beyond in your job application. Adding extra sections to your CV is an easy way to do that. Here are some ideas.

• Languages. In a multi-cultural society where you’re directly interacting with clients a foreign language is particularly important. So if you do speak other languages, include a languages section.
• Volunteering. It’s something hiring managers look upon very favourably and a great way of getting experience in care-related roles.
• Other ideas could be awards, certificates, or even hobbies and interests. Just keep it relevant and ensure it shows you in a good light.

Read more: Best List of CV Hobbies and Interests

7. Enclose a Care Assistant Cover Letter

A well-written CV is essential to job hunting success, but it’ll be even more effective if you write a cracking care assistant cover letter to accompany it.

Here’s how to write a cover letter for care assistant roles.

• Set yourself up with the correct cover letter format.
• Use a ‘hook’ to write an effective cover letter opening. Mention a professional accomplishment that will make the hiring manager take notice.
• Then build a job-winning cover letter structure by adding more proof that your experience and skills are a great match for the job.
• Use a ‘call to action’ and say thank you in your cover letter closing. All you need to do is ask the hiring manager to get in touch with you to discuss the job in more detail.
• Know when to stop. The best cover letter length is a maximum of one page.
• And to make it look extra professional, choose a matching CV and cover letter template.

And my final bit of advice to you is to follow up your job application. If you haven’t had any news within a week of applying then follow up to give your chances of success one final boost.

Plus, a great cover letter that matches your CV 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:

See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Thanks for reading, and I hope I found our care assistant CV example useful. If you’ve got any other questions then please let me know. Writing a CV for a care assistant job with no experience can be particularly hard, so we’re very keen to help if that applies to you. Just ask in the comments section and I’ll be happy to answer.

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Sources

• https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4b67/cd16136d47682f547619e705e2151d2b98df.pdf
• https://www.stetson.edu/administration/career/media/pdfs/action_verbs_and_transferable_skills.pdf
• https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-adult-social-care