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How to Craft the Perfect Medical Resume to Get Hired

Updated November 4, 20249.5k

Here’s how to write the perfect medical resume that will impress hiring managers and secure your dream job this year.

How To Write A Medical Resume

Securing a job in the medical field takes time and effort. Most highly specialized roles require several years of training and practical experience before you are considered ready to practice on your own. In most medical-related roles, you are dealing with other people's health and safety, so you must have the necessary knowledge to excel in these roles. However, once you have completed your training hours, to obtain your dream position, you’ll need to create an effective professional resume. In a field where most candidates will complete the same training and accreditation, we suggest you use every tip and strategy we provide to help you stand out among other candidates. This article will present the ideal resume format and what to include in each section. Additionally, check out our medical resume example to see how each section comes together, and use our tailored resume builder to help you get started.

Essentials to Boost Your Career

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Browse our resume examples collection, featuring career-focused tips and resources.

Tips for Creating Your Medical Resume

In order to really stand out from the crowd and impress hiring managers everywhere, consider these additional tips when creating your perfect resume.

In your experience section, focus on what you have achieved in each role rather than just listing duties. How have you improved your previous places of work? Do you have statistics and data to demonstrate that you had an impact? Hiring managers will be more impressed by achievements rather than responsibilities.
Include the link to your LinkedIn profile in your header section. However, be sure that your other social media pages are work appropriate. Many recruiters will look up your name on social media.
Carefully study the job description and make sure your resume matches the keywords. This will help make your resume ATS-friendly. Recruiters will use applicant tracking systems to scan quickly through resumes and discard resumes that don’t match the qualifications.
Make the most of white space and bullet points by including your best achievements. Less blank white space and neatly featured bulleted achievements make a resume more readable and appealing to look at.

Medical Resume Example

Important Elements For Medical Resumes

There are several vital sections that recruiters will expect to see when examining medical resumes from potential candidates. Make sure that a sensible font is used for all section headings; you want to avoid standing out for the wrong reasons.

Header

The header will be at the top of your resume so hiring managers can easily locate your contact information. Be sure to include your name, preferred phone number, email address and location.
Resume objective or summary

The resume objective and summary serve slightly different purposes. Experienced healthcare professionals would generally use a resume summary to highlight their critical areas of expertise, their years of experience, their desired job title and what they hope to achieve in this new role.

Newly qualified practitioners, who perhaps don’t have as much experience to call upon, should write a resume objective and focus more on skills, recently completed training and career goals. Be sure to highlight key skills and personality traits closely linked to the role that is being applied for.
Skills

Your skills section should include the essential aptitudes that make you suitable for the role. You should make sure that you list both soft and hard skills.

Soft skills aren’t specific to any particular job role or sector but instead personality traits and character attributes. For example, soft skills that a certified medical assistant might list in their resume include communication skills, compassion and interpersonal skills such as active listening.

Hard skills are those that have been learned for a specific role and can be taught to others. This is a particularly essential section of the resume for highly specialized sectors such as medicine. A medical practitioner might include hard skills such as first aid, CPR, understanding vital signs, patient care, working with medical records and administering injections.

You may also wish to include a technical skills section where you can list expertise on specific equipment and processes.
Work experience

Your experience section will list the most relevant professional experience to the role you are applying for. Each entry should include the job title, work location, key responsibilities and start/end dates.

The strongest resume will list jobs in reverse chronological order. If you are looking to secure an entry-level position, then you can still list any previous roles where you performed specific transferable skills.
Education

Your education section should include the qualifications obtained (starting with the highest level), the institution, the grade achieved and the study dates.

If you are looking to secure a role that doesn’t require specialist training (such as a medical receptionist), or you are fresh out of school, then make sure to list that you achieved your high school diploma.
Certifications

Many medical practitioners who go on to specialize in different areas will usually have to complete additional training. You should make sure a hiring manager knows you have achieved the various certifications needed for these types of roles. Additionally, if your efforts have been recognized through awards and recognition, you should mention them here.

Was this not quite what you were looking for? Don’t worry. The examples below might be just what you need: