Healthcare is a massive and important industry that contains all sorts of professionals. To land a job in healthcare, you must understand what relevant skills employers are searching for. In this guide, we will cover key healthcare skills to include on your resume and why doing so is so important.
When we speak of healthcare skills, what we are referring to are the skills needed to provide medical and health-related services to patients.
The reality of healthcare is that it involves many different professional roles.
For instance, healthcare institutions need administrators as much as they need caretakers!
Healthcare involves a mixture of both interpersonal and technical skills.
As such, there is a wide range of different skills that may be useful to include on a resume.
Whenever you are writing a resume with a specific industry in mind, including relevant skills to that industry is key.
By including your healthcare skills on your resume, you can show employers your specific qualifications for the job.
Plus, if the job description contains skills the employer desires, this allows you to showcase your skills that have been requested by the employer.
The key to writing a strong healthcare resume is to tailor the document to the job.
If you need more help learning to tailor your resume, read our guide on how to Tailor Your Resume to Any Job in 4 Easy Steps.
As mentioned, the key to adding healthcare skills to your resume is to include both interpersonal and technical skills.
Here is a quick definition of each to guide you when selecting your skills:
In healthcare, employers will likely be looking for very specific hard skills on resumes.
This means you should place a greater emphasis on these.
However, including soft skills is still important.
Doing so shows employers that you know the value of human interaction and strive to be a good communicator on top of being technically skilled.
In this section, we will provide you with 10 of the top hard skills healthcare employers search for.
Plus, we will cover 5 soft skills that are essential for healthcare workers!
If you need some extra help brainstorming skills to include on your resume, check out our list of 100+ Key Skills for a Resume in 2021 (with Examples for Any Job).
There are two main formatting options for listing your healthcare skills on a resume:
Generally speaking, you should include both a work experience and a skills section on your resume and divide your skills between them.
Soft skills are typically better suited in the work experience section, as this gives you more room to explain them and provide context.
By contrast, hard skills don’t always need much extra explanation.
This makes them more suitable for a super concise and separate skills section.
Incorrect:
Work Experience
Patient Care Technician, Family Hospital
February 2016 – March 2021
• Earned CPR and First Aid certification
• Trained in Microsoft Outlook
• Provided urgent care to patients
Why It’s Wrong: Rather than focusing on the responsibilities of the Primary Care Technician role, the applicant focuses too heavily on certifications and technical skills.
In the work experience section, the skills you add should always be used to emphasize and give greater context to your experience.
Correct:
Work Experience
Patient Care Technician, Family Hospital
February 2016 – March 2021
• Implemented a new patient care process that increased patient satisfaction by 10 percent
• Managed email correspondence with patients through Microsoft Outlook
• Provided daily urgent care to walk-in patients
In this corrected example, certifications have been removed to include in a separate section.
The new descriptions are much more specific and quantifiable.
They are also much more relevant to the job being described.
Hint: Are you trying to write a resume with little to no work experience?
Check out our guide on How to Write a Resume with No Work Experience in 2021 (with Examples).
Incorrect:
Healthcare Skills
• Empathetic
• Positive
• Data Entry
Why It’s Wrong: In this example, the skills section focuses too much on hard skills and there is not enough context given around the skills.
Though you want to keep your skills section as short as possible, providing a few extra words that clarify your skills is key.
Additionally, skills like “empathy” can encompass many other skills – being more specific can be helpful.
Correct:
Healthcare Skills
• Payment History Data Entry
• Management of Medical Records
• Active Listening to Patient Concerns
In this corrected example, the focus has been shifted towards the applicant’s technical skills.
Plus, the extra words provide more specific context around how the applicant uses these skills.
As a healthcare professional, you always want to work to improve your skills.
This is especially true if you do not have many relevant skills to include on a resume!
Here are 3 ways to improve your healthcare skills:
The healthcare industry is made up of many essential workers striving to make the world a healthier place.
When applying to this industry, including your specific healthcare skills is key.
Here are our top 5 takeaways for including healthcare skills on a resume:
Easy Resume is here to help you write your perfect resume. Be sure to check out our expansive collection of free resume guides and career advice articles!
Ed is a co-founder of Easy Resume. His background in scaling teams at tech startups over the last decade has given him extensive experience and knowledge around how to hire top talent and build successful teams. He enjoys mentoring, coaching, and helping others reach their career goals. When he's not writing about career-related advice, he's playing with his dog, Lilo, or going on long hikes in upstate New York.
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