A medical assistant resume is a concise, professional document outlining your skills and experiences supporting healthcare operations. It’s written to demonstrate your competence to recruiters and hiring managers, helping you impress them and receive an invite for a job interview.
In this article, we’ll teach you to write an exceptional medical assistant resume that optimally highlights your key strengths and effortlessly grabs attention. We’re going to give you a step-by-step guide for every section and provide concrete examples to help you visualize what you’ve learned.
Without further ado, let’s dive right in!
Key Takeaways
The best resume format for most candidates is chronological, with functional and hybrid formats being suitable in specific cases.
A catchy resume objective or summary helps you grab the recruiter’s attention and persuade them to read the rest of the document.
The work experience section is typically the most important part of a medical assistant resume, and it can help you best demonstrate your qualifications.
Consider writing and submitting a cover letter alongside your resume to show genuine interest in the role and willingness to go the extra mile to get it.
Here’s a complete CMA resume example to give you an idea of what the final product should look like and help you when creating your own:
Keep reading to learn about the resume format, layout, and sections. This will help you quickly and effortlessly create a clear and impactful certified medical assistant resume like this one.
How to Format Your Medical Assistant Resume
There are three established formats you can use to organize the information in your document.
These formats yield the most success to job seekers, and they are:
Popular Resume Formats
Chronological. This is the most common resume format that presents your work history in reverse chronological order. That way, it gives recruiters an orderly insight into your career progress. Recruiters are also used to this format due to its prevalence. Moreover, it’s ATS-friendly, making it easy to pass the initial software screening.
Functional. The functional resume format is tailored toward entry-level medical assistants. It puts your skills as the main section, highlighting your key strengths when you don’t have work experience.
Combination. The combination or hybrid resume format mixes the elements of the previous two. It focuses on the candidate’s skills while backing up every skill with relevant accomplishments. This makes it perfect for experienced candidates with employment gaps, as there’s no clear timeline to follow.
Medical Assistant Resume Layout
A strong resume layout makes your document visually appealing and easy to read.
Here are some tips on how you can achieve that, even if you aren’t a graphic designer:
Resume Layout Guidelines
Condense your resume to one page unless you have decades of experience or the job ad explicitly requests more.
Choose a professional font for your resume, like Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman.
Set the font size between 10 and 12 pt.
Adjust margins to be at least 1 inch on all sides.
Line spacing should be 1.0 or 1.15.
Medical Assistant Resume Mandatory and Optional Sections
There are five mandatory sections your medical assistant resume should have to represent you as a suitable candidate, and these sections are:
Mandatory Resume Sections
Contact information
Resume objective or summary
Work experience
Education
Skills
On top of that, you can include several optional sections to improve your chances of impressing recruiters. These sections should be relevant to the role you’re applying for and only included if you have space left in the document after all the must-have sections.
Some optional sections to consider are:
Resume Optional Sections
Certifications
Languages
Hobbies and interests
Now that you know about the format, layout, and sections of your medical assistant resume, you can easily create a professional document from scratch. However, if you want to save time and minimize the chance of making a mistake, you should try our resume builder.
It comes with ready-made medical assistant resume templates that come with preset formats and layouts. Your job is to just input your details in predesignated spots and download a finished document. You can have your resume ready to be submitted in minutes!
Here’s an example of a professional template for a medical assistant resume you can find when using our resume builder:
Medical Assistant Resume Template
Name and Surname
Phone number: 000-000-0000 | Email: namesurname@gmail.com | Location: City, State
[Adjective] [your job title] with [years of experience, if applicable] in [your area of expertise, if applicable] looking for a [position] job at [company name]. Eager to apply [relevant skills] gained through [work/volunteer/other experience] to help [company name] [mention what you can do for the company].
Work Experience
Most Recent/Current Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For recent jobs, use 5-6 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Previous Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For recent jobs, use 5-6 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Oldest Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For older jobs, use 2-3 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Education
[Degree] in [Major] [University/college name] [Start date] - [Graduation date]
Skills
Soft Skills
Skill #1
Skill #2
Skill #3
Skill #4
Skill #5
Hard Skills
Skill #1
Skill #2
Skill #3
Skill #4
Skill #5
Additional Sections
Add any relevant additional sections (languages, licenses, publications, hobbies, etc.)
Resume templates
Resume templates that are designed to help you win a jobContact Information
Contact information is a straightforward section that goes in the header of your resume. It should feature the following details about you:
Mandatory Contact Information
Name
Job title
Phone number
Email address
While this is a must-have information, you can add optional details based on your qualifications and job requirements.
This includes:
Optional Details
Mailing address
LinkedIn profile
Let’s see what that looks like in an example:
Contact Information Section Example
Derrick Bond
Medical Assistant
+ 562 424 5298
derrickbond@example.com
linkedin.com/in/derrick.bond
Long Beach, CA
You should avoid adding sensitive information, like your age, gender, religious and political affiliations, and even a personal photo. Moreover, make sure that you have a professional email address and that you’ve thoroughly proofread this part for typos before submitting your medical assistant resume.
Objective and Summary
A resume objective and summary is an introductory section meant to act as an elevator pitch. In 2–4 information-packed sentences, you want to emphasize your key strengths to impress recruiters right off the bat.
If you’re an entry-level medical assistant, you should write an objective to highlight your skills and career goals. On the other hand, if you’re an experienced professional, a resume summary can help you point out one or two of your most notable work-related accomplishments.
Medical Assistant Resume Objective
When writing a medical assistant resume objective, you want to emphasize your skills relevant to the role and your motivation to contribute while progressing your career.
Here’s a good example:
Good Example
“Highly motivated recent graduate seeking an entry-level position as a Medical Assistant at Premium Care. Extensive knowledge of HIPAA and OSHA regulations. Proficient in reading EKGs and using EMR software. Eager to contribute to your organization on the road to becoming lead medical assistant.”
If you aren’t specific with your skills, drive, and career goals, you’ll end up with a poorly written objective, like in this bad example:
Bad Example
“Recent graduate looking for a junior job. No professional experience, but I’m a fast learner.”
Medical Assistant Resume Summary
A medical assistant resume summary should showcase one or two of your most notable achievements to highlight your past performance, indicating future results.
Let’s see that in a good example:
Good Example
“Certified Medical Assistant with more than 5 years of professional experience seeking a role at Advanced Care Clinic. Adept at monitoring vital signs, on average taking 25+ daily vitals in coordination with nurses. Used Zocdoc to streamline patient scheduling, boosting the clinic’s capacity by 13%, resulting in 21 more patients examined per week.”
However, if you don’t specify your accomplishments, you’ll end up with vague claims of expertise that likely won’t impress recruiters. Here’s a bad example showing how not to write a resume summary:
Bad Example
“Medical assistant veteran with years of experience looking for a new job. Skilled at both administrative tasks and minor surgery assistance.”
How to Add Professional Medical Assistant Experience to Your Resume
A professional experience section is generally the most important part of a resume, so let’s see how you can make it perfect.
General Tips
When listing your previous jobs in reverse chronological order, you want to make sure to include the following information for each one:
Work Experience Mandatory Details
Job title
Company name
Employment dates
List of achievements
The jobs you include should be relevant to the role you’re applying for. Recent employment is usually the most important, so you should include the most information about it while highlighting fewer details the further you go back into the past.
Here are some tips on how to best demonstrate your competence and write an outstanding work experience section:
Tips for Showcasing Your Experience
You should use bullet points instead of paragraphs to describe your achievements.
As a general rule, having 3–5 bullet points per previous job is the sweet spot.
Focus on exceptional accomplishments and remarkable results over everyday tasks.
Incorporate numbers and statistics to quantify your efforts and make them concrete.
Use action verbs and power words to make your writing stand out and be more memorable.
Medical Assistant With Little to No Experience
If you’re a medical assistant with little to no clinical experience in healthcare, you can leverage analogous activities and accomplishments that hint at your potential. For instance, you can add your work in administrative healthcare to your resume, as well as internships, volunteer experience, and other efforts.
Here’s an example of a candidate using their role of a medical office assistant in a resume to write a strong entry-level work experience section:
Medical Assistant With No Experience Example
Work Experience
Medical Office Assistant MediHealth Clinic Warren, MI
November 2022–Present
Achieved a 23% cost reduction by managing medical and office supplies inventory and finding good deals.
Helped admit 20+ patients per day, instructing them on relevant procedures and pointing them toward offices.
Contacted 450+ patients monthly via phone and email to provide follow-up reminders and instructions.
Experienced Medical Assistant
As an experienced medical assistant, you want to demonstrate a wide assortment of abilities that allow you to contribute to healthcare operations on every level. This includes showcasing everything from your administrative competence to your interpersonal skills.
Let’s see what that section could look like in an example of a medical assistant resume:
Experienced Medical Assistant Example
Work Experience
Medical Assistant MediHealth Long Beach, CA
November 2019–Present
Streamlined patient intake processes, reduced wait times, and enhanced patient communication to provide personalized care and boost patient satisfaction rate by 23%.
Assisted physicians in providing 250+ medical procedures per year, including wound care and minor surgeries.
Collaborated with an interdisciplinary team to implement an innovative patient onboarding and portal system, resulting in a 31% boost in patient engagement with digital resources.
Education Section
The main purpose of the education section is to authenticate your knowledge and skills.
When creating it, it’s usually enough to list the following details:
Education Section Mandatory Details
Your degree
The institution issuing it
Years of attendance
Here’s what that looks like in an example:
Education Example
Education
Associate Degree in Medical Assisting
Long Beach City College, Long Beach, CA
2016–2018
If you’re an entry-level professional with a modest work history, you can put more emphasis on your education. In that case, you can add a bullet list containing notable academic accomplishments, like high GPA, relevant coursework, extracurricular activities, etc.
Medical Assistant Resume Skills
Showcasing your medical assistant skills on your resume is a two-step process.
First, you want to research the company and read the job ad to determine which abilities recruiters look for in candidates. That will help you craft a tailored list to put in the skills section of your resume. Make sure to add hard skills first and then list soft skills separately, as they are different in nature.
Once you’ve given recruiters a concise overview of your skill set, you want to demonstrate your competence with suitable accomplishments. You can do this by adding your abilities in the resume summary and work experience sections next to relevant results.
Here’s a good example of a candidate showcasing their collaboration skills:
Good Example
Collaborated with five doctors and three nurses to provide adequate care to patients and ensure the availability of appropriate programs.
Note how this sample presents concrete activities with numbers to quantify them.
If you omit those, you’ll end up with a poor demonstration of your abilities, like in this example:
Bad Example
Collaborated with doctors and nurses.
Hard Skills
Hard skills are job-specific and are usually taught and learned through traditional means.
Here are some of the key hard skills to consider adding to your medical assistant resume:
Medical Assistant Hard Skills Examples
Patient assessment
CPR
Medicine administration
Administrative skills
MEDITECH
Zocdoc
CollaborateMD
HealthStream
Soft Skills
Soft skills are transferable between roles and professions and are typically gained through experience.
Some of the most sought-after soft skills for your medical assistant resume are:
Medical Assistant Soft Skills Examples
Communication
Attention to detail
Problem-solving
Empathy
Patience
What Other Sections Can You Add to Your Medical Assistant Resume
Other sections can significantly boost the impact your medical assistant resume has on recruiters, as they can contain invaluable information about additional qualifications relevant to the job.
Certifications
Certifications validate your expertise and show that you have the necessary knowledge and skills to perform in your role. Furthermore, they demonstrate exceptional levels of professionalism and commitment to the role. As a result, many employers often prefer candidates with relevant certifications.
Certain certifications may be required to apply for the job in the first place. For instance, being a Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) or Certified Clinical Medical Assistant (CCMA) can significantly boost your employability while improving your ability to provide medical assistance.
Languages
Language skills enhance your ability to communicate with patients and coworkers, especially with diverse populations and non-English-speaking individuals. The ability to better understand the patient and explain procedures leads to improved compliance and better outcomes.
When adding language skills to your medical assistant resume, you should pick an established framework of reference and list the languages in descending order, starting with the one you’re fluent in.
Hobbies & Interests
Hobbies and interests have a two-fold purpose in your medical assistant resume:
They add a personal touch to a formal document, helping you stand out from other candidates.
They can hint at valuable soft skills, such as leadership, teamwork, and organization.
If you decide to include this section, make sure to keep it brief and only mention things and activities you’re truly passionate about. Recruiters might use them as icebreakers or conversation topics during your job interview.
Do I Need a Cover Letter as a Medical Assistant?
You need a medical assistant cover letter to demonstrate genuine passion for the job and willingness to go the extra mile to get it. This document typically isn’t mandatory when applying for a job, but submitting it alongside your resume allows you to showcase motivation, personality, and additional qualifications.
To get the most out of your cover letter, you should write a new cover letter for every new position you apply for. This allows you to tailor the document—much like tailoring your resume—ensuring it perfectly emphasizes the skills and experiences needed for the position you’re after.
Cover letter templates
Create a cover letter by filling in a free template and sharing it for free.3 Final Tips for Creating a Medical Assistant Resume
Let’s finish this comprehensive guide on writing a medical assistant resume with several expert tips that will help you enhance your document to perfection:
Omit personal pronouns from your resume summary or objective. That way, instead of emphasizing that you’re looking for a job, you’re focusing on what you can provide to the employer. You’ll show how they can benefit from hiring you, increasing your chances of grabbing the recruiter’s attention.
Tailor your resume to each specific role you’re applying for. You always want to focus on particular skills and experiences required by the job ad. For instance, one role might require extensive proficiency in administrative tasks, while another might require soft skills.
Proofread the document before submitting it. This allows you to spot any mistakes or typos and correct them to showcase professionalism and attention to detail. Moreover, you can spot areas for improvement while proofreading, which will allow you to polish your writing and enhance your resume further.
Closing Thoughts
Medical assistants have a job outlook of 15%, which is significantly faster than average. This amounts to about 119,800 new job openings each year until 2033. Keep in mind that the competition can be fierce, which is why you want an excellent medical assistant resume to get ahead of the competition.
Remember to grab the reader’s attention with a catchy resume objective or summary and impress them with your work experience. And if you’re an entry-level candidate, you should focus on your skills, academic accomplishments, and relevant experiences outside of healthcare. Best of luck!
