Medical Assistant Skills for a Resume

Clinics hire medical assistants who keep patients moving through the day while getting the clinical details right. Show both sides of the job, the procedures you perform and the office work you handle, with the number of patients you room in a day.

Updated

14 skills at a glance

Hard skills

What the work takes, how a hiring manager judges each skill, and a bullet point that shows it.

  1. Rooming patients and vital signs

    Give the volume and the specialty. A family practice and a cardiology clinic expect different things.

    Example bullet pointRoomed patients for two providers in a busy pediatric practice, keeping visits on schedule through flu season.

  2. Phlebotomy

    Mention the draws you do and any certificate. Many clinics need an assistant who can draw blood with confidence.

    Example bullet pointDrew blood from adults and children in the clinic, so fewer patients had to make a second trip to an outside lab.

  3. Injections and immunizations

    Name the kinds you give and how you record them, for example in the state immunization registry.

    Example bullet pointGave flu and childhood vaccines and recorded each dose in the state immunization registry the same day.

  4. EKG

    Say how often you run them and that you check each tracing before it reaches the provider.

    Example bullet pointPerformed EKGs and fitted Holter monitors in a cardiology clinic seeing 40 patients a day.

  5. Point-of-care testing (strep, flu, glucose, urinalysis)

    List the tests you run and mention quality-control logs, which clinics are inspected on.

    Example bullet pointRan rapid strep, flu and glucose tests and kept daily quality-control logs ready for inspection.

  6. Electronic health records

    Name the system, such as Epic or athenaOne, and the tasks you do in it.

    Example bullet pointUpdated medication lists, allergies and histories in athenaOne before each visit, so providers started with current records.

  7. Prior authorizations and referrals

    Show speed and follow-through, because delays here hold up a patient's care.

    Example bullet pointGot most imaging authorizations approved within three days by sending complete clinical notes with the first request.

  8. Scheduling and insurance verification

    Show that you keep the schedule full and the claims clean.

    Example bullet pointChecked insurance for the next day's patients every afternoon, cutting claim denials for eligibility.

  9. Sterilization and infection control

    Mention the equipment you run and the logs you keep.

    Example bullet pointRan and logged autoclave cycles and spore tests for a dermatology practice.

Soft skills

Shown through what you did, never claimed as adjectives.

  1. Putting patients at ease

    Describe patients who were nervous or in pain and how you helped them through the visit.

    Example bullet pointTalked anxious children through vaccines with distraction and simple explanations, keeping visits short and calm.

  2. Multitasking

    Show the demands you balance: phones, rooming and results on the same morning.

    Example bullet pointCovered the front desk and the back office on short-staffed days, checking patients in between rooming.

  3. Attention to detail

    Point to accuracy in records, labels or medication lists.

    Example bullet pointCaught a duplicate medication on a patient's list during intake and flagged it for the provider.

  4. Discretion

    Mention privacy rules such as HIPAA and how you handle sensitive information.

    Example bullet pointMade sensitive results calls in private and followed HIPAA rules for every message left.

  5. Teamwork

    Show how you helped providers and colleagues keep the day running.

    Example bullet pointShared rooming across three providers during absences, so no patient waited more than 15 minutes.

Licenses and certifications

Give them a section of their own, with who issued each one and the year or expiry date.

  • Certified Medical Assistant, CMA (AAMA)
  • Registered Medical Assistant, RMA (AMT)
  • Certified Clinical Medical Assistant, CCMA (NHA)
  • Basic Life Support (BLS)

Keywords from medical assistant job postings

Use the ones that are true for you, in your bullet points as well as your skills list.

  • patients a day
  • vital signs
  • injections
  • EKG
  • prior authorizations
  • Epic
  • athenaOne
  • urgent care
  • family medicine
  • vaccines

Each posting has its own words. Our guide to tailoring your resume to a job description shows how to find them and where to put them.

Where to put your skills

  • In a skills section: a short list of the hard skills the posting names, in its words.
  • In your bullet points: every skill that matters should show up in something you did, with a result. That is where a hiring manager believes it.
  • In your summary: two or three of the skills the job asks for most.

More on choosing them in how to choose and prove the skills on your resume.

Questions

What skills should a medical assistant put on a resume?

Clinical skills such as vital signs, phlebotomy, injections, EKGs and point-of-care tests; office skills such as scheduling, insurance checks and prior authorizations; the records system you use; and soft skills like putting patients at ease and attention to detail.

Do medical assistants need a certification?

Not in every state, but many employers prefer or require one, such as the CMA, RMA or CCMA. List it in its own section with the year you earned it.

Should I split clinical and office skills?

It helps. Two short groups show a hiring manager at a glance that you can work at both the front and the back of the office.

Put them to work

Start from a medical assistant resume that already uses these skills, for an invented person, and make it yours in the builder.

Use this exampleRead the medical assistant resume example