Healthcare · free guide

How to tailor your resume for a Medical Assistant role

A screener on a Medical Assistant posting checks certification, clinical skills, and the electronic record system before anything else, because those three lines do most of the filtering. Tailoring means moving your credential into your header line and matching the posting's named skills.

Four moves for this posting
  1. Put your CMA or RMA certification in the header line, matching the posting's own credential requirement; certified applicants get pulled first, and reviewers will not dig for it.
  2. List clinical skills by name, phlebotomy, EKGs, injections, matching the exact skills the posting names; assisted with patient care could mean almost anything to a screener.
  3. Name the electronic health record system you used, matching the posting's system if stated; familiar software shortens the training clock a practice is already budgeting for.
  4. Add your daily patient volume next to your specialty, pediatrics or family practice, matching the posting's setting; pace and setting together read as a real fit, not a guess.
The fact behind this

The claim that ATS systems auto-reject 75 percent of resumes traces to a 2012 marketing claim, not research. (traced to a 2012 vendor marketing claim)

Before you tailor anything

Start with the version a recruiter opens right now, then make these moves against it.

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