Healthcare Assistant CV Example (Ireland)

Healthcare Assistant posts in Ireland are filled by a Clinical Nurse Manager or a Director of Nursing in a nursing home who checks two things before reading anything else: the QQI Level 5 in Healthcare Support, and whether Garda vetting is done or can be done quickly. After that they look for the kind of care you have given, to whom, and whether you can be trusted with a patient's dignity when nobody is watching. A CV that answers those questions on the first half page gets a call for interview.

The Sample CV below is for an HCA with three years in an HSE general hospital and a private nursing home in Co. Kerry, with hotel housekeeping before that. Its bullets name the ward, the number of residents or patients, the manual handling and the observations she is signed off to do, and the one thing on each job that a manager would remember.

Tailor it to each advert. An acute hospital asks for vital signs, blood glucose and patient moving on a busy ward; a nursing home for personal care, dementia care and the HIQA standards; a home care agency for working alone and recording visits on a phone. Use the words of the job description. The US counterpart of this page is the medical assistant resume example, a clinic role in America that is mostly administrative and clinical support; an Irish HCA works at the bedside. The Civic template keeps the CV plain for HSE portals and agency uploads, and the nurse CV guide for Ireland explains the HSE application form that HCA posts in hospitals also use.

Updated . The person and employers in this Sample CV are fictional. Written for applicants in Ireland; the page for applicants in the US is the medical assistant resume example.

Healthcare Assistant sample CV

Drawn at A4 proportions, the paper an Irish CV is printed on.

Mairéad Scanlon

Healthcare Assistant, QQI Level 5 Healthcare Support, Garda vetted, acute hospital and nursing home experience

Tralee, Co. Kerrymairead.scanlon@example.com085 555 0142

Summary

Healthcare Assistant with three years across a 32-bed medical ward in an HSE hospital and a 48-bed private nursing home, holding the QQI Level 5 Major Award in Healthcare Support with current Garda vetting and manual handling. Trusted to take vital signs and blood glucose readings, to help patients and residents wash, dress, eat and move safely, and to notice and report a change before it becomes an emergency. Works days, nights and weekends and is known on the ward for keeping confused patients calm.

Experience

Healthcare Assistant, Medical Ward, Slieve Mish General Hospital

– Present

Tralee, Co. Kerry

  • Provide personal care, pressure area care, help at mealtimes and safe mobilisation for up to nine patients a shift on a 32-bed acute medical ward, working alongside a Staff Nurse on twelve-hour days and nights.
  • Take and record temperature, pulse, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and blood glucose on the morning round and report any reading outside the INEWS parameters to the nurse straight away.
  • Trained in hoist, slide sheet and stand aid use and chosen as the ward's manual handling champion, checking colleagues' technique and the equipment log each week.
  • Sit with patients with delirium or dementia as a special, keeping them safe and settled without restraint, and recorded the behaviour chart that led to one patient's medication being reviewed.
  • Keep food and fluid balance charts and stool charts complete on every patient allocated to me, which the ward's dietitian singled out at the last audit.
Healthcare Assistant, Ballyard Lodge Nursing Home

–

Tralee, Co. Kerry

  • Cared for twelve residents on a dementia unit of a 48-bed home, including washing, dressing, continence care, meals, activities and end-of-life care with the resident's family present.
  • Wrote daily care notes on the home's electronic system and contributed to each resident's care plan review every four months with the nurse in charge.
  • Took part in two HIQA inspections, showing the inspector a resident's care plan and the manual handling records with no findings against the unit.
Accommodation Assistant, The Laune Hotel

–

Killorglin, Co. Kerry

  • Serviced up to fourteen rooms a day to the hotel's standard, including deep cleans and infection control during the pandemic.
  • Covered the front desk on quiet afternoons and handled guest requests and complaints politely.

Education

QQI Level 5 Major Award in Healthcare Support

Kerry Coast College of Further Education, Tralee, Co. Kerry

Modules in care skills, care support, safety and health at work, infection prevention and control, and care of the older person; work placement in a nursing home.

Leaving Certificate

Ballyroe Community School, Tralee, Co. Kerry

Skills

  • Personal and intimate care with dignity
  • Vital signs and blood glucose
  • INEWS observations and reporting
  • Manual handling, hoists and slide sheets
  • Dementia and delirium care
  • Pressure area care
  • Food, fluid and stool charts
  • End-of-life care
  • Infection prevention and control
  • Electronic care notes
  • HIQA standards for residential care
  • Working nights and weekends

Certifications

  • Garda vetting completed, National Vetting Bureau,
  • People Moving and Handling, Hospital training department,
  • Basic Life Support for Healthcare Providers, Irish Heart Foundation,
  • Children First and Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults, HSeLanD,

Start yours from this example

Opens this sample in the editor, in one of the templates below. Swap in your details, then tailor it to each vacancy in about two minutes.

Use this example

How an Irish CV differs

An Irish Healthcare Assistant CV is read against the HSE's essential criteria for the grade: the QQI Level 5 Major Award in Healthcare Support or an equivalent, Garda vetting, manual handling, and experience in a care setting. Hospital posts are advertised on the HSE careers site or through a hospital's own portal and use the HSE application form; nursing homes and home care agencies take the CV directly and often interview within the week. The job is bedside care under a nurse, with no clinical administration, and HIQA's standards for residential care shape what a nursing home manager looks for.

For a healthcare assistant in Ireland

  1. QQI Level 5 on the first page

    Name the award and the modules, or the equivalent qualification if you trained abroad. Many adverts make it essential, and a manager will not read further until they find it.

  2. Garda vetting and manual handling with the year

    Write that vetting is completed through your current employer or your college, or that you are willing to be vetted, and give the date of your people moving and handling certificate. Both decide how soon you can start.

  3. Setting, numbers and patient group

    A 32-bed medical ward, a dementia unit of twelve residents or a home care round of eight clients tells the manager the pace and the type of care. Give each job its setting and the number of people you looked after.

  4. Clinical skills you are signed off for

    Vital signs, blood glucose, INEWS, catheter care and ECG recording are signed off by the employer, not the college. List each one so a hospital can place you on the ward that needs it.

  5. Hospitality and retail count

    Hotel, retail and childcare jobs show reliability, customer care and physical work. Keep them to two lines each and say what they taught you about looking after people.

Every CV in Ireland

A4 paper
The page is A4. Irish employers print and file on A4, and a Letter-sized PDF is the first sign a CV was written for the US.
Two pages is normal
Two pages is the norm for an Irish CV. Graduates fit one; nobody needs three unless the role is senior.
No photo
No photo, date of birth or marital status. Irish employers do not ask for them, and leaving them off keeps the page about the work.
Dates as DD/MM/YYYY
Day, month, year where a full date appears; month and year for each role. The US month-first order confuses the reader.
Irish English
Irish English follows British spelling: organise, programme, centre, licence, specialise.
Town or Dublin postal district, not a street address
"Dublin 8" or "Cork" is enough on the contact line. A full address is not expected, and the US-style "City, ST 12345" line never is.

More on applying in Ireland, with every CV example for it, on the Ireland page.

Templates for the healthcare assistant CV

All templates

Every template exports on A4. The previews are drawn on Letter; the editor sets the page size when you export.

How the CV changes with experience

The same healthcare assistant CV, written at three levels: a profile and three bullets for each.

Entry level

Zero to two years, or a first post in the title

Applicant for a first Healthcare Assistant post, finishing the QQI Level 5 in Healthcare Support with a nursing home placement completed and Garda vetting in progress, after two years caring for a grandparent at home.

  • Completed a four-week placement on a dementia unit, helping residents with personal care, meals and activities under the nurse in charge.
  • Cared for a grandparent at home with daily washing, dressing, medication prompts and hospital appointments for two years.
  • Hold a manual handling certificate and a Basic Life Support certificate dated this year.

Mid level

Three to seven years, owns a process or a workload

Healthcare Assistant with five years in an HSE acute hospital, now on the emergency department floor, signed off for observations, ECG recording and patient moving in resus.

  • Support the triage nurse with observations and ECGs on up to forty patients a shift.
  • Keep patients on trolleys in the corridor fed, hydrated, repositioned and informed on the busiest nights.
  • Mentor new HCAs through their first month and sign off their manual handling competency.

Senior

Eight years or more, leads people, budgets or programmes

Senior Healthcare Assistant and multi-task attendant in a community hospital, leading the HCA team on the day shift and running the unit's manual handling and infection control training.

  • Coordinate six HCAs across a 40-bed community hospital, allocating residents and covering gaps with the CNM.
  • Deliver the hospital's annual manual handling refresher as a certified instructor.
  • Represent HCAs on the hospital's quality committee and helped rewrite the falls care plan.

Skills to put on the healthcare assistant CV

Hard skills

Personal care
Washing, dressing, continence and feeding are most of the day, and a manager wants to know you can do them with the patient's dignity intact and without being asked twice.
Vital signs and INEWS
Hospitals rely on HCAs for the routine observations, so being able to take them accurately and say when a reading is outside the parameters is the first clinical skill they check.
Manual handling
People moving and handling training is a legal requirement before a first shift, and a current certificate means you can start without waiting for a course.
Dementia care
Most nursing home residents and many hospital patients live with dementia, and an HCA who can settle a distressed person without restraint is asked for by name.
Charting and care notes
Fluid balance, food charts and daily notes are what HIQA inspectors and dietitians read, and incomplete charts are the commonest finding against a unit.
Infection prevention and control
Hand hygiene audits and isolation precautions are run on every ward, and an HCA is on the audit as much as any nurse.

Soft skills

Patience
A resident who refuses to wash or a patient who asks the same question ten times is the ordinary day, and interviewers listen for how you respond.
Noticing and speaking up
The HCA is at the bedside most, and a manager wants one who tells the nurse when a patient looks different from yesterday.
Reliability on the roster
A home or a ward runs short when an HCA calls in, and a record of covering nights, weekends and bank holidays is a real reason to shortlist.

Mistakes that cost healthcare assistant interviews

  1. Leaving out the QQI award

    A CV that says caring and hardworking but never names the Level 5 in Healthcare Support fails the essential criteria before anyone reads the experience. Put the award and the year in the headline and in education.

  2. Writing duties instead of people

    Assisted residents with daily living describes every HCA in the country. Say how many residents, on what kind of unit, and give one moment where your care changed something, such as a settled night for a distressed resident.

  3. No observations or manual handling

    A hospital places HCAs by the skills they are already signed off for. If you take vital signs, record blood glucose or use a hoist and do not say so, you look like a first-day applicant.

  4. An American medical assistant CV

    Scheduling, insurance, phlebotomy in a clinic and front desk work belong to the US role. An Irish HCA CV is about bedside care, charts, manual handling and working with the nurse in charge.

  5. Gaps with no explanation

    Time caring for a family member, studying or raising children is ordinary and a manager understands it. One line that names it is better than a gap the manager has to ask about.

Write bullets with the XYZ formula: what changed, the number that shows it, and how you did it, in one line.

Questions about the healthcare assistant CV

Do I need the QQI Level 5 to work as a Healthcare Assistant in Ireland?

For HSE hospitals and most nursing homes, yes, or at least to be enrolled and have completed the core modules. Some home care agencies take applicants who are doing the course and have manual handling and Garda vetting. If you trained outside Ireland, write the qualification and the country and say you are happy to have it assessed.

Is one page enough for an HCA CV in Ireland?

One page is enough for a first post, two for an HCA with several settings and signed-off skills. Keep the award, vetting and your current job on the first page; a manager often decides from that alone.

Should I apply through the HSE or directly to a nursing home?

Both. HSE hospital posts go through the HSE careers site with the application form and a panel, which can take months. Nursing homes, section 38 and 39 agencies and home care companies recruit from the CV and interview quickly. Many HCAs start in a home and move to a hospital once the panel is formed.

What should a Healthcare Assistant put as skills?

Personal care, manual handling with the equipment you use, the observations you are signed off for, dementia care, charting, infection control and the shifts you can work. Keep it to the skills you have actually been trained in; the interview will ask about each one.

Can I become a nurse from an HCA post?

Yes. The QQI Level 5 in Healthcare Support or Nursing Studies is a recognised route into the general nursing degree, and some hospitals sponsor HCAs through it. If that is your plan, one line saying so shows commitment and does not count against you.

How do I tailor an HCA CV for a hospital, a nursing home and a home care agency?

Lead with observations and manual handling for a hospital, dementia care and HIQA for a nursing home, and working alone and recording visits for home care. Paste the advert into Resume Master and it reorders your bullets around that employer's words in a couple of minutes.

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