Pharmacist CV Example (New Zealand)

A pharmacy owner in New Zealand reads a Pharmacist CV with three questions in mind: is your Annual Practising Certificate from the Pharmacy Council current, can you be left in charge of the pharmacy on a Saturday, and which funded services can you deliver the day you start. Answer all three on the first page: registration and APC in the headline, the services you are accredited for in a short block under it, and your current pharmacy with the daily script numbers in the first job entry.

The Sample CV below is for a community pharmacist with seven years in Hawke's Bay, now charge pharmacist of a suburban pharmacy in Taradale. Her bullets are about the services that make a New Zealand pharmacy viable: the Long Term Conditions service, blister packs for rest homes, pharmacist vaccination, emergency contraception and the other pharmacist-only consultations, Pharmac funding rules and the Community Pharmacy Services Agreement, as well as supervising an intern through the Pharmacy Council's intern year and the controlled drugs register.

Tailor it to the pharmacy. An independent owner wants someone who can run the shop and grow services; a group pharmacy wants compliance, dispensary throughput and the ability to work across stores; a hospital pharmacy at a Te Whatu Ora district wants clinical ward work, medicines reconciliation and teaching; a rural pharmacy wants independence and a wide scope. The US counterpart of this page is the pharmacist resume example, written for American chains and health systems where the funding, the insurers and the scope of practice are all different. The Chronological template keeps the registration, services and jobs in the order a pharmacy owner reads them.

Updated . The person and employers in this Sample CV are fictional. Written for applicants in New Zealand; the page for applicants in the US is the pharmacist resume example.

Pharmacist sample CV

Drawn at A4 proportions, the paper a New Zealand CV is printed on.

Nikita Brownlee

Pharmacist, Pharmacy Council registered, current APC, charge pharmacist, vaccinator and LTC accredited

Taradale, Napiernikita.brownlee@example.com022 555 0154

Summary

Community pharmacist with seven years in Hawke's Bay, registered with the Pharmacy Council and holding a current Annual Practising Certificate, and charge pharmacist of a pharmacy dispensing around 220 items a day. Accredited vaccinator and Long Term Conditions pharmacist, supplying blister packs to two rest homes and running the pharmacy's vaccination clinic through the winter. Supervised an intern through the Pharmacy Council intern year and keep the controlled drugs register and the Medsafe licence audit-ready. Comfortable being the only pharmacist on duty and the person the GPs ring.

Experience

Charge Pharmacist, Puketapu Lane Pharmacy

– Present

Taradale, Napier

  • Run the dispensary with two technicians and a pharmacy assistant, checking around 220 funded and private items a day against Pharmac funding rules, Special Authority criteria and interactions, and claiming correctly under the Community Pharmacy Services Agreement.
  • Grew the Long Term Conditions service from a handful of patients to the majority of the pharmacy's eligible patients with multiple medicines, with adherence support and medicine reviews recorded for each.
  • Pack and check blister packs for two rest homes with 90 residents between them, working with their registered nurses on chart changes each week and running a quarterly medicines reconciliation with the prescribing GP.
  • Set up the pharmacy's vaccination clinic for influenza, COVID-19, MMR and pertussis, and the pharmacist-only consultations for emergency contraception, trimethoprim and sildenafil, each with a written procedure and consult record.
Pharmacist, Heretaunga Health Pharmacy

–

Hastings

  • Dispensed in a busy medical centre pharmacy with four GPs upstairs, handling repeats, Special Authority applications and close-control dispensing for opioid substitution patients.
  • Preceptored the pharmacy's intern through the Pharmacy Council intern training programme, including the assessment visits and the final assessment, with the intern registering on schedule.
  • Took the pharmacy through its Medsafe licence renewal and the controlled drugs audit, rewriting the standard operating procedures for the controlled drugs register and the safe.
Intern Pharmacist, Tukituki Valley Hospital

–

Hastings

  • Completed the intern year in a hospital pharmacy, with ward rotations in general medicine and surgery, medicines reconciliation on admission and discharge counselling.
  • Passed the Pharmacy Council assessment and registered as a pharmacist in the Pharmacist scope of practice.

Education

Bachelor of Pharmacy

Southern Alps University, Dunedin

Fourth-year placements in community and hospital pharmacy; research project on adherence in patients with multiple long-term conditions.

Skills

  • Dispensing and clinical checking
  • Pharmac funding rules and Special Authority
  • Community Pharmacy Services Agreement claiming
  • Long Term Conditions service
  • Blister packs for aged residential care
  • Pharmacist vaccination
  • Pharmacist-only medicines consultations
  • Controlled drugs register and Medsafe licensing
  • Medicines reconciliation
  • Intern supervision
  • Pharmacy dispensing software and the NZePS

Certifications

  • Registered Pharmacist, Pharmacist scope, Annual Practising Certificate current, Pharmacy Council of New Zealand,
  • Pharmacist Vaccinator, with CPR, Accredited vaccinator training provider,
  • Long Term Conditions service accreditation, Accredited training provider,
  • Emergency contraception and trimethoprim accreditation, Accredited training provider,

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 a New Zealand CV differs

A pharmacist's CV in New Zealand is written around the Pharmacy Council, Pharmac and the Community Pharmacy Services Agreement, none of which exist in the American page this one pairs with. Registration is in the Pharmacist scope of practice after an accredited degree and the intern year, renewed with an Annual Practising Certificate; the pharmacy itself holds a Medsafe licence and must have a pharmacist present to open; and most of the pharmacy's income comes through the national contract and Pharmac's schedule. A reader expects to see each of those named, then the setting and its size, in two sides of A4 with two referees.

For a pharmacist in New Zealand

  1. Registration and APC first

    Write registered pharmacist, the Pharmacist scope, the year of registration and that your APC is current. Give your registration number on request rather than on a CV you upload to a job board.

  2. Charge pharmacist readiness

    If you have been the pharmacist in charge, say so and for how long. A pharmacy cannot trade without a pharmacist present, so an owner is looking for someone they can leave the keys with.

  3. Accreditations listed one by one

    Vaccinator, Long Term Conditions, emergency contraception, trimethoprim, medicines use review and the minor ailments service are separate accreditations. Name each with the year so the owner can match you to the services they offer.

  4. Items a day and rest homes supplied

    Give the dispensary's daily volume, the number of staff you supervise and the rest homes you pack for. It is how an owner judges whether you have run a pharmacy of their size.

  5. Hospital roles at Te Whatu Ora

    Hospital pharmacy jobs are advertised through the Te Whatu Ora careers site with a position description. Write ward bullets with the clinical problem and what you did, because the panel will score them against the description.

  6. Overseas-registered pharmacists

    If you trained outside New Zealand, say whether you have passed the Pharmacy Council's assessment or are on the overseas pathway, and the date. Owners recruiting from abroad need it on the first page.

Every CV in New Zealand

A4 paper
New Zealand prints on A4. Set the page size before you export; a Letter-sized PDF is the usual sign of a US template.
Two pages is normal
Two pages is the norm. One page for a first job; a third page only for a long senior career.
No photo
No photo, date of birth or marital status. New Zealand employers do not expect them and most prefer the CV without them.
Dates as DD/MM/YYYY
Day first where a full date appears, and month and year for each role. Never the US month-first order.
New Zealand English
New Zealand English follows British spelling: organise, programme, centre, licence, specialise.
Suburb and city, not a street address
"Mount Eden, Auckland" is enough on the contact line. A full street address is not expected.

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

Templates for the pharmacist 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 pharmacist 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

Intern pharmacist in the final months of the Pharmacy Council intern year in a community pharmacy, sitting the assessment in the new year, with confident dispensing, counselling and a vaccinator course booked.

  • Dispense and counsel under supervision in a pharmacy with around 180 items a day, including blister packs and opioid substitution.
  • Run the pharmacy's blood pressure and warfarin monitoring clinic one afternoon a week.
  • Spent the degree's clinical placements on a medical ward and in an outpatient oncology clinic, charting interactions for the ward pharmacist.

Mid level

Three to seven years, owns a process or a workload

Hospital pharmacist with five years at a Te Whatu Ora district hospital, working across medical wards and the emergency department with a focus on medicines reconciliation and antimicrobial stewardship.

  • Provide the clinical pharmacy service to two general medical wards and the ED short-stay unit.
  • Co-chair the hospital's antimicrobial stewardship rounds with the infectious diseases physician.
  • Teach medicines safety to new graduate nurses and house officers each intake.

Senior

Eight years or more, leads people, budgets or programmes

Pharmacy owner and manager with fifteen years in practice, running two community pharmacies and the contracts, staff and compliance that go with them.

  • Own and manage two pharmacies with six pharmacists, four interns over the years and twelve support staff across both sites.
  • Hold the Community Pharmacy Services Agreement and the Medsafe licences for both, with clean audits at each renewal.
  • Built a vaccination and minor ailments service that the local general practices refer to.

Skills to put on the pharmacist CV

Hard skills

Clinical checking at pace
An owner wants to know you can keep a 200-item day accurate when the queue is to the door, because every error is a Pharmacy Council matter and a lost patient.
Pharmac and the funding rules
Special Authority, close control and the funded brand decide what the patient pays and whether the claim is accepted, and getting them wrong costs the pharmacy money each month.
Funded services
Long Term Conditions, vaccination, emergency contraception and medicines use reviews are how a New Zealand pharmacy earns beyond the dispensing fee, so each accreditation you hold is money the owner can see.
Aged residential care supply
Blister packs for rest homes are a large part of many pharmacies' work, and the accuracy and the relationship with the home's nurses are both yours.
Controlled drugs and licensing
The controlled drugs register, the safe and the Medsafe licence are inspected, and a pharmacist who keeps them in order protects the owner's licence.
Intern supervision
Many pharmacies take an intern every year, and a pharmacist who has preceptored one through the Pharmacy Council programme saves the owner the job.

Soft skills

Plain counselling
A patient who understands the new inhaler uses it, and the pharmacy's adherence results depend on how you explain it in the thirty seconds you have.
Being the only pharmacist
Most community pharmacies have one pharmacist on at a time, and an owner wants someone who makes the call and rings the GP without waiting.
Working with the medical centre
GPs, practice nurses and rest home nurses ring the pharmacist all day, and the pharmacy that is easy to work with gets the prescriptions.

Mistakes that cost pharmacist interviews

  1. APC not mentioned

    An owner checks the Pharmacy Council register before ringing. If the CV does not say the APC is current, they assume it is not, because a pharmacist without one cannot be rostered.

  2. Dispensing described as a duty

    Dispensed prescriptions is every pharmacist's job. Give the volume, the services around it, the funding rules you apply and the problems you caught, so the owner can see the pharmacy you ran.

  3. Accreditations left in a sentence

    Vaccinator and LTC buried in the summary are missed by a reader scanning for them. Put each accreditation with its year in the certifications block near the top.

  4. Patient details in examples

    Never include anything that could identify a patient, even a memorable intervention. Describe the medicine, the problem you found and what you did about it.

  5. American pharmacy language

    A state board licence, prior authorisations, insurance plans and US spelling read as a foreign CV. Use the Pharmacy Council, Pharmac, Special Authority and British spelling.

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

Questions about the pharmacist CV

What should a pharmacist CV include in New Zealand?

Registration in the Pharmacist scope with a current APC, each pharmacy with its daily volume and the services you delivered, your accreditations with the year, charge pharmacist experience, intern supervision, compliance work such as Medsafe and controlled drugs audits, and two referees.

How do I write a CV for my first pharmacist job after the intern year?

Lead with the intern year as a full entry: the pharmacy, its size, the services you delivered under supervision and the date you passed the Pharmacy Council assessment. Add any accreditation courses booked or completed and the placements from your degree.

What length does a New Zealand pharmacy expect a CV to be?

Two sides of A4. An owner or hospital manager reads registration, accreditations and the current pharmacy on the first page and the rest only if those fit; a third page is rarely read.

Do I list the services my pharmacy offered or the ones I delivered?

The ones you delivered, with your accreditation. If you set up a service, say so, because an owner wanting to add vaccination or LTC is looking for someone who has done it before.

Can a community pharmacist's CV get a Te Whatu Ora hospital interview?

Lead with clinical work such as medicines reconciliation for rest homes, interventions with GPs and counselling on complex regimens, and name any ward placements from your intern year. Address the position description's competencies directly in your application and consider a part-time hospital role to start.

Can I tailor the CV to each pharmacy without rewriting it?

Keep one full CV, then reorder the services and bullets to match what the advert asks for first. Resume Master reads the advert and rewrites the summary and bullets in its terms in a couple of minutes.

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