Dignified care
Seeks consent, explains actions, protects privacy, adapts communication, and respects choice.
Completes the task efficiently but speaks about people as routines or ignores preferences.
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Certified Nursing Assistant Job Description
A Certified Nursing Assistant provides delegated personal and basic nursing care, observes changes, and supports comfort, dignity, mobility, and safety under required supervision.
Verify the local title, certification, register status, delegated scope, staffing model, and care setting before use.
Candidate-facing template
Edit the description for your organisation
Replace bracketed details, remove anything that is not genuinely required, and obtain the appropriate internal approval before advertising.
Ready-to-edit job description
Copying excludes all recruiter notes below.
Certified Nursing Assistant
- Location
- [Location or working arrangement]
- Employment type
- [Full-time, part-time, temporary, per-diem, or shift-based as locally applicable]
- Reports to
- [Registered Nurse or named clinical supervisor]
About the role
[Organisation name] is seeking a Certified Nursing Assistant for [unit or service]. You will provide respectful delegated care, assist with daily living and mobility, observe and report changes, and maintain safety and documentation within your verified scope.
What you will be responsible for
- Support hygiene, dressing, nutrition, hydration, toileting, repositioning, mobility, and comfort according to the care plan.
- Take and record authorised observations and report changes, pain, skin concerns, intake, output, behaviour, or deterioration.
- Use approved moving, handling, falls, infection-prevention, identity, and equipment procedures.
- Protect privacy, dignity, choice, communication, and cultural or accessibility needs during personal care.
- Document care promptly and escalate safeguarding, consent, capacity, or safety concerns through the clinical route.
What success looks like
- People receive timely, respectful care consistent with the plan and delegated instructions.
- Changes in condition are recognised, reported, and documented without delay.
- Mobility, skin, nutrition, hydration, falls, and infection risks are managed through assigned preventive care.
Essential qualifications
- Current nursing-assistant certification, registration, checks, and work eligibility required locally.
- Demonstrated competence in the delegated care, observation, mobility, and infection-prevention duties.
- Compassionate communication that preserves dignity, consent, privacy, and individual choice.
- Ability to perform stated physical functions safely with available equipment and reasonable adjustments.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with [care setting, patient population, speciality, or home-care model].
- Current approved life-support, dementia, behavioural support, or other setting-specific training where required.
Tools and working knowledge
- Electronic or paper care-record system
- Approved observation, mobility, transfer, and pressure-care equipment
- Personal protective equipment, call systems, and incident or safeguarding tools
Compensation: [Add approved hourly range, currency, shift and weekend differentials, overtime, benefits, travel, and certification support.]
[Organisation name] will assess essential care functions individually and discuss reasonable adjustments, equipment, and accessible hiring arrangements.
How to apply
Apply through [secure method] with locally required certification and screening evidence; only provide sensitive information through approved channels.
Performance expectations
What good performance looks like
Use these outcomes to replace vague activity lists with the evidence the hiring manager expects to see after the person joins.
Care plans and delegated instructions are followed with accurate completion records.
Escalation is timely, factual, and directed to the accountable clinician.
People experience dignity, communication, comfort, and choice during intimate or routine care.
Hiring-manager intake
Questions to settle before advertising
Record specific answers so sourcing, screening, and interview decisions use the same definition of the role.
- 1
What title and credential are recognised in this jurisdiction and setting?
- 2
Which care, observation, specimen, mobility, feeding, or medication-support duties may be delegated?
- 3
What staffing ratios, supervision, shifts, breaks, overtime, travel, and lone-working conditions apply?
- 4
Which physical, exposure, safeguarding, violence, and emotional demands must be described accurately?
Evaluation criteria
Evidence to use in a Certified Nursing Assistant scorecard
Agree the criteria before interviews begin, then score examples against the same evidence standard.
Observation and escalation
Notices change, records facts, judges urgency within training, and contacts the accountable clinician.
Waits for certainty, diagnoses independently, or reports vaguely.
Safe mobility support
Checks the plan, equipment, environment, assistance level, and person’s current condition.
Uses manual force or habit instead of the assessed method.
Structured interview
Certified Nursing Assistant interview questions and strong signals
Ask the same core questions in the same order, then use follow-ups to understand the candidate’s individual contribution.
1
Tell me about a time routine care revealed an important change.
Strong answer signal
Explains observation, immediate safety, escalation, documentation, and response.
2
What would you do if a person refused personal care?
Strong answer signal
Respects refusal, explores communication and comfort, checks capacity or risk through the appropriate clinician, and documents.
3
How do you respond when workload pressure conflicts with safe care?
Strong answer signal
Prioritises immediate risk, seeks support, communicates delays, and does not bypass identity or mobility controls.
Related titles
Check the scope behind the title
Nursing Assistant — may describe the same work without a certification term in some locations.
Nurse Aide — a locally regulated or commonly used title in some systems.
Healthcare Support Worker — can have a broader or different delegated scope depending on jurisdiction.
Common hiring mistakes
Problems to remove before publishing
Using “CNA” internationally without checking whether the title or certification exists locally.
Hiding lifting, repositioning, exposure, shift, home-visit, or emotional demands.
Including nursing assessment, diagnosis, or independent medication duties outside the assistant scope.
Continue the hiring workflow
Related roles and recruiter resources
Related job descriptions
Helpful recruiter resources
AI Candidate Screening Software
Support consistent evidence review with qualified oversight.
Recruitment Pipeline Management
Coordinate credential checks, assessment, and decisions.
Interview Question Generator
Draft questions after local care duties are verified.
Candidate Experience Guide
Create a respectful and well-communicated hiring process.
Source and review notes
How this template was prepared
- Language
- International English
- Prepared by
- ATZ CRM Editorial Team
- Review
- ATZ CRM Recruitment Editorial Review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-05
O*NET: Nursing Assistants
Reference for occupation tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities, and work activities.
ESCO: occupations and skills
Reference for internationally recognised occupation and skills terminology.
Local health profession regulator and employer clinical governance
Confirm current registration, delegated duties, safeguarding, supervision, and scope requirements with the regulator and employer for the role location.
Qualifications, compensation, licences, working conditions, and equal-opportunity wording must be checked for the role and location before use.
Recruiter questions
Certified Nursing Assistant job description FAQs
What should a CNA job description include?
Include locally permitted duties, certification, supervision, care setting, patient group, schedule, staffing, physical demands, exposure, safeguarding, documentation, and escalation.
Can a CNA administer medication?
This varies by jurisdiction, additional credential, setting, delegation, and employer policy. Confirm with the local regulator and clinical governance team.
How should physical requirements be written?
Describe the actual essential tasks, frequency, environment, equipment, and team support, then assess reasonable adjustments individually rather than using a generic lifting statement.