Free CNA Job Description Templates
Free CNA job description templates: skilled nursing, assisted living, home health, and PRN. Certified nursing assistant duties and skills.
CNA Job Description Templates
5 free templates by care setting. Download as DOCX or copy-paste.
A certified nursing assistant (CNA) is the person residents see most: the morning routine, the vital signs, the call light at 2 a.m., the familiar face families trust. The five templates below give you a ready-to-post CNA job description for each common care setting. My advice is to write this posting once, carefully, because you will be posting it again and again.
By Bureau of Labor Statistics counts, CNAs are one of the largest healthcare occupations in the country, and the hiring never stops, because the turnover never stops. Much of that hiring happens at small facilities and agencies, where every CNA posting is written by an administrator who also runs scheduling, compliance, and everything else.
At FirstHR, we build for exactly those teams: small care operators hiring constantly without an HR department. Each template includes the certification, registry, ratio, and differential fields that experienced CNAs actually screen for. Fill in the brackets honestly and post.
What Is a CNA Job Description?
A CNA job description is a document that explains a certified nursing assistant role's care setting, responsibilities, certification requirements, schedule, and pay so you can recruit and screen qualified candidates. It typically covers a facility summary, key responsibilities, the certification and registry requirements, the shift structure, an hourly pay range with differentials, and how to apply.
SHRM's job description guide says a job description outlines the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a position, and for a credentialed care role, that outline must include the credential. Because CNA is a state-certified title, the description does double duty: it advertises the job, and it states the verification your hiring process will run. Every CNA must hold an active certification in good standing on your state's nurse aide registry.
The same document also positions you against every other facility within driving distance. That is why the honest operational details (the ratio, the real schedule, the differentials) belong in the posting itself, not in the first interview.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template that matches your care setting. The core structure is the same across all five, but the responsibilities, requirements, and tone are written for each setting, because a skilled nursing shift and an assisted living shift are different jobs wearing the same credential. Use this guide to choose.
5 Free CNA Job Description Templates
Download all five at once as separate Word files in one ZIP, or copy individual templates. Each one follows the same structure: facility overview, job summary, key responsibilities, skills and qualifications, compensation, and how to apply. Fill in the brackets, especially the certification, ratio, schedule, and differential fields, before you post.
Template 1: CNA (General)
The universal baseline: daily care, vital signs, charting, and the certification and registry fields built in. Use this if your setting does not match a specific version below.
Template 2: Skilled Nursing / Long-Term Care CNA
For skilled nursing facilities: care plans, higher clinical needs, lift equipment, restorative care, and infection control, with ratio and differential fields.
Template 3: Assisted Living CNA
For assisted living communities: daily-living support, medication reminders per your state's rules, and the relationship-centered pace small communities offer.
Template 4: Home Health / Home Care CNA
For agencies: one-on-one visits under an RN case manager, independent scheduling, and the travel, mileage, and in-home professionalism terms stated plainly.
Template 5: PRN / Per-Diem CNA
For flexible coverage: a premium hourly rate in place of benefits, shift-pickup expectations, and a minimum-availability field, the small facility's answer to schedule gaps.
CNA Job Responsibilities
CNA job responsibilities center on hands-on daily care under the supervision of licensed nursing staff, and they fall into four categories. A good job description picks the duties that match the setting and care population rather than listing every possible task.
The mix shifts by setting: skilled nursing weighs toward clinical support and documentation under care plans, assisted living toward daily-living support and resident experience, home care toward independent visits and travel, and PRN toward fast adaptation across units.
Scope also has a hard boundary worth stating in the posting: CNAs work under nurse supervision and do not perform licensed nursing tasks. That is why every template here opens with a reporting line, usually to a charge nurse or director of nursing, and to an RN case manager in home care.
CNA vs PCA
The most common confusion in care hiring is CNA versus PCA or caregiver (PCA is short for personal care aide). The short version: certification is the dividing line, and your setting's regulatory requirements decide which role you can post.
| Trait | CNA | PCA / Caregiver |
|---|---|---|
| Completed state-approved training and passed the state exam | ||
| Listed in good standing on the state nurse aide registry | ||
| Provides hands-on personal care and daily-living support | ||
| Takes and records vital signs as a routine clinical task | ||
| Required for aide roles in Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing facilities |
In a Medicare or Medicaid certified nursing facility, the certification requirement is federal law: 42 CFR 483.35 bars anyone from working as a nurse aide for more than four months full-time unless they have passed a state-approved competency evaluation. The facility must also get registry verification before an aide starts, apart from state-approved trainees and new graduates not yet on the registry.
Both roles are essential in senior care, and many small operators employ both.
CNA Skills and Qualifications
CNA job description skills come in three layers: the credential, the physical capability, and the human skills that decide who thrives in care work. The posting should state all three specifically, because each one screens a different way.
| Weak requirement | Strong requirement |
|---|---|
| Must be certified | Active [state] CNA certification in good standing on the state nurse aide registry |
| Able to do physical work | Able to lift up to 50 lbs and assist transfers, including mechanical lifts |
| Good with people | Patient, respectful communication with residents, families, and the care team |
| Keeps records | Charts care accurately and on time in our documentation system |
| Reliable | Dependable across scheduled shifts, including the posted weekend rotation |
Keep the requirements honest and minimal beyond the credential, since over-specified postings filter out the dependable, compassionate people who learn a facility's routines in a week. Keep the language neutral and inclusive too: the laws the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces prohibit job advertisements that show a preference based on protected characteristics.
Physical requirements should be written as job-related capabilities with actual numbers. For recognized occupational tasks to borrow from, the O*NET profile for nursing assistants (SOC 31-1131) lists the standard duties and skills.
How to Write a CNA Job Description
A strong CNA job description takes about 15 minutes with a template, and because this hire repeats, the document pays for itself many times over. Here is the process the templates are built around.
CNA Salary
CNA pay is hourly, local, and differential-driven: the base rate gets candidates to read the posting, and the evening, night, weekend, and PRN differentials decide which facility they choose.
Benchmark against the facilities within driving distance, because CNAs compare offers locally and switch for small differences, and spell out all your differentials in the posting rather than saving them for the interview.
CNAs are hourly, non-exempt employees, so the overtime and recordkeeping rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act apply, PRN staff included. Overtime normally starts past 40 hours in a workweek.
Hospitals and residential care establishments such as nursing homes may instead adopt the 8-and-80 system by prior agreement, paying time and a half past 8 hours in a day and past 80 hours in a fixed 14-day period, as Department of Labor Fact Sheet #54 explains.
Hiring CNAs at a Small Facility or Agency
Large chains hire CNAs with recruiting teams, standing job ads, and HR departments that absorb the turnover. A small assisted living community, a family-owned nursing home, or a home care agency hires the same role with one administrator and a schedule that cannot wait. Here is how to write the posting, and run the hire, for that reality.
From Hiring to Onboarding
The job description is step one. The signed offer starts a sequence that gates the start date: certification verification on your state nurse aide registry, BLS/CPR confirmation, background checks and any state-required health screenings such as TB testing, then the I-9, W-4, new-hire reporting, and policy acknowledgments.
After the paperwork comes the part that decides retention: a deliberate first 100 days with orientation to your residents and routines, shadow shifts before solo assignments, and scheduled check-ins. Build the sequence once and rerun it for every hire. The offer letter template handles the offer, and an onboarding template structures the first weeks.
The healthcare onboarding guide covers the clinical-setting specifics. FirstHR connects the offer letter and policy acknowledgments with e-signature, document storage next to the verification checklist, and the onboarding workflow in one place, with training modules for your protocols, so a small facility can take a CNA from accepted offer to confident solo shifts the same way every time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the job description of a CNA?
A certified nursing assistant provides hands-on daily care for residents and patients, working under the supervision of licensed nurses. Core responsibilities include assisting with activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, and mobility, taking and recording vital signs, helping with meals and documenting intake, answering call lights, watching for changes in a resident's condition and reporting them to the nurse, and charting care accurately. The setting shapes the rest: skilled nursing adds care plans and lift equipment, assisted living adds medication reminders and a relationship-centered pace, and home health adds independent one-on-one visits directed by an RN case manager. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2023), nurse aides spend more time providing care to nursing facility residents than any other nursing staff.
What should a CNA job description include?
A CNA job description should include a short summary of your facility, the care setting and the residents you serve, 8 to 10 specific responsibilities, the certification requirements, the shift and weekend schedule, the hourly pay range plus differentials, and clear application instructions. Two parts decide whether experienced CNAs apply or scroll past. The first is the certification line, which names an active CNA certification in your state, a nurse aide registry listing in good standing, and BLS/CPR. The second is the operational truth CNAs check before anything else: how many residents each CNA covers, the actual shift pattern with its weekends, and every differential. A posting that publishes those details reads as responsibly staffed and draws the applicants vague postings never reach.
What is the difference between a CNA and a PCA or caregiver?
The difference is certification. A CNA has finished a state-approved training program, passed the state competency exam, and appears on the state nurse aide registry. That credential authorizes clinical tasks such as taking vital signs, and Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing facilities require it for their aide roles. A PCA or caregiver gives much of the same personal care, such as bathing, dressing, and companionship, but has no certification or registry listing and works without the clinical scope, under requirements that vary widely from state to state. Senior care needs both roles. Which one you post depends on what your setting's regulations require and how much clinical support your residents need.
What skills should a CNA job description require?
Ask for three things, in this order: the certification, the physical ability to do the work, and the people skills. Start with an active CNA certification from your state, with a nurse aide registry listing in good standing, plus current BLS/CPR certification. Then put specifics on the physical side: standing and walking through a whole shift, lifting up to a stated weight, and helping with transfers, mechanical lifts included in skilled settings. The people skills decide who thrives: patience, compassion, showing up reliably for every scheduled shift, communicating clearly with residents and families, and charting accurately and on time. Add what the setting calls for, such as a driver's license and a vehicle for home care, dementia-care experience for memory units, and the ability to adapt quickly for PRN roles.
What salary should I list for a CNA?
Anchor on the government baseline and adjust for your market and setting. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2025), nursing assistants earn a median of $42,260 a year, or $20.32 an hour, and the bureau's employment projections count roughly 1.5 million nursing assistant jobs in 2025. Local markets vary significantly, and within a market the differentials matter as much as the base: evening, night, and weekend differentials, PRN premium rates, and any shift-pickup bonuses. See what facilities within a short drive are posting, because that is the comparison your candidates will make. Always publish the range with the differentials spelled out: pay transparency laws increasingly require it, and experienced CNAs skip postings without numbers.
Why is CNA turnover so high, and what can a small facility do?
Turnover in this role is constant: Bureau of Labor Statistics projections for 2025 to 2035 expect roughly 196,200 nursing assistant job openings every year, with nearly all of them replacing workers who switch occupations or leave the labor force. The drivers are well known: physical demands, short staffing, pay competition, and feeling like a number. A small facility can beat the average precisely because it is small: honest ratios and schedules in the posting, competitive local pay with real differentials, a deliberate plan for the first 100 days with training and check-ins rather than a sink-or-swim first shift, and a culture where administrators know every CNA by name. Retention is won in onboarding, not in exit interviews.
How do I write a CNA job description for an assisted living community or home care agency?
Lead with the setting and the honest operating details. For assisted living, state the community size, the resident population, the medication-reminder scope your state's rules allow, and the relationship-centered pace that distinguishes you from a hospital floor. For home care, state the service area, the travel and mileage terms, the visit-scheduling approach, and the independence the role carries under an RN case manager. In both cases, publish the pay range with differentials, the real weekend expectations, and the certification requirements including registry standing. Small communities and agencies win on warmth, stability, and being known by name; the posting should sound like that.
What happens after I hire a CNA?
Once the offer is signed, a verification and onboarding sequence begins, and it controls when the new CNA can start. Check the certification against your state's nurse aide registry, make sure BLS/CPR is current, and complete the background checks and health screenings your state requires, such as TB testing. Next come the I-9 and W-4, your state's new-hire report, and signed policy acknowledgments. The first 100 days then need a plan of their own: time to learn your residents and their routines, shadow shifts ahead of any solo assignment, and check-ins on the calendar, since that stretch decides whether a new CNA stays. FirstHR collects e-signatures on the offer letter and policy acknowledgments, puts the I-9 and W-4 on the new hire's first-day task list with completed forms kept in the employee file, and runs the onboarding checklist and training modules for your protocols in one place, so a small facility can rerun this hire cleanly every time.