Medical directors look for NCCPA status, state license, and recent procedure volume on the first page, because that combination tells them whether a PA can take a panel without a long ramp.
Recent graduate PAs are coming off rotations with a fresh NCCPA pass and no full-time clinical record yet. This resume needs to prove rotation depth, procedures logged, and the specialty interest you're recruiting into.
Experienced PAs have two to seven years in a defined specialty with autonomous patient management under physician supervision. This resume needs to prove patient volume per shift, procedure breadth, and the EMR you run unsupervised.
Lead PAs supervise other advanced practice providers, run quality metrics, and sit in on hiring. This resume needs to prove the team size you direct, throughput gains you delivered, and protocol or pathway work you led.
Hannah Velasquez, PA-C
Portland, OR | (503) 555-0164 | [email protected] | linkedin.com/in/hannahvelasquez-pa
Physician Assistant with 11 years across primary care, women’s health, and dermatology. Built and now run an independent panel of 1,850 patients in a family medicine clinic, with strong outcomes on chronic disease metrics and high patient retention. Comfortable supervising MAs, precepting students, and serving as the clinic’s go-to for complex skin and gynecologic visits.
Physician Assistant, Family Medicine
Willamette Crossing Family Health | Portland, OR | 2019-Present
Physician Assistant, Women’s Health
Cascade OB/GYN Associates | Vancouver, WA | 2016-2019
Physician Assistant, Dermatology (Per Diem)
Rose City Skin Center | Portland, OR | 2017-2021
Physician Assistant, Urgent Care
Greenline Walk-In Clinic | Beaverton, OR | 2013-2016
Lead your summary with patient volume per shift, the specialty setting, and your supervision model. A medical director reads that line as your readiness to carry a panel.
Name your years certified, your current specialty, and the acuity you handle. A line like “NCCPA-certified PA with five years in level II emergency medicine, 28 to 35 patients per shift” tells more than a paragraph of adjectives.
Drop the “compassionate provider” framing. Lead clinicians weigh census, acuity, and procedure independence first.
Bullets without a number tend to read as duties, not capability. Name patients per shift, procedures per year, and the panel size you covered.
Strong PA bullets carry three metrics: volume, scope, and outcome. For example, “Managed 30 patients per shift in a 45-bed ED, performed 200+ lacerations and 60+ I&Ds annually, kept door-to-provider under 18 minutes.”
If you work in a clinic, swap shift volume for daily census and visit type mix. Recruiters scan for these numbers before they read your education.
Cluster bullets into three or four buckets so a clinical lead can scan one section per question they have. Common buckets: autonomous patient management, procedures performed, diagnostic workup, and care coordination.
Under procedures, list the real skills: suturing, joint injections, lumbar puncture, central line placement, skin biopsies, incision and drainage, fracture reduction. Match the bucket vocabulary to the posting.
Under care coordination, name the handoff: ED-to-admit, derm-to-Mohs, ortho-to-PT. That tells a director you understand the downstream workflow.
Put a credentials block in the upper right of page one with state license (state and “in good standing,” no number), NCCPA certification, and BLS, ACLS, or PALS as the role requires.
Credentialing teams verify these before a clinical reader sees the resume. If they’re buried on page two, you slow the file down.
Name the EMR you run unsupervised, Epic, Cerner, athenaOne, or eClinicalWorks, in the same block. Specialty PAs should add the registry or society membership, AAPA or a specialty academy, on the next line.
End the resume with your PA program, graduation year, and clinical rotations if you’re within five years of graduation. New grads should list all rotations with site, weeks, and one outcome bullet each.
Add a CME line with hours logged in the current cycle and the topics, especially if you’re moving specialties. A director reading a derm-to-EM transition wants to see suture and airway CME.
Skip high school, GPA after year two, and shadowing hours once you have clinical employment.
The skills below come from physician assistant resumes our users built on ResumeTemplates.com. Medical directors and physician recruiters scan dozens of resumes a week, and these are the skills that show up most often. Clinical leads weight hard skills first: NCCPA status, EMR fluency, and the procedure list decide whether you get a callback.
Soft skills like patient communication carry weight when a bullet shows them in action. Match the tables against your target posting, then use the soft skills as evidence anchors inside your procedure and panel bullets.
| Soft Skills | % of resumes with this skill |
|---|---|
| Patient communication | 79% |
| Empathy | 68% |
| Clinical judgment | 49% |
| Team collaboration | 37% |
| Adaptability | 32% |
And here are the top hard skills showing up most often.
| Hard Skills | % of resumes with this skill |
|---|---|
| Patient assessment | 66% |
| Clinical diagnosis | 50% |
| EHR documentation | 43% |
| Treatment planning | 35% |
| Suturing and procedures | 27% |
Based on data from thousands of physician assistants’ resumes built on ResumeTemplates.com, May 2026.
These are the must-haves hiring teams look for when scanning a physician assistant resume.
Credentialing teams check licensure before a clinical reader sees your file. Make these lines easy to scan on page one.
Every PA role requires a state license issued by the medical board where you’ll practice. Compact licensure across states does not exist for PAs the way it does for nurses, so list each state you hold separately.
Do not publish your license number on the resume itself. State and “in good standing” is the standard line; the number goes on the application form.
NCCPA requires 100 CME credits per two-year cycle, with at least 50 Category 1. Show the director you’re current and moving with intent.
List CME hours logged in the current cycle and the topics, especially if you’re moving specialties or adding a procedure to your scope. A short “recent CME” line with three or four topics carries more weight than a hidden line item.
If you’ve completed a residency or fellowship program for PAs, list it as its own block above CME with the host institution, specialty, and graduation date.
Clinical leads want to know which EMR you can run unsupervised on day one. Name the system, the version where it matters, and your scope inside it.
Your resume circulates by email, ATS portal, and recruiter forwards. Treat it like a public document when it comes to patient data.
Never name a patient, family member, or identifying detail in a bullet, even with names changed. “Managed a 32-year-old with new-onset DKA” describes a real visit on a real day at a real hospital.
Use volume, acuity level, and condition category instead. “Managed 20+ DKA admissions annually in a level II ED” carries the clinical signal without the privacy risk.
NCCPA certification (PA-C) is the floor. A Certificate of Added Qualifications (CAQ) signals specialty depth and moves your resume up the stack for specialty hiring.
State licensure and current NCCPA certification keep you eligible. The certifications below are what move a physician assistant resume from the qualified-but-typical stack into a medical director’s shortlist. List each with issuing body, year earned, and expiration month.
The top-paying states for physician assistants cluster in low-supply markets where rural health systems and specialty groups compete for a thin candidate pool, not in the coastal metros most PAs target first. Reimbursement structures, supervision laws, and scope-of-practice rules shift the ceiling by state more than national tables suggest.
If you’re geographically flexible, lead your resume with multi-state licensure or a clear willingness to credential, and name the specialty acuity you carry so a rural medical director sees ramp time, not relocation friction.
| # | State | Avg. Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | $163,020 |
| 2 | California | $161,080 |
| 3 | Washington | $156,990 |
| 4 | New York | $152,650 |
| 5 | Oregon | $149,130 |
| 6 | Rhode Island | $141,600 |
| 7 | New Jersey | $140,490 |
| 8 | New Mexico | $139,990 |
| 9 | Minnesota | $139,300 |
| 10 | Missouri | $139,200 |
| # | State | Workers | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | 19,390 | $152,650 |
| 2 | California | 13,570 | $161,080 |
| 3 | Florida | 10,570 | $127,200 |
| 4 | Texas | 10,030 | $132,810 |
| 5 | North Carolina | 8,520 | $128,540 |
Resume Templates offers HR approved resume templates to help you create a professional resume in minutes. Choose from several template options and even pre-populate a resume from your profile.
Most clinical PA jobs in the US ask for a resume, not a CV. Academic medicine, research roles, and some teaching hospitals want a CV with publications, presentations, and grants.
If the posting says "CV," send a CV. If it says "resume" or doesn't specify, send a two-page resume.
New grads often submit a CV-style document with rotations listed in full. That's acceptable for the first two or three years out of program.
List the state and "license in good standing" without the license number. State boards advise against publishing license numbers on documents that circulate widely.
Put the line in your credentials block on page one, alongside NCCPA-C and your DEA registration status.
Provide the actual number on the employer application form or during credentialing when asked.
Include shadowing only on a new-grad resume, and only if it's relevant to the specialty you're applying to. Once you have your first PA job, drop shadowing entirely.
New grads should list shadowing under a "Pre-PA clinical experience" section with hours, setting, and what you observed.
Keep it separate from clinical rotations so a director reads the right experience as the right experience.
Two pages for most experienced PAs. One page for new grads with a tight rotation list.
Three pages only for academic or research-heavy CVs. Medical directors will read page two if page one earns it.
Lead page one with credentials, summary, and current role. Push older roles and CME to page two.
Rewrite your summary and procedure list to mirror the new specialty's vocabulary, even when the underlying skills transfer.
A derm-to-EM move should foreground suturing, I&D, and biopsy volume, plus any urgent care or moonlighting shifts.
Add a CME line showing recent coursework in the target specialty so the director sees you're already closing the gap.
For a physician assistant, an ATS-friendly template is the safest pick, because it puts your certifications and experience where a hiring manager scans first. A basic template is a solid alternative. Whichever you choose, keep the formatting clean and easy to parse: clear section headings, a standard font, and no graphics a parser can choke on.
Executive Resume Writer and Career Coach
Andrew Stoner is an executive career coach and resume writer with 17 years of experience as a hiring manager and operations leader at two Fortune 500 Financial Services companies, and as the career services director at two major university business schools.
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