Veterinary Assistant Resume

Veterinary assistants are dependable individuals who work in animal hospitals, clinics, and vet offices. So if you’re applying for your first animal care role or simply updating your current veterinary assistant resume, you need to prove to hiring managers that you’ll succeed as their next vet assistant.

We provide three writing tips to help you make an effective veterinary assistant resume that highlights your animal caretaking abilities and sets you apart from other candidates.

1. Include your veterinary assistant hard and soft skills

Veterinarians seek responsible vet assistants who can help them with physical and administrative tasks throughout the day. So listing your hard and soft skills is a great way to show hiring managers that you’re a highly motivated and qualified applicant.

First, include your hard skills (learned skills from training or practical experience) in:

• the skills section of your resume
• your work experience section
• a 2–4 sentence resume objective

For instance, hiring managers look for vet assistants who can handle different animals and understand their behavior. So whether you’ve looked after pets before in casual settings or received extensive training from veterinary courses, list these abilities on your vet assistant resume.

Vet assistants should also have administrative skills, such as answering emails and scheduling appointments for pets and their owners.

If you have any of these vet assistant-related hard skills, give examples of them on your resume: 

• Cleaning and maintaining equipment
• Computer skills
• Data entry
• Feeding, bathing, and giving medication to animals
• Giving injections
• Language skills
• Medical terminology
• Performing lab tests
• Preparing treatment rooms

Also, veterinary assistants need to work well with colleagues and pet owners, so list your soft skills (also known as people skills). Hiring managers are more likely to consider you for an interview if they see you’d be a good cultural fit for their team.

Here are some of the best vet assistant soft skills for your resume:

• Communication skills
• Customer service skills
• Empathy
• Interpersonal skills
• Organizational skills
• Patience
• Professionalism
• Time management skills

And if you list your veterinary soft skills in your skills section, include direct examples of these qualities in your work experience bullet points too.

For example, this applicant’s work bullet point explains how they used organizational skills in a past vet assistant job:

Performed 30+ blood draws and collected 45+ urine and stool samples accurately by clearly labeling them and categorizing them by date

2. Describe your relevant experience on your vet assistant resume

Employers prefer hiring vet assistants who have relevant experience. So put all your applicable skills, years of experience, and education on your vet assistant resume.

If you have them, include the vet assistant–related qualifications below to show hiring managers you’re comfortable working in an animal-friendly environment:

• volunteer work you’ve done with animals or in medical care
• animal welfare or work experience you’ve gained 
• extracurricular activities that relate back to the role
• certifications or degrees relevant to veterinary medicine or animal care (e.g., a degree in Animal Science)

For instance, if you’ve volunteered at an animal shelter, then make a section for it in your vet assistant resume and call it “Relevant Experience” or “Volunteer Experience.”

The vet assistant applicant below doesn’t have any formal work experience. However, they show their passion for animals by describing a previous volunteer role on their vet assistant resume:

3. Enhance your work bullet points with hard numbers

Even if you’ve cared for animals or completed administrative tasks, you’re still competing with other experienced vet assistant applicants for the role.

So insert hard numbers in each of your work experience bullet points to provide more details about your resume accomplishments and show the results of your previous vet assistant-related roles. Hard numbers for vet assistants can include:

• percentages (such as reduced wait times or an increase in customers)
• the number of animals you treated
• amounts of money you handled

Below is an example of our veterinary assistant resume example’s work bullet points. These bullets have hard numbers and specific details that show employers what the applicant can do:

Hard numbers shown on a veterinary assistant resume example

VIDA CLINIC, Oro Valley, AZ

Veterinary Assistant, July 2019–March 2020

• Administered anesthesia, vaccine, subcutaneous, intramuscular, and topical shots to a variety of animals
• Cleaned, sterilized, and maintained 20+ kennels, operating rooms, 30+ cages, and surgical equipment
• Assisted 20+ animals with personal hygiene needs and other daily tasks, such as giving baths, feeding, and cleaning their surroundings