Care Support Worker ATS CV Template: Ready to Use

One column, four sections in this order: header (name, "Care Support Worker — Care Certificate", phone, town, driving licence if held), work experience, qualifications and training, key skills. Add one availability line — shifts, weekends, sleep-ins — because in a sector this short-staffed, that line alone can trigger the phone call.

For every role, the first line must answer three questions: what setting, which client group, how many people supported. Example: "Care Support Worker — Oakfield House (residential, 40 beds, dementia care)". The following bullets cover duties and contributions, with numbers wherever honest ones exist.

The classic care CV mistake is staying in the emotional register — "compassionate", "caring", "patient" — with no proof. Convert each quality into practice: compassion becomes "personal care delivered to each resident's recorded preferences"; attention to detail becomes "daily notes completed every shift in Nourish"; teamwork becomes "handover contributions and monthly care plan reviews".

List your training precisely, because recruiters filter on it: moving and handling (practical, not just e-learning), safeguarding adults, medication awareness, first aid, plus specialisms like dementia, PBS, epilepsy awareness or end-of-life care. Dates matter — mandatory training expires, and a current certificate saves the employer money and time.

Care hires for attitude and trains for skill, but your CV must show a path: put "Care Certificate — in progress" or "enrolled, Level 2 Adult Care" in the header if true. Surface every relevant experience: caring for a family member, volunteering with older people, customer-facing work with vulnerable customers, first aid at work.

Add the fast, cheap signals that reassure immediately: a DBS check started or on the Update Service, free online safeguarding or dementia-awareness courses completed, and explicit availability. These show you invested in the sector before being paid to.

Residential and nursing homes want group-setting evidence: residents per shift, handovers, working alongside nurses. Supported living wants independence-building: goals supported, community access, travel training — supporting people to do, not doing for them. Domiciliary care wants reliability logistics: driving licence, lone working, punctuality, communication with families, and call-logging apps.

Mirror the advert's exact vocabulary. If it says "adults with learning disabilities and autism", your CV should contain that phrase — not just "vulnerable adults". In Australia and New Zealand, translate compliance terms: NDIS Worker Screening, Certificate III in Individual Support, or the NZ Certificate in Health and Wellbeing.

First: vagueness about settings and client groups — "experience in care" says nothing a manager can act on. Second: claiming duties outside your role or training, such as medication administration you were never signed off for; it signals risk, and care recruiters are professionally allergic to risk. Third: unexplained gaps or a new employer every few months with no reason — in a reliability-first sector, an unreadable work history is disqualifying.

Finally, keep the layout ATS-safe: one column, a standard font, no photo, no tables or graphics. Large providers and agencies run parsing software, and whatever it cannot read, no human will ever see.