Pharmacy Assistant Resume Sample (All Experience Levels)

You’ve got your pharmacy assistant certification. You can navigate the weirdest kinds of pharmacy software and actually pronounce the names of medications without accidentally summoning a demon.

So getting a pharmacy assistant job should be easy, huh?

Erm… not really. You might be slowly coming to believe that recruiters need to get some memory-enhancing supplements. After all, they keep forgetting to invite you to job interviews.

Fortunately, there’s a remedy for this.

Discover our prescription for a successful pharmacy assistant resume that gives recruiters the irresistible urge to hire you. You’ve already got the ingredients—now let’s combine them in the right proportions!

This guide will show you: 

• A pharmacy assistant resume example better than 9 out of 10 other resumes.
• How to write a pharmacy assistant resume that will land you more interviews.
• Tips and examples of how to put skills and achievements on a pharmacy assistant resume.
• How to describe your experience on a resume for a pharmacy assistant to get any job you want.

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Sample Pharmacy Assistant Resume

Want to have a pharmacy assistant resume like this one? Just follow our step-by-step guide!

1. Create a Solid Structure for Your Pharmacy Assistant Resume

Even though pharmacists are famous for being able to decipher the most cryptic handwriting, don’t assume your prospective employer is going to enjoy reading a badly structured resume. Especially, since recruiters look at a single resum for an avarage of 7 seconds.

Let’s start with basic resume formatting. Make sure you’ve set even margins on a resume on all sides of your document. Choose a classic, easy-to-read resume font that won’t give the reader an allergic reaction. Set the line spacing to 1.15.

Then create the following sections:

• Resume Header with contact info (name, location, email, LinkedIn… but please no photos!)
• Summary Statement or Career Objective
• Work Experience
• Education Section
• Skills Section
• Additional Sections (Conferences, Extra Training, Volunteering, Certifications, Etc.)

Ensure there’s lots of space between the sections. This will help guide the reader’s eye and make sure they can find key information easily.

When structuring the work experience and education sections, opt for the reverse-chronological format. This is when you start with your latest resume achievements and move backwards in time, ending with your earliest successes.

Remember to save your resume as a PDF file unless the job ad clearly says you need to submit a DOC file.

Why?

Well, Word documents (DOC files) can look strange when opened on another computer if it has a different version of Word or doesn’t have certain fonts installed. PDFs, on the other hand, look the same on all devices, from phones to smart TVs.

Still got questions about resume formatting? Check out: Best Resume Layouts

2. Showcase Your Achievements in the Work Experience Section of Your Pharmacy Assistant Resume

Now’s the time for the most important active ingredient in your resume, namely your work experience. Don’t be afraid to invest some time into crafting it.

Here’s the exact procedure.

When describing your work experience, make sure you’re using the reverse-chronological order: your most recent experience goes first.

Each entry should contain:

• The exact job title
• The name and location of the company you worked for
• The month and year when you started, followed by the month and year when you left
• Up to 6 bullet points that will help you highlight your achievements on a resume

But how do you write these bullet points for maximum impact?

First, remember to describe your achievements rather than your duties and responsibilities. You can be responsible for something, but mess it up anyway.

When talking about your achievements, you can use the so-called PAR (Problem-Action-Result) formula. Let’s say you were working at a pharmacy that had a problem: some of the medications on the shelves were past their expiration date. You discovered the problem and took action: you got rid of the expired products and restocked the shelves. As a result, you prevented patients from getting potentially dangerous expired drugs.

Here’s how you would put this on your resume:

Prevented the sale of expired medications by monitoring inventory and disposing of 150 expired products according to safety procedures.

Did you notice the number 150 in the previous sentence? Recruiters pay close attention to numbers, so it’s a good idea to quantify your achievements whenever possible.

But before you dive straight in and write a bullet point about how you kicked 2 pigeons out of the pharmacy in a whopping 3.5 minutes…

…read the job ad carefully. Make sure your achievements are relevant to what the employer wants to see.

That’s enough theory for now. Let’s look at some examples.

Sample Pharmacy Assistant Resume: Work Experience

Wow, this person is really good at what they’re doing, and they’ve got some impressive numbers to back up their achievements. And this usage of resume action words is just on point! Definitely worth hiring.

OK, so this person showed up and did something. But hiring them would be like buying snake oil—there’s no evidence of measurable effects.

But wait a moment… 

Both samples, different as they are, come from the same candidate. However, the second sample lacks essential active ingredients that have an immediate heart-melting effect on recruiters.

Alright, all these tips about including measurable achievements make sense if you’ve got some prior job experience as a pharmacy assistant.

But what if you don’t?

Spoiler: even if you’re applying for your first pharmacy assistant job ever, you’ve already got some achievements that you can show off in your resume.

You can include your previous jobs, internships, and even volunteering activities—as long as they showcase skills and achievements that are at least somewhat relevant to the job you’re applying to.

Pharmacy Assistant Resume Sample (No Experience)

This candidate used to work as a retail sales associate at a fashion store. Yes, this job has nothing to do with pharmacies. But the bullet points highlight transferable skills and qualities that a pharmacy assistant needs, too:

• Attention to detail (needed to operate a POS system accurately)
• Using a POS system
• Proven customer service skills—if the candidate isn’t good at customer service, they wouldn’t be asked to train new hires

If this candidate also has a pharmacy assistant certificate, hiring them is an absolute no-brainer.

Yes, it’s the same job as above. But the bullet points describe pretty irrelevant skills.

(Unless, of course, they’re applying to a pharmacy that also sells clothes and needs a person to fold them…)

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3. Prove You’re Qualified for a Pharmacy Assistant Job with a Well-Written Education Section 

Now’s the time for the next ingredient of your job-winning pharmacy assistant resume: education.

For some jobs, the education section isn’t particularly important. But not in the medical field. If you’re not certified, no one’s going to let you mix a diaper rash cream, let alone complex prescription meds.

Of course, if you’ve already got considerable work experience as a pharmacy assistant, you won’t have to go into detail about your education: just mention your latest degree or certificate and maybe add a few short bullet points.

But if you’re just starting out, it’s a good idea to expand your education section with more details. For example, you can list relevant coursework and academic achievements.

Note: If you have a degree, don’t list your high school anymore. But if you don’t, and especially if you’re a rookie candidate, go ahead and mention how you excelled in math and science back then.

Just don’t go too far back on your resume and write how you loved to mix meds for your teddy bear when you played doctor as a kid.

Here’s what your education section could look like if you’re a seasoned pharmacy assistant.

Pharmacy Assistant Resume: Education (Experienced Candidate)

This candidate has considerable work experience behind their belt, so there’s no need for a super-detailed overview of their coursework.

In this example, the candidate didn’t bother to write the full name of their college but chose to include some pretty random (and unverifiable) info instead.

But what should you write if you’re applying for your first pharmacy assistant job?

Pharmacy Assistant Resume: Education Section (No Experience)

This candidate went a little further back and chose to include their high school diploma on their resume. There’s a good reason for it: after all, they’re applying for their first job as a pharmacy assistant after completing a 5-month certificate program, so it makes sense to mention their academic achievements in high school.

4. List Your Pharmacy Assistant Skills

 After you’re done with the education section, it’s time to move on to your skills.

You may be tempted to throw everything you can do into one big bulleted list and hope to impress your prospective employer. However, it’s about as effective as treating a viral cold with a whole bunch of antibiotics.

You need to make sure your skills list clearly matches the skills your prospective employer wants to see. 

How do you achieve this? By following these simple steps:

• Make a master list of all the skills you’ve learned at work and at school. Include both your hard skills and your soft skills.
• Read the job ad once again and identify all skills-related keywords. That's how you can ace an ATS-friendly resume!
• Notice which skills from the master list appear in the ad. These are the skills that will go on your resume—aim for somewhere between 5 and 10 of them.
• Read the work experience and education sections again and edit the bullet points slightly so that they highlight the specific skills you’ve included in the skills section

What skills can you put on your resume? Check out these two lists. One is a general list of skills you might want to include, and the other is an example taken from Ms. Wilson’s resume.

Skills on a Pharmacy Assistant Resume (Bucket List)

• Problem-Solving
• Computer Skills
• Communication Skills
• Attention to Detail
• Customer Service Skills
• Pharmacy Software Skills (Kroll, Nexxys etc.)
• Data Entry Skills
• Prescription Dispensing Skills
• Product Safety Practices
• Manual Dexterity
• Organizational Skills
• Time Management Skills
• Prioritizing

When applying for a job, fill the skills section of your resume with 5–10 skills that appear in the specific job ad. Yes, this means you’ll have to tailor your skills section to each job ad you’re responding to—but the extra effort is definitely worth it!

Pharmacy Assistant Resume: Sample Skills Section

• Kroll
• Data entry skills
• Manual dexterity
• Attention to detail
• Customer service skills
• Prescription dispensing skills
• Product safety practices
• Time management skills
• Problem-solving

5. Add Extra Sections to Your Pharmacy Assistant Resume

Why add more sections to your resume when you’ve already written about your work experience, education, and skills?

For the same reason that drug manufacturers add caffeine to headache meds: it makes them more effective.

Extra resume sections enhance the overall impact of your resume and make the recruiter’s heart beat faster if used correctly.

You can dedicate a section to your additional certifications, if you have any. You can also make a section for your professional awards, volunteering activities, or pretty much anything that will make a good impression on your prospective employer.

One common extra section is Hobbies and Interests. Here’s why you should consider adding a hobbies section to your resume:

• It shows your skills and qualities in a new light
• It makes for a great conversation starter at job interviews

Just make sure you don’t mention anything that could cause controversy. For example, making political memes is NOT a good hobby for most resumes.

Also, take care to avoid potentially weird hobbies. Let’s say you collect books about the different poisons used for assassinations throughout history. It’s an intriguing hobby, but it just doesn’t look right on a pharmacy assistant resume.

Example of Extra Sections for a Pharmacy Assistant Resume

Making model ships is a hobby that requires great dexterity and attention to detail, qualities that come in handy when compounding medications.

As for orchids, they’re notoriously hard to keep alive unless you’re a meticulous person with a decent knowledge of chemistry and biology. Yes, just the kind of person who’d make a good pharmacy assistant.

6. Craft a Powerfully Concentrated Pharmacy Assistant Resume Summary (or Objective)

Now’s the time for the most highly concentrated ingredient of your pharmacy assistant resume—the summary (or objective). It's the introduction to the resume.

It’s like a powerful extract that packs a massive dose of your awesomeness into a few super-concentrated sentences. And it has to be so effective that it gives recruiters heart palpitations and an obsessive desire to invite you to an interview.

But how do you craft something like that? And what’s the difference between a resume summary and a resume objective?

Let’s start with the second question.

A resume summary is a short, catchy text that summarizes your key achievements and shows how you’re going to achieve even more great things for your new employer. If you’ve got some work experience and achievements you can be proud of, go for a resume summary.

A resume objective shows that you’ve got what it takes to achieve great things for your new employer—even though you’re just starting out.

OK, but how do you actually write it?

Don’t worry, you’ve already got all the ingredients. You’ve prepared them in the previous steps when you described your work experience, education, and skills.

Re-read the previous sections of your resume and choose 2–3 achievements and skills that closely match the requirements in the job ad.

Now, just combine them according to the following prescription:

Adjective + Job Title + Years of Experience + Achievements + Skills + What You Want to Do for the Employer

You’ll come up with something like this:

Sample Pharmacy Assistant Resume Summary

This resume summary goes straight to the recruiter’s head like a dose of Super Ultra Aspirin Double Forte. It’s short, straightforward, and clearly proves that this candidate is worth hiring.

This summary is like one of those shady supplements you can buy online—there’s absolutely zero evidence of effectiveness and you never really know what you’re getting.

Now let’s look at some resume objectives.

Beginner Pharmacy Assistant Resume: Objective Examples

This candidate has experience operating a POS and serving customers, so they’re well-prepared for the part of a pharmacy assistant’s life that involves dealing with people. And since they’re certified, they can do the rest, too.

Look, employers don’t really care that you want to get a job. They care about hiring someone who’ll help them achieve their business goals. If you don’t explain what you can do for the employer, they’ll just shrug and move on to the next candidate.

7. Impress Recruiters with a Pharmacy Assistant Cover Letter

After all the effort you’ve just made, writing a pharmacist cover letter for an assistant might be the last thing you want to do now.

But a cover letter is absolutely worth it. Many employers won’t even bother to read a resume that doesn’t have a cover letter attached to it. Yes, it’s true that some employers don’t require cover letters, but they’ll still appreciate the extra effort.

So there’s no reason to skip the cover letter.

Fortunately, writing cover letters isn’t any more difficult than mixing a simple ointment. Just follow our prescription for success.

To start a cover letter, you must write a pretty basic header: your contact information, the date, and the recruiter’s name and company info. It’s best to address your cover letter to a specific person if you know their name.

Then you write “Dear…” (if you don’t know the recruiter’s name, opt for something like “Dear Hiring Manager”), put a comma, and dive into your first paragraph.

In this first paragraph, mention a big achievement of yours, drop a name, or use some other attention-grabbing tactic to keep the recruiter reading.

Then go ahead and provide more proof of your awesomeness, all while making sure that the things you’re writing are relevant to the job.

After that, explain why you’d like to work at this particular pharmacy. Maybe you’re impressed by the award it won recently. Maybe a drug they made saved your Grandma’s life, so now you’re a loyal fan.

End a cover letter with a call to action: ask the reader to schedule a call or invite you to an interview. Then, sign your name… and you’re almost done!

Why almost?

Well, if you’ve got a spectacular story to tell, you can mention it in the P. S. Like this:

To learn more about this cover letter structure and see examples, check out: Ultimate Cover Letter Writing Guide

A great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

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See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Key Takeaway

Congratulations on getting so far! If you’ve followed all the steps outlined above, you’ve got a near-perfect resume and cover letter just waiting to get sent.

But let’s recap the entire prescription for a pharmacy assistant resume once again, just in case:

• Structure and format your document so that it looks professional
• Add your name and contact info to the header
• Describe your work experience, focusing on your accomplishments rather than duties
• Provide some info on your education—as much as necessary
• List the skills that your potential employer wants to see
• Enhance your resume with some extra sections like Awards or Hobbies
• Distill everything you’ve written into a powerful resume summary or resume objective
• Complement your resume with a cover letter

Thanks for reading my guide! Now I’d love to hear from you: 

• What are the biggest challenges of writing a pharmacy assistant resume? 

• What part do you struggle with the most? 

Let me know. Let’s get the discussion started!

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This article has been reviewed by our editorial team to make sure it follows Zety's editorial guidelines. We’re committed to sharing our expertise and giving you trustworthy career advice tailored to your needs. High-quality content is what brings over 40 million readers to our site every year. But we don't stop there. Our team conducts original research to understand the job market better, and we pride ourselves on being quoted by top universities and prime media outlets from around the world.

Sources

• https://careerservices.wvu.edu/blog/2021/01/29/how-to-tailor-your-resume-to-impress-employers
• https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Interests-on-a-Resume-Dec.-2018.pdf