A CNA job description stacks a handful of core parts: the job title and setting, the hands-on duties, the certification and registry requirements, the physical demands, and the schedule and pay.
Reading each part well tells you what the job actually is before you apply.
This page breaks down a posting from the worker's side, with a sample built from federal training rules and O*NET task data, plus the red flags worth spotting.
What does a typical CNA job description include?
Read any CNA posting as a stack of parts: the job title, the employer and setting, the duties, the requirements, the schedule, the physical demands, and the pay.
Start with the title.
Federal rules use the term "nurse aide" for the occupation, and state titles differ, so the same work is posted under different labels in different states.
O*NET's reported titles for the nursing assistant occupation include Certified Nurse Aide (CNA), Certified Nursing Assistant, Licensed Nursing Assistant (LNA), State Tested Nursing Assistant (STNA), Nurses' Aide, Patient Care Assistant and Certified Medication Aide (CMA), so read the duties rather than the label.
The duties section is where a certified nursing assistant job description gets specific, and two national lists describe that work.
The federal nurse aide training curriculum names the personal care skills: bathing; grooming, including mouth care; dressing; toileting; assisting with eating and hydration; proper feeding techniques; skin care; and transfers, positioning and turning.
Its basic nursing skills list adds taking and recording vital signs, measuring height and weight, recognizing and reporting abnormal changes, and caring for residents when death is imminent.
O*NET's task statements for the occupation cover the shift mechanics: turning or repositioning bedridden patients, answering call signals, feeding patients, measuring and recording food and liquid intake and urinary and fecal output, recording vital signs as directed, and reminding patients to take medications.
O*NET adds the reporting half of the job: documenting or otherwise reporting observations of patient behavior, complaints, or physical symptoms to nurses, and observing patients for symptoms that may require medical attention, such as bruises, open wounds, or blood in urine.
The requirement lines, the schedule, the physical demands and the pay each get their own section below, because each one is worth reading separately.
For the role behind the posting — settings, career path, what the work involves day to day — the CNA career guide covers the occupation as a whole.
Sample CNA job description
This sample assembles the parts above into one posting.
Every duty and requirement line comes from the federal training curriculum, O*NET task statements or the registry rules cited on this page; bracketed items are the employer's own details, which our sources do not supply.
Job title: Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA).
Titles vary by state; nurse aide, LNA and STNA are reported titles for the same occupation.
Employer and setting: [facility, agency or community name] — skilled nursing, hospital, assisted living or home health, [City, State].
Summary: Direct, hands-on care under the direction of licensed nurses, helping residents with daily activities and reporting changes in condition.
Duties:
- Assist residents with bathing, grooming and mouth care, dressing, and toileting.
- Assist with eating and hydration, using proper feeding techniques.
- Take and record vital signs; measure and record height and weight.
- Measure and record food and liquid intake and urinary and fecal output, and report changes to nursing staff.
- Turn and reposition residents, and answer call signals promptly.
- Observe residents, then document and report observations — behavior, complaints, physical symptoms — to the nurse.
- Remind residents to take medications.
Requirements:
- Completion of a state-approved nurse aide training and competency evaluation program
- A pass on both parts of the state competency evaluation — a written or oral exam and a skills demonstration
- Listing on the state nurse aide registry
Schedule: [shift pattern].
Care runs at all hours in nursing and residential facilities and hospitals, so night, weekend and holiday coverage belongs in the schedule line.
Physical requirements: Able to lift and move residents, and to stay on your feet for much of a shift.
Pay: [the employer's own wage or range].
Reports to: The licensed nurse on duty; delegated work is reported back to that nurse.
Real postings add their own lines — unit names, benefits, charting systems, shift differentials — and those vary by employer.
When you want live ones to compare, our CNA jobs page lists current openings.
What requirements do CNA postings list?
The requirements section comes back to one credential: your state's nurse aide certification.
Federal rules require a state-approved nurse aide training and competency evaluation program of no less than 75 clock hours, including at least 16 hours of supervised practical training (42 CFR 483.152(a)).
That figure is a federal floor, and many states require more, so the training total behind a posting depends on where you work.
The competency evaluation has two parts: a written or oral exam and a skills demonstration of randomly selected tasks, and a candidate must pass both (42 CFR 483.154(b), (e)).
The CNA exam page breaks down what each part covers.
Passing is what creates the listing.
Nursing assistants who pass the competency exam are placed on their state's registry, and you must be on the registry to work in a nursing home.
The check runs both ways: before letting someone work as a nurse aide, a nursing home must receive registry verification and seek information from every state registry it believes will include information on the individual.
Our nurse aide registry guide explains the record behind that check.
Read the title line against your state's own term.
O*NET's reported titles include Licensed Nursing Assistant (LNA) and State Tested Nursing Assistant (STNA) alongside CNA, and the federal rules themselves say "nurse aide."
Non-permanent staffing is held to the same standard.
Federal rules bar nursing homes from using temporary, per diem, leased or other non-permanent nurse aides who have not met the competency and training requirements, so agency, PRN and travel CNA postings point to the same registry standing as staff jobs.
Expect some requirements to arrive after the posting, too.
Federal rules require a nursing home to review every nurse aide's performance at least once every 12 months and to provide regular in-service education based on the results.
In-service training must total at least 12 hours per year and include dementia management and resident abuse prevention training.
One more line to read carefully is CPR.
Federal nursing home rules require personnel to provide basic life support, including CPR, to a resident who needs it before emergency medical personnel arrive, subject to physician orders and the resident's advance directives.
Confirm with the employer which certification it expects you to hold, and keep it current.
Requirements are a federal floor plus state rules
What physical demands are listed?
The physical demands line is doing real work in a nursing assistant job description.
BLS lists physical stamina as an important quality for the occupation: nursing assistants and orderlies spend much of their time on their feet and must be able to lift or move patients.
BLS also reports that the occupation has one of the highest rates of injuries and illnesses of all occupations because workers frequently move patients, and that aides typically get training in how to properly lift people to reduce the risk.
OSHA puts a number on the injury mix: over 50 percent of injuries and illnesses reported in 2020 among nursing assistants were musculoskeletal disorders.
The same agency notes that safe patient handling programs can reduce such injuries, which makes the demand line a question worth asking: what lifting equipment does the setting use, and does it run a safe patient handling program?
Age changes the lift line too.
Federal child labor rules have barred workers under 18 from operating or assisting in operating power-driven hoists, including patient lifts, since July 19, 2010.
Under the DOL's enforcement position, 16- and 17-year-olds may assist with powered patient lifts only as a junior member of a team of at least two, led by a trained worker at least 18.
They may assist only after completing the 75-hour federal training standard or a higher state one, and they never operate the lift alone.
How do hospital and nursing home CNA postings differ?
The two settings this comparison covers are also the occupation's two largest employer groups: BLS's largest employers of nursing assistants in 2025 were nursing care facilities (36%), hospitals (32%), continuing care retirement communities and assisted living (11%), home healthcare services (5%) and government (3%).
The schedules rhyme even where the duties differ.
Nursing and residential care facilities and hospitals provide care at all hours, so aides in both settings may work nights, weekends and holidays.
Nursing home postings sit inside a dense federal rulebook, and parts of it surface in their requirement lines: registry verification before you start, an annual performance review backed by in-service education, and the basic-life-support duty described above.
Their duty lines center on daily living care.
Federal nursing home rules list the ADLs as hygiene (bathing, dressing, grooming, oral care), mobility (transfer and ambulation, including walking), elimination (toileting), dining (eating, including meals and snacks) and communication.
Hospital postings follow the hospital's own requirements; the federal staffing and registry rules cited above are nursing home rules.
Compare requirement lines one posting at a time rather than assuming the lists carry over.
Pay is one place where the assumption that hospital means higher does not hold at the national median.
BLS OEWS May 2025 national industry figures for nursing assistants (31-1131) put the median at $20.34 an hour in hospitals and $20.67 in skilled nursing facilities.
What red flags should you spot in a posting?
None of these lines makes a job a bad one.
They are the places where a posting deserves a question before you apply.
- A facility posting with no credential or registry language. Federal rules make registry listing — and the facility's verification of it — part of nursing home employment, so a nursing home posting that skips both entirely is worth a phone call.
- Training you can finish entirely online. The federal floor includes at least 16 hours of supervised practical training — tasks performed on a person under the direct supervision of an RN or LPN — so a route with no in-person, supervised practice cannot deliver the minimum.
- Medication duties with no state credential named. Whether an aide can give medications depends on training level and state, and an added credential such as Certified Medication Assistant (CMA) can sit on top in some states. If the duties assume medication administration, the posting should name what your state requires.
- No reporting line. Delegation guidelines require an aide to consult the licensed nurse before making decisions or modifications in a delegated activity, and to report patient information back. A posting that never says who you answer to hides that structure.
- A schedule line with no pattern. Facility and hospital care runs around the clock, so a posting with no shift information leaves you guessing about nights, weekends and holidays. Ask before you accept.
Asking those questions is ordinary, not awkward; every requirement on this page comes from rules the employer works under too.
Career information, not licensing, legal, medical, benefits or tax advice: certification, registry and training requirements are set by federal and state rules that change, so confirm the details of any posting with your state's nurse aide registry and the employer named in it.