One of the most common questions we’re asked is actually one of the easiest to answer: ”How do you become a CNA?”. Here’s a list of the steps that most people take to enter the profession (keep in mind that while not everyone completes these steps necessarily in this order or at all, this list is true for most).
1. Enroll in a CNA Training Program
Yep, it’s generally a given that you’ll need to enroll and learn what you’re doing before you can be a certified nursing assistant, but you’d be surprised how many people actually try to skip this step and move right onto the certification or hiring state (claiming experience or similar). If you’re looking for the easy way, well, there’s really not an easy way here, just good old fashioned hard work. Courses can range from as little as a month to as long as a college semester (about 9 weeks) to complete. In today’s techonological world, it’s not as difficult as it once was to fit the schooling in your life as there are online courses which enable you to complete your coursework in just a few hours a week and at times that you choose.
2. Take and Pass a CNA Certification Test
Now that you’ve spent all that time at school learning and staying up late at night studying, it’s finally time to put that knowledge to work. Depending on where you did your training, you should have an idea of where to go for your CNA Certification test. Make sure to take the test in the state you plan on practicing in or you’ll have to re-take it when you decide to settle down and become employed (the tests are administered by the state). It’s probably a good thing to note here that if you plan to take the test in a different state to be mindful that the test criteria and requirements can vary from state to state, s you’ll want to make sure you’re aware of any differences.
3. Get a Job as a Certified Nursing Assistant
Yes, another step that’s generally a given, but there’s actually a lot more to this than getting certified and having employers beat down your door. There’s a lot of newly certified CNAs and veteran aides out there looking for employment along with you, so you’ll need to either get there before them or perform better than them during your interview. Hopefully during the schooling you took our advice and enrolled in some extra classes or have some additional skills to make you a more marketable prospect. In addition to this, something we’ve seen a lot is where a person will get hired at a hospital (or nursing care facility) and work at “lower” job in order to get schooling (normally paid for by the employer, yeah, you read that right, you can get FREE cna training) and have a job waiting for them once they complete the certification process! However, it doesn’t really matter which path you take, with some hard work and perseverance, you too can become a certified nursing assistant!
This list should serve as a good starting point for answering any questions you have on becoming a CNA, but we urge you to dig further into the profession and learn more about the process. Speak to counselors, career guidance consultants, your family, friends and if applicable, current employers (and employees that are CNAs) that hire for this position to get an idea of how their applicants came to be certified.
