Top 12 LVN Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a standout resume as a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) means spotlighting a balanced mix of clinical know-how and people skills that prove you can deliver safe, compassionate care while working smoothly with a multidisciplinary team. Show a broad, relevant skill set and you’ll stand taller in a crowded market—ready for patient-focused work and fast-moving care environments.
LVN Skills
- Phlebotomy
- Wound Care
- Medication Administration
- Patient Education
- Vital Signs Monitoring
- Electronic Health Records (EHR)
- IV Therapy
- CPR Certified
- Infection Control
- Patient Assessment
- Diabetes Management
- Palliative Care
1. Phlebotomy
Phlebotomy is the collection of blood samples for testing or treatment. LVNs often perform venipuncture as part of routine diagnostics and monitoring.
Why It's Important
Accurate, safe blood draws support diagnosis, track treatment effectiveness, and guide next steps in care—without unnecessary discomfort or delays.
How to Improve Phlebotomy Skills
Hands-on repetition: Practice with simulation tools and supervised sticks to sharpen vein selection and needle handling.
Ongoing education: Refresh core concepts through courses and workshops from reputable certifying bodies.
Coaching and feedback: Ask experienced staff to observe technique and offer quick, specific tips.
Calm communication: Reduce patient anxiety with clear, reassuring explanations—it improves cooperation and outcomes.
Technique refinement: Focus on site assessment, anchoring, angle, and order of draw; follow Infusion Nurses Society and safety guidance.
Safety first: Adhere to current sharps, labeling, and PPE protocols to protect patients and yourself.
Steady practice plus current standards—your best combo for reliable sticks.
How to Display Phlebotomy Skills on Your Resume
2. Wound Care
Wound care covers assessment, cleaning, dressing selection, and monitoring progress to prevent infection and promote healing—carried out under the plan of an RN or provider.
Why It's Important
Good wound care stops complications before they snowball, shortens healing time, and protects quality of life.
How to Improve Wound Care Skills
Stay current: Review guidance from groups such as the Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurses Society (WOCN) and your facility’s protocols.
Nail the basics: Gentle cleansing, moisture balance, and appropriate dressings—match product to wound type and exudate.
Think holistically: Address nutrition, blood glucose, pressure offloading, mobility, and comorbidities that slow healing.
Document precisely: Measure, stage (as applicable), describe tissue and drainage consistently to track trends.
Infection prevention: Follow standard and transmission-based precautions to keep wounds clean and protected.
Targeted technique plus whole-patient thinking—that’s where healing speeds up.
How to Display Wound Care Skills on Your Resume
3. Medication Administration
Medication administration for LVNs includes preparing, giving, and documenting medications safely and on time under applicable supervision and policy.
Why It's Important
Right patient, right dose, right route, right time, right medication—those checks safeguard lives and outcomes.
How to Improve Medication Administration Skills
Sharpen pharmacology: Refresh high-alert meds, look-alike/sound-alike risks, interactions, and side effects.
Use technology: Rely on eMAR, barcoding, and clinical decision support when available; they cut errors dramatically.
Double-check smartly: Independent verification for high-risk meds and weight-based dosing; clarify orders that feel off.
Close the loop: Communicate changes and handoffs with structured tools (SBAR), and educate patients about what they’re taking and why.
Document completely: Record indications, responses, and any adverse effects promptly.
How to Display Medication Administration Skills on Your Resume
4. Patient Education
Patient education means translating health information into clear, doable steps—so patients understand conditions, treatments, medications, and self-care.
Why It's Important
When patients understand the plan, adherence improves, complications drop, and confidence rises.
How to Improve Patient Education Skills
Assess first: Gauge health literacy, language needs, and preferred learning style before you teach.
Speak plainly: Skip jargon, use teach-back, and break instructions into bite-sized actions.
Visuals help: Diagrams and handouts work wonders; keep materials culturally appropriate and easy to read.
Invite questions: Encourage patients to ask what matters most; normalize it.
Follow up: Reinforce key points at the next interaction or through approved patient portals.
How to Display Patient Education Skills on Your Resume
5. Vital Signs Monitoring
Vital signs monitoring involves precise, routine checks of temperature, blood pressure, pulse, respirations, and often oxygen saturation—plus trending those numbers over time.
Why It's Important
Tiny shifts can signal big changes. Early detection means faster, better interventions.
How to Improve Vital Signs Monitoring Skills
Technique matters: Correct cuff size, patient positioning, and consistent timing boost accuracy.
Trust your trendlines: Compare to baseline; escalate when values drift or the patient looks off.
Maintain equipment: Calibrate and check devices regularly; replace worn parts.
Explain the process: Calm patients and you’ll get cleaner readings.
Document digitally: Enter vitals in the EHR promptly, with notes on context (pain, activity, position).
How to Display Vital Signs Monitoring Skills on Your Resume
6. Electronic Health Records (EHR)
EHRs are real-time digital charts that centralize medical histories, medications, orders, and care plans so the team can coordinate quickly and accurately.
Why It's Important
Cleaner documentation. Fewer errors. Better communication. EHRs anchor safe, efficient care.
How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills
Role-specific training: Learn shortcuts, templates, and order sets tailored to your unit’s workflow.
Streamline screens: Work with super-users or IT to reduce clicks and remove clutter you don’t need.
Standardize notes: Use consistent fields and phrasing to make records easier to read and audit.
Close feedback loops: Report usability issues; small tweaks can save hours over time.
Protect privacy: Follow HIPAA, minimum necessary access, secure sign-ons, and smart log-out habits.
How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills on Your Resume
7. IV Therapy
IV therapy involves delivering fluids, medications, or nutrients intravenously, with careful setup, monitoring, and documentation—in line with state scope of practice and any required certifications for LVNs.
Why It's Important
Direct access to the bloodstream allows rapid treatment, precise dosing, and steady hydration when oral routes won’t cut it.
How to Improve IV Therapy Skills
Get certified if required: Complete approved IV courses and keep competencies current.
Start strong: Improve site selection and cannulation technique; consider vein visualization tools when available.
Prevent infection: Follow strict aseptic technique, scrub-the-hub, and timely tubing/dressing changes.
Monitor vigilantly: Watch for infiltration, extravasation, phlebitis, and allergic reactions; respond immediately.
Infusion know-how: Lean on Infusion Nurses Society standards and facility policy for rates, compatibilities, and flushing.
How to Display IV Therapy Skills on Your Resume
8. CPR Certified
CPR certification confirms training to respond to cardiac and respiratory arrest—recognize, start compressions, and use an AED until advanced help arrives.
Why It's Important
Seconds matter. High-quality CPR can double or triple survival chances.
How to Improve CPR Certified Skills
Refresh often: Follow current guidance from recognized training organizations and renew before expiration.
Drill the basics: Compression rate and depth, full recoil, minimal pauses, quick AED use—practice until it’s automatic.
Advance when appropriate: Consider BLS for healthcare providers and, if your role requires, ACLS.
Simulate real stress: Team-based mock codes build speed, roles clarity, and confidence.
How to Display CPR Certified Skills on Your Resume
9. Infection Control
Infection control uses policies, PPE, cleaning, and safe practices to stop the spread of pathogens in healthcare settings.
Why It's Important
Protects patients, protects staff, protects the community. It’s the quiet shield behind safe care.
How to Improve Infection Control Skills
Hand hygiene: Perform at every indicated moment; 20 seconds with soap and water or approved sanitizer.
PPE done right: Choose and don/doff correctly based on exposure risk; follow facility fit-testing and training.
Sharps and injections: One needle, one syringe, one time—use safety devices and proper disposal.
Clean and disinfect: Use approved disinfectants with correct contact times; don’t rush the clock.
Stay updated: Track current guidance from your infection prevention team and recognized public health authorities.
Vaccination and screening: Keep immunizations current and follow occupational health requirements.
How to Display Infection Control Skills on Your Resume
10. Patient Assessment
Patient assessment is the structured collection of health history, physical findings, vital sign trends, and symptom reports to inform the plan of care.
Why It's Important
Spotting subtle changes early can steer interventions from reactive to proactive.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Look and listen: Observe nonverbal cues, behavior, and skin changes; ask open-ended questions.
Systematic approach: Use head-to-toe or focused frameworks and repeat them the same way each time.
Clinical reasoning: Connect findings to likely causes; verify with targeted checks rather than guessing.
Standardized tools: Apply scales and structured communication (SBAR) for clarity and consistency.
Learn continuously: Seek mentorship, debrief complex cases, and review evidence-based updates.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
11. Diabetes Management
Diabetes management for LVNs includes glucose monitoring, medication administration, lifestyle coaching, and surveillance for complications—within the care plan.
Why It's Important
Steady blood sugars curb complications, reduce admissions, and help patients feel better day to day.
How to Improve Diabetes Management Skills
Educate clearly: Teach timing of meals and meds, hypoglycemia signs, and sick-day rules.
Monitor effectively: Support self-monitoring or continuous glucose monitoring when available; track patterns, not just single points.
Med safety: Verify insulin types, concentrations, and correction scales; confirm dosing and site rotation.
Nutrition and activity: Reinforce balanced plates, carb awareness, hydration, and realistic movement goals.
Team approach: Coordinate with prescribers, dietitians, and diabetes educators; escalate concerns early.
How to Display Diabetes Management Skills on Your Resume
12. Palliative Care
Palliative care focuses on relief from symptoms and stress tied to serious illness—supporting comfort, goals, and dignity for patients and families.
Why It's Important
It eases suffering, aligns care with what matters to the patient, and steadies the family through hard stretches.
How to Improve Palliative Care Skills
Learn the principles: Symptom assessment, basics of pain and dyspnea control, and non-pharmacologic comfort measures.
Communicate with grace: Practice honest, empathetic conversations about goals, values, and preferences.
Coordinate as a team: Work closely with nurses, providers, social workers, chaplains, and therapists for holistic care.
Support the caregivers: Provide resources, teach practical skills, and check in on burden and respite needs.
Protect your energy: Use self-care and debriefs to prevent burnout; compassion needs replenishing.
How to Display Palliative Care Skills on Your Resume
