Top 12 Pharmacist Skills to Put on Your Resume

Pharmacy is crowded and fast-moving. To catch an employer’s eye, your resume needs to show sharp clinical judgment, practical tech fluency, and clear communication. Spotlighting the right pharmacist skills signals safe practice, strong outcomes, and a teammate who elevates the bench and the bedside.

Pharmacist Skills

1. Pharmacotherapy
2. Compounding
3. Medication Therapy Management (MTM)
4. Immunization Delivery
5. Patient Counseling
6. Pyxis MedStation
7. Pharmaceutical Research
8. Clinical Protocols
9. Drug Utilization Review (DUR)
10. Rx30 Pharmacy System
11. Pharmacokinetics
12. Epic Willow

1. Pharmacotherapy

Pharmacotherapy is the use of medications to prevent, treat, or manage disease. Pharmacists steer selection, dosing, monitoring, and safety to drive better outcomes with fewer missteps.

Why It's Important

It anchors evidence-based care. The right drug, right dose, right patient, right time—consistently—reduces harm and improves quality of life.

How to Improve Pharmacotherapy Skills

Sharpening pharmacotherapy means staying current, collaborating well, and thinking clinically.

1. Keep learning: Maintain CE, review guidelines, and track new approvals and safety updates from respected professional bodies and journals.

2. Deepen MTM practice: Perform comprehensive medication reviews, reconcile therapy, and act on drug-related problems with clear plans and follow-up.

3. Work as a team: Huddle with prescribers, nurses, and case managers; align on goals and share decision-making.

4. Center the patient: Individualize choices using comorbidities, preferences, and social factors; educate with plain language.

5. Use smart tools: Leverage EHR data, clinical decision support, and population dashboards to boost safety and efficiency.

Small, steady upgrades add up—safer care, cleaner regimens, clearer results.

How to Display Pharmacotherapy Skills on Your Resume

2. Compounding

Compounding tailors dosage forms and strengths—mixing, altering, or combining ingredients—to meet a specific patient need when a commercial product won’t cut it.

Why It's Important

Customization means access: pediatric doses, allergen-free options, alternative routes, and niche therapies that improve adherence and outcomes.

How to Improve Compounding Skills

1. Expand training: Pursue hands-on courses in non-sterile and sterile techniques; reinforce beyond the basics.

2. Practice with intention: Standardize methods, calibrate equipment, and document meticulously to reduce variation.

3. Follow standards: Align with USP chapters and state rules; audit frequently and fix gaps quickly.

4. Invest in QA: Use beyond-use dating, environmental monitoring (when applicable), and independent checks to keep preparations safe.

5. Modernize tools: Adopt updated balances, mixers, barcoding, and formulation software to boost accuracy and traceability.

6. Join the community: Engage with professional associations and peer forums to swap techniques and troubleshoot.

How to Display Compounding Skills on Your Resume

3. Medication Therapy Management (MTM)

MTM is a structured pharmacist service that reviews medication regimens, resolves therapy problems, and tracks outcomes with patients over time.

Why It's Important

It improves safety, adherence, and clinical targets while trimming avoidable costs. Fewer interactions. Fewer duplications. More clarity.

How to Improve Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Skills

1. Communicate with purpose: Use plain language, motivational interviewing, and teach-back to confirm understanding.

2. Stay current: Monitor guidelines, high-risk meds, deprescribing frameworks, and payer requirements for MTM billing and documentation.

3. Use MTM platforms: Track care plans, flag gaps, and standardize follow-ups with reminders and outcomes dashboards.

4. Coordinate care: Share findings with prescribers, close the loop on changes, and document the impact.

5. Target adherence: Identify barriers (cost, complexity, side effects) and fix them with synchronization, packaging, or regimen simplification.

6. Measure and refine: Monitor clinical markers and patient-reported outcomes; adjust the plan when results stall.

How to Display Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Skills on Your Resume

4. Immunization Delivery

Pharmacists assess vaccine needs, administer safely, manage storage and documentation, and report to state or regional registries where required.

Why It's Important

Access drives uptake. Pharmacies shorten wait times, expand hours, and reach communities—raising coverage and protecting the vulnerable.

How to Improve Immunization Delivery Skills

1. Train and refresh: Maintain injection technique, emergency response readiness, and cold-chain know-how. Keep current with schedules and contraindications.

2. Make it easy: Offer walk-ins, extended hours in peak season, and streamlined consent and billing.

3. Use reminders: Automate recalls for series completion and annual boosters; close the loop with registry checks.

4. Engage the community: Educate with clear, empathetic messaging; partner with local groups for clinics.

5. Coordinate care: Share records with primary care when possible; align messaging to reduce confusion.

6. Remove barriers: Train staff on coverage rules and reimbursement so cost doesn’t block access.

How to Display Immunization Delivery Skills on Your Resume

5. Patient Counseling

Counseling turns a prescription into a plan. It covers how to take a medication, what to expect, what to avoid, and what to do when something feels off.

Why It's Important

Understanding drives adherence, and adherence drives outcomes. Counseling also catches errors before they reach the patient.

How to Improve Patient Counseling Skills

1. Listen first: Invite questions, reflect concerns, and tailor the discussion to the patient’s goals and literacy level.

2. Cut the jargon: Use everyday language and concrete examples; focus on the “how” and “why.”

3. Use teach-back: Ask patients to explain the plan in their own words; correct gently and reinforce key points.

4. Personalize: Consider culture, cost, schedule, dexterity, and memory; adapt the regimen to fit real life.

5. Follow through: Offer callbacks or secure messages to troubleshoot side effects or access issues.

6. Leverage tools: Provide printed summaries, calendars, or app reminders when helpful; keep it simple.

7. Keep skills fresh: Practice role-plays, gather feedback, and stay updated on new therapies and safety alerts.

How to Display Patient Counseling Skills on Your Resume

6. Pyxis MedStation

Pyxis MedStation is an automated dispensing system that tightens medication security, improves access control, and streamlines cabinet stocking and retrieval.

Why It's Important

Automation reduces selection errors, strengthens accountability, and frees pharmacist time for clinical work.

How to Improve Pyxis MedStation Skills

1. Tune inventory: Set par levels by usage, seasonality, and service line; review expirations and high-risk meds frequently.

2. Integrate systems: Align cabinet data with the EHR and pharmacy system to reduce manual entry and mismatches.

3. Train continuously: Onboard thoroughly, refresh often, and validate competencies for all shifts and units.

4. Standardize: Use clear naming, shelf organization, barcodes, and look‑alike/sound‑alike alerts to cut risk.

5. Monitor and improve: Track overrides, discrepancies, and restock delays; fix root causes—not just the symptoms.

How to Display Pyxis MedStation Skills on Your Resume

7. Pharmaceutical Research

Pharmaceutical research spans discovery to post-marketing surveillance—testing safety, efficacy, and real-world effectiveness to improve care.

Why It's Important

It fuels evidence-based practice. Pharmacists translate data into protocols, counseling, and smarter therapeutic choices.

How to Improve Pharmaceutical Research Skills

1. Build core methods: Strengthen study design, biostatistics, and critical appraisal; practice with real datasets.

2. Adopt digital workflows: Use reliable literature databases, ELNs, and structure-drawing or analysis tools to speed insights and trace work.

3. Collaborate widely: Partner with clinicians, data scientists, and regulatory experts; multidisciplinary teams make stronger studies.

4. Follow good practices: Adhere to GCP, ethical review standards, data integrity, and transparent reporting.

5. Focus on patients: Incorporate patient-reported outcomes and pragmatic designs that reflect real-world use.

6. Share and iterate: Present findings, seek peer feedback, and refine protocols for the next cycle.

How to Display Pharmaceutical Research Skills on Your Resume

8. Clinical Protocols

Clinical protocols are standardized, evidence-based pathways that guide selection, dosing, monitoring, and escalation for safe medication use.

Why It's Important

They reduce variation, enhance safety, and make outcomes more predictable—especially in high-stakes settings.

How to Improve Clinical Protocols Skills

1. Stay evidence-driven: Update protocols against current guidelines and strong trials; time-box reviews so they don’t go stale.

2. Co-create: Bring together pharmacy, nursing, medicine, and quality teams; align feasibility with impact.

3. Customize wisely: Embed renal/hepatic adjustments, allergy alternatives, and patient-preference notes to fit reality.

4. Enable with tech: Build order sets, dosing calculators, and CDS alerts that support—rather than overwhelm—clinicians.

5. Measure and learn: Track adherence, outcomes, and exceptions; close gaps with PDSA cycles and frontline feedback.

6. Educate and reinforce: Launch with training, quick guides, and champions on each unit; refresh at regular intervals.

How to Display Clinical Protocols Skills on Your Resume

9. Drug Utilization Review (DUR)

DUR evaluates medication use for appropriateness, safety, and effectiveness—spotting interactions, duplications, contraindications, and optimization opportunities.

Why It's Important

It’s a frontline defense against preventable harm and waste, turning raw data into safer prescribing and better outcomes.

How to Improve Drug Utilization Review (DUR) Skills

1. Know the landscape: Track new therapies, risk signals, boxed warnings, and evolving indications.

2. Leverage systems: Use EHR tools, rules engines, and analytics to surface high-risk patterns quickly.

3. Close the loop: Communicate recommendations clearly to prescribers and document actions and results.

4. Educate patients: Address adherence, side effects, and lifestyle interactions to prevent repeat flags.

5. Audit and improve: Run periodic reviews, share feedback, and implement CQI projects when trends emerge.

How to Display Drug Utilization Review (DUR) Skills on Your Resume

10. Rx30 Pharmacy System

Rx30 is a pharmacy management platform that supports prescription processing, inventory, clinical documentation, and patient engagement.

Why It's Important

Better workflows mean fewer delays, fewer errors, and more time for patient care.

How to Improve Rx30 Pharmacy System Skills

1. Simplify steps: Configure shortcuts, templates, and verification cues to reduce clicks and cognitive load.

2. Refine the interface: Customize layouts and dashboards so the right information appears at the right moment.

3. Strengthen inventory: Enable real-time counts, predictive ordering, and shrinkage tracking tied to dispensing data.

4. Raise the security bar: Use strong access controls, two-factor authentication, and audit trails.

5. Integrate broadly: Connect e-prescribing, claims, registries, and EHR exchanges to minimize rework.

6. Train and support: Offer role-based training, quick guides, and refresher sessions after major updates.

How to Display Rx30 Pharmacy System Skills on Your Resume

11. Pharmacokinetics

Pharmacokinetics examines how the body handles a drug—absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion—to inform safe, effective dosing.

Why It's Important

Understanding kinetics turns guesswork into precision, guiding dose, interval, and formulation—especially in special populations.

How to Improve Pharmacokinetics Skills

1. Boost absorption when needed: Consider formulation tweaks, timing with meals, and interactions that alter bioavailability.

2. Predict distribution: Account for protein binding, volume of distribution, and tissue penetration when choosing dose and route.

3. Personalize metabolism: Factor in pharmacogenomics, enzyme inducers/inhibitors, age, and hepatic function.

4. Adjust for clearance: Modify dosing with renal function, dialysis modality, or fluid shifts to avoid accumulation.

5. Apply models: Use Bayesian tools and therapeutic drug monitoring where appropriate (e.g., aminoglycosides, vancomycin, anticonvulsants).

How to Display Pharmacokinetics Skills on Your Resume

12. Epic Willow

Epic Willow is the pharmacy module of the Epic EHR, managing ordering, verification, dispensing, and medication administration workflows.

Why It's Important

Integrated workflows reduce errors, improve visibility across the care team, and speed up safe dispensing.

How to Improve Epic Willow Skills

1. Train deeply: Complete role-specific training and explore advanced features beyond day-one basics.

2. Customize smart tools: Build SmartPhrases, SmartLists, and order sets that match local protocols and cut repetition.

3. Practice safely: Use the training environment to rehearse complex scenarios without touching live data.

4. Join user groups: Share tips, request enhancements, and learn from peers within your organization’s governance structure.

5. Track updates: Review release notes and attend upgrade huddles so new features translate into real gains.

6. Seek feedback: Partner with nursing and providers to fine-tune alerts, queues, and handoffs.

How to Display Epic Willow Skills on Your Resume