Top 12 Sleep Technician Skills to Put on Your Resume
As a sleep technician, a sharp, varied skill set doesn’t just look nice on paper—it opens doors. Show both the wires-and-waves mastery and the human touch. Hiring teams notice when your toolkit spans clean hookups, calm coaching, and clear, reliable scoring that supports sound clinical decisions.
Sleep Technician Skills
- Polysomnography
- CPAP Titration
- EEG Interpretation
- Patient Monitoring
- SleepView
- SomnoStar
- Sleep Scoring
- Oxygen Titration
- BiPAP Setup
- REM Analysis
- Alice 6
- Pediatric Adaptation
1. Polysomnography
Polysomnography captures the night in layers: brain waves, breathing, heart rhythm, oxygen, eyes, legs. You set up, you watch, you document. The study becomes a story that helps pinpoint sleep disorders and shapes treatment.
Why It's Important
It’s the gold standard for sleep evaluation. Complete signals, clean data, and accurate notes allow confident diagnosis and targeted therapy.
How to Improve Polysomnography Skills
Dial in the craft and the care. Small things matter.
Keep current: Follow established sleep medicine standards and updates. Refresh scoring knowledge regularly.
Precision hookups: Master 10–20 electrode placement, keep impedances low, secure sensors for minimal artifact.
Equipment readiness: Calibrate routinely, verify signals pre-study, run a complete bio-cal with patient engagement.
Signal hygiene: Optimize filters, tackle artifact at the source (loose leads, sweat, muscle, ECG bleed-through), and note changes.
Patient-first approach: Use plain language, reduce anxiety, set expectations, and check comfort before lights out.
Team quality checks: Do inter-scorer reliability sessions and periodic audits to tighten consistency.
How to Display Polysomnography Skills on Your Resume
2. CPAP Titration
CPAP titration means finding the pressure that keeps airways open all night. Adjust live, watch the tracings breathe, aim for quiet respiration and steady oxygen—especially in REM and supine positions.
Why It's Important
Right pressure, right comfort, right adherence. It turns a diagnosis into restful sleep.
How to Improve CPAP Titration Skills
Pre-night review: Know history, meds, prior PAP use, and any contraindications. Plan for REM-supine capture.
Mask fit first: Fit before lights out, minimize leaks, offer alternatives, and teach quick repositioning tricks.
Stepwise increases: Start low (e.g., 4 cmH2O) and raise to eliminate apneas, hypopneas, RERAs, and snoring. Prioritize REM/supine stability.
Comfort features wisely: Use ramp and humidification to aid tolerance; avoid comfort settings that mask events during titration.
Real-time vigilance: Track leak, arousals, and oxygen trends; document time-stamped changes and responses.
Post-night planning: Provide clear handoff notes, recommended settings, and follow-up needs.
How to Display CPAP Titration Skills on Your Resume
3. EEG Interpretation
In sleep, EEG is your stage map. N1 light dozing, N2 spindles and K-complexes, N3 slow waves, REM with sawtooth hints. Recognize patterns, catch arousals, separate artifact from reality. Flag rare seizure-like activity promptly.
Why It's Important
Accurate staging and event recognition underpin diagnosis, therapy choices, and trustworthy reports.
How to Improve EEG Interpretation Skills
Pattern fluency: Review staged studies often. Build a visual library of normal and atypical examples.
Montage mastery: Know the 10–20 system, common derivations, and when to modify for clarity.
Artifact sleuthing: Spot and fix muscle, sweat, ECG, and movement contamination fast.
Cross-channel correlation: Read EEG alongside EOG, chin EMG, airflow, and effort to tighten calls.
Inter-scorer practice: Regular consensus reviews keep everyone aligned and sharper.
Ongoing education: Take CE courses, attend workshops, and keep notes on tricky cases.
How to Display EEG Interpretation Skills on Your Resume
4. Patient Monitoring
Continuous, careful watch. Signals and safety together. You track physiology, you observe behavior, and you respond before small issues grow teeth.
Why It's Important
High-quality data, safer nights, fewer repeat studies. When monitoring is sharp, interventions are timely and outcomes improve.
How to Improve Patient Monitoring Skills
Rock-solid hookups: Standardize prep, target low impedances, secure lead strain relief.
Verify everything: Flow sensor calibration, belt signals, oximeter response, bio-cal the whole set.
Act on trends: Watch for creeping leak, rising arousals, positional worsening, or CO2 retention when monitored.
Use the right tools: Add transcutaneous or end-tidal CO2 when indicated (pediatrics, hypoventilation risk).
Smart alarms: Sensible thresholds reduce alarm fatigue but keep patients safe.
Impeccable notes: Timestamp events, interventions, and behavioral observations clearly.
How to Display Patient Monitoring Skills on Your Resume
5. SleepView
SleepView supports home sleep apnea testing. You prepare the patient, the device does its quiet watch, and you analyze the take-home story for clinical clarity.
Why It's Important
Accessible, efficient testing expands care and speeds treatment starts—without sacrificing accuracy when protocols are tight.
How to Improve SleepView Skills
Patient coaching: Simple instructions, a quick demo, and written checklists reduce failed studies.
Setup reliability: Emphasize sensor placement, adhesives that hold, battery checks, and start/stop confirmation.
Signal assurance: Pre-study calls and next-day reviews catch problems fast; plan re-tests swiftly if needed.
Data review discipline: Trim artifact, verify scoring rules, note positional effects and oxygen nadirs with context.
Workflow polish: Maintain versioned software, clean device turnarounds, and secure data transfers.
How to Display SleepView Skills on Your Resume
6. SomnoStar
SomnoStar is a PSG platform for acquisition and analysis. You tailor montages, run studies smoothly, and score with confidence.
Why It's Important
Good software skills reduce artifact, speed scoring, and strengthen reports. Better throughput, better care.
How to Improve SomnoStar Skills
Stay updated: Install current versions and review release notes so new tools work for you.
Build templates: Standardize montages, filters, and event settings for adult and pediatric studies.
Shortcut savvy: Learn hotkeys, macros, and batch tools to shave minutes without losing accuracy.
Validation habit: Verify calibrations, channel labels, and clock sync before recording.
Backup and security: Protect data with routine backups and clear naming conventions.
Peer exchange: Share tips, tricky cases, and workflow tweaks with your lab team.
How to Display SomnoStar Skills on Your Resume
7. Sleep Scoring
Scoring translates signals into stages and events using accepted rules. Clean distinctions, consistent calls, and clear annotations make the night understandable.
Why It's Important
Diagnosis hinges on it. Treatment decisions, too. Consistency brings trust across clinicians and nights.
How to Improve Sleep Scoring Skills
Know the manual: Keep up with the latest scoring rules and clarifications—adult and pediatric.
Practice with purpose: Score sample studies routinely, then compare against consensus.
Inter-scorer checks: Regular alignment sessions reveal drift and sharpen boundary calls.
Use automation wisely: Let auto-suggestions help, but verify everything manually.
Document nuance: Add comments where context matters (meds, arousal sources, positional shifts).
How to Display Sleep Scoring Skills on Your Resume
8. Oxygen Titration
Oxygen titration adjusts supplemental O2 during a study to maintain safe saturation when indicated, often alongside PAP. The goal: adequate oxygenation without overshooting.
Why It's Important
Prevents hypoxemia, protects patients with comorbidities, and informs precise treatment plans.
How to Improve Oxygen Titration Skills
Start with a baseline: Record resting room-air saturation and trends before adding oxygen.
PAP first, O2 when needed: Optimize airway support; add oxygen if desaturations persist per lab policy and orders.
Small, careful steps: Increase flow gradually and monitor responses continuously.
Clear targets: Aim for SpO2 at or above 90% unless otherwise specified. Avoid hyperoxia.
Watch CO2 risk: In hypoventilation or COPD, monitor CO2 when available.
Thorough documentation: Note flow rates, timing, patient responses, and related PAP settings.
Patient education: Reinforce safe oxygen use and follow-up steps.
How to Display Oxygen Titration Skills on Your Resume
9. BiPAP Setup
Bi-level therapy delivers separate inspiratory and expiratory pressures. You tailor IPAP/EPAP, dial in comfort, and tame leaks so the therapy helps—not hinders—sleep.
Why It's Important
For complex OSA, hypoventilation, or CPAP intolerance, BiPAP can be a game-changer when set up thoughtfully.
How to Improve BiPAP Setup Skills
Interface matters: Fit masks meticulously, try alternatives, and correct leaks at the source.
Step into support: Start with modest pressures, then raise EPAP to open the airway and IPAP to treat hypoventilation, per protocol and orders.
Comfort tuning: Adjust ramp, humidification, and temperature to ease acclimation.
Know your modes: CPAP vs BiPAP S/ST vs ASV—apply only as indicated and ordered.
Teach and reassure: Desensitization while awake builds tolerance; review maintenance and cleaning.
Plan follow-up: Recommend data reviews and early check-ins to sustain adherence.
How to Display BiPAP Setup Skills on Your Resume
10. REM Analysis
REM shows up with low-amplitude mixed EEG, rapid eye movements, and chin atonia—unless it doesn’t. You identify, quantify, and connect REM dynamics with respiratory events and behavior.
Why It's Important
OSA often worsens in REM. REM without atonia can signal REM sleep behavior disorder. Accurate calls guide workups and treatments.
How to Improve REM Analysis Skills
Clean channels: Crisp EOG and chin EMG are non-negotiable; fix noise early.
Rule fidelity: Know the scoring criteria cold—sawtooth waves, atonia, arousals that end epochs.
Separate look-alikes: Distinguish phasic chin twitches from artifact; confirm with EEG/EOG context.
Think architecture: Track REM density, latency, and distribution alongside respiratory trends.
Lab calibration: Do inter-scorer REM reviews to keep calls consistent.
How to Display REM Analysis Skills on Your Resume
11. Alice 6
Alice 6 with Sleepware G3 supports robust PSG acquisition and review. You configure, you capture, you score—without wrestling the software.
Why It's Important
Competence with the system cuts downtime, reduces errors, and keeps studies on schedule.
How to Improve Alice 6 Skills
Master workflows: From patient entry to montage selection and calibration, make the steps muscle memory.
Optimize hardware: Check headboxes, sensors, and cables; confirm channel integrity pre-study.
Template smart: Build standard adult and pediatric templates with consistent filters and labels.
Use hotkeys: Learn navigation shortcuts and scoring accelerators.
Stay updated: Keep software current and document any changes to workflows after updates.
Collect feedback: Troubleshoot recurring issues with your team and refine processes.
How to Display Alice 6 Skills on Your Resume
12. Pediatric Adaptation
Kids aren’t small adults. Procedures, words, and gear change. You shape the environment and approach so a child can sleep, and the data can sing.
Why It's Important
Child-friendly methods boost cooperation, reduce anxiety, and improve data quality—while keeping families comfortable and safe.
How to Improve Pediatric Adaptation Skills
Warm welcome: Soft lighting, familiar objects, and caregiver presence calm the room.
Speak their language: Simple explanations, show-then-do demonstrations, visual schedules.
Right-sized supplies: Pediatric leads, gentle adhesives, careful skin prep, and short, efficient hookups.
Desensitize: Let the child handle masks and sensors; practice quietly before lights out.
Safety first: Cable management, secure sensors, and extra vigilance with CO2 monitoring when indicated.
Positive reinforcement: Praise generously; small rewards can go a long way.
How to Display Pediatric Adaptation Skills on Your Resume
