Senior caregivers assist residents of nursing homes or elderly people with daily activities they have trouble carrying out. They help out with personal hygiene routines, administer medication, keep people company in the clients' homes or organize social events at assisted living facilities.
As a senior caregiver, you will have to follow a physician's instructions when providing assistance. You will follow a prescribed health plan during daily schedules, monitor your clients' condition, and report back on it to their doctors.
It's important that you love old people and have the patience for them if you go down this career path. Empathy and attention are the biggest give you can give here, and if you succeed, you are in for a highly rewarding profession.
Senior Caregiver Overview
Working as a Senior Caregiver
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior caregiver. For example, did you know that they make an average of $12.52 an hour? That's $26,038 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 36% and produce 1,185,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Senior Caregiver Do
There are certain skills that many senior caregivers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed detail oriented, integrity and interpersonal skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior caregiver, we found that a lot of resumes listed 29.0% of senior caregivers included companionship, while 12.1% of resumes included in-home, and 7.4% of resumes included medication reminders. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior caregiver job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior caregivers actually find jobs in the health care and retail industries.
How To Become a Senior Caregiver
If you're interested in becoming a senior caregiver, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 30.1% of senior caregivers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 5.1% of senior caregivers have master's degrees. Even though some senior caregivers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a senior caregiver. When we researched the most common majors for a senior caregiver, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior caregiver resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior caregiver. In fact, many senior caregiver jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many senior caregivers also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or customer service representative.
What is the right job for my career path?
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Senior Caregiver Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of assistant manager you might progress to a role such as case manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title nursing director.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Senior Caregiver
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Brightstar Care Caregivers or Cnas for In Home Care for Seniors Caregivers or Cnas for In Home Care for Seniors | Brightstar Care Brightstar Care | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $30,78301/27/2021 $30,783 |
Right at Home Caregiver for Seniors Caregiver for Seniors | Right at Home Right at Home | 01/25/2021 01/25/2021 | $22,95701/25/2021 $22,957 |
A First Name Basis Senior/Developmental Disabilities Caregiver Senior/Developmental Disabilities Caregiver | A First Name Basis A First Name Basis | 01/13/2021 01/13/2021 | $16,69601/13/2021 $16,696 |
A First Name Basis Senior/Developmental Disabilities Caregiver Senior/Developmental Disabilities Caregiver | A First Name Basis A First Name Basis | 01/13/2021 01/13/2021 | $16,69601/13/2021 $16,696 |
Visiting Angels Senior Caregiver-Bonuses Included Senior Caregiver-Bonuses Included | Visiting Angels Visiting Angels | 12/10/2020 12/10/2020 | $33,39212/10/2020 $33,392 |
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Senior Caregiver Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Senior Caregiver. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Senior Caregiver Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Senior Caregiver resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Skills For a Senior Caregiver
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 29.0% of senior caregivers listed companionship on their resume, but soft skills such as detail oriented and integrity are important as well.
- Companionship, 29.0%
- In-Home, 12.1%
- Medication Reminders, 7.4%
- Dementia, 6.7%
- Meal Prep, 5.6%
- Other Skills, 39.2% See All Senior Caregiver Skills
Best States For a Senior Caregiver
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior caregiver. The best states for people in this position are Alaska, North Dakota, Washington, and Vermont. Senior caregivers make the most in Alaska with an average salary of $47,812. Whereas in North Dakota and Washington, they would average $37,479 and $37,029, respectively. While senior caregivers would only make an average of $33,804 in Vermont, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Vermont
$33,804
Avg. Salary
2. New Jersey
$32,835
Avg. Salary
3. North Dakota
$37,479
Avg. Salary
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