Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between technical assistants and certified medical technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 1-2 years to become a technical assistant, becoming a certified medical technician takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a certified medical technician has an average salary of $38,859, which is higher than the $34,159 average annual salary of a technical assistant.
The top three skills for a technical assistant include patients, customer service and patient care. The most important skills for a certified medical technician are patients, vital signs, and CPR.
| Technical Assistant | Certified Medical Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $34,159 | $38,859 |
| Hourly rate | $16.42 | $18.68 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 5% |
| Number of jobs | 73,750 | 164,424 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 53% | Bachelor's Degree, 28% |
| Average age | 42 | 44 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 12 |
A technical assistant is responsible for supporting business operations by doing administrative and technical tasks under a direct supervisor or tenured staff. Duties of a technical assistant include creating meeting reports, scheduling events, responding to clients' inquiries through email and phone calls, monitoring office inventories, basic troubleshooting on defective equipment, providing recommendations on product development, and analyzing operations processes. Technical assistants require strong time-management and multi-tasking skills to perform tasks in a fast-paced environment and high-level operations.
Certified Medical Technicians are specialists in medical diagnoses by performing laboratory testing and analysis for hospitals and physicians. Their duties include lab sanitization to prepare for testing and collection, recording medical samples for testing, specimen preparation, blood drawing for donation and testing, and assisting physicians with sample collection as well as equipment handling in surgical rooms. They must also understand how to use complex and sensitive testing equipment such as cell counters, analyzers, microscopes, and centrifuges.
Technical assistants and certified medical technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Technical Assistant | Certified Medical Technician | |
| Average salary | $34,159 | $38,859 |
| Salary range | Between $22,000 And $51,000 | Between $28,000 And $53,000 |
| Highest paying City | Boston, MA | Denton, TX |
| Highest paying state | Massachusetts | Alaska |
| Best paying company | The American Musical and Dramatic Academy | Favorite Healthcare Staffing |
| Best paying industry | Insurance | Health Care |
There are a few differences between a technical assistant and a certified medical technician in terms of educational background:
| Technical Assistant | Certified Medical Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 53% | Bachelor's Degree, 28% |
| Most common major | Business | Nursing |
| Most common college | Stanford University | University of Connecticut |
Here are the differences between technical assistants' and certified medical technicians' demographics:
| Technical Assistant | Certified Medical Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 54.8% Female, 45.2% | Male, 20.4% Female, 79.6% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.1% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 15.8% Asian, 11.9% White, 55.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% | Black or African American, 15.9% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 14.6% Asian, 10.0% White, 53.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.8% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 8% |