How to List Certifications on a Resume
CPR, ServSafe, forklift, CDL, CNA license. Where they go, what to include, and why burying them costs you interviews.
In healthcare, trades, food service and warehouse work, a certification is often the single thing that decides whether your application gets read. It is also the thing people most often bury at the bottom of a resume, under hobbies, where nobody scrolls.
If the job requires it, put it near the top
A posting that says "CDL Class A required" or "ServSafe certified preferred" is telling you what the first reader is scanning for. When your certification is the qualifying detail, it belongs in the top third of the page, either in your summary line or in a short certifications block right underneath it.
Anything that is nice to have rather than required can sit in its own section lower down. The rule is simple: the closer a certification is to the reason they are hiring, the closer it goes to the top of the page.
Write the full name, then the short one
An applicant tracking system matches text, and it does not know that CPR and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation are the same thing unless one of them appears on the page. Write it the way the posting writes it, and include the abbreviation in parentheses: "Basic Life Support (BLS), American Heart Association".
Name the issuing body too. "OSHA 10" means something specific. "Safety certified" means nothing, and a hiring manager who has to guess will usually guess low.
Dates matter more than people think
Most of these expire. A CNA license, a food handler card, a forklift certification and a CPR card all have renewal cycles, and listing one without a date makes a reader wonder whether it is still good. Put the month and year you earned it, and the expiration if it has one.
If something has lapsed and you are renewing it, say so plainly: "ServSafe Manager, expired 2025, renewal scheduled." That reads as organized. Leaving it off entirely and hoping the topic does not come up does not.
In progress still counts
A certification you are partway through is real information, and plenty of employers will hire on it, especially when they are short staffed. Write it as "CNA certification, expected March 2027" or "CDL permit held, road test scheduled".
What you should not do is list something you have not started. The check is usually a phone call to the issuing body, and getting caught costs you the job you would otherwise have had.