Caregiver Job Description: Template, Duties, Requirements & Pay (2026)
A caregiver (also posted as personal care aide, home care aide or direct care worker) helps older adults and people with disabilities with daily living — bathing, dressing, meals, medication reminders, transportation and companionship — in a private home or residential community. This page has a copy-paste caregiver job description template, the requirements worth keeping, and what caregiver applicants cost on social media across 34 Boostpoint campaigns.
What a caregiver does
Caregivers keep people at home who would otherwise be in a facility. A typical shift in home care is one client, two to twelve hours, doing whatever that person's care plan calls for: help getting up and showered, breakfast, medication reminders from a pre-filled organizer, light housekeeping, a drive to an appointment, and company. In assisted living and memory care the work is similar but with multiple residents and a med tech or nurse on site.
Home health aides and personal care aides together are now the single largest occupation in the country at about 4.3 million workers, and the BLS projects 17% growth through 2034 — roughly 766,000 openings a year once turnover is counted. The supply is enormous and the credential bar is low, which is why caregiver applicants are the cheapest of any role we track. The hard part is not finding applicants; it's finding ones who show up for the third week.
Caregiver job description template
Copy this into your ATS or job board, replace the bracketed fields, and cut anything that doesn't apply. It's written the way applicants read — pay, schedule and location first — because those are the three things people screen on before they read a duty list.
Job title
Caregiver / Home Care Aide — [Full-time / Part-time / Weekend], [City] area
Summary
[Agency name] is hiring caregivers to support clients in their homes across [county / service area]. Pay is $[XX.XX]–$[XX.XX]/hour, paid [weekly / daily pay available], with [mileage reimbursement] between clients. We match you to clients near you and build a consistent schedule around your availability. No certification required — we train and pay for it.
Responsibilities
- Help clients with bathing, grooming, dressing and toileting
- Prepare meals and assist with eating according to the care plan
- Provide medication reminders (no administration unless certified)
- Light housekeeping: laundry, dishes, tidying the client's living space
- Transport or escort clients to appointments, errands and activities
- Provide companionship and engage clients in conversation and activities
- Document each visit in [app name] and report changes in condition to the care coordinator
Requirements
- 18 or older with a valid driver's license, reliable vehicle and auto insurance
- Able to pass a background check and [state]-required screenings (TB test)
- Physically able to assist with transfers and lift up to [40] lbs
- Available for [a minimum of 20 hours / weekends / overnights] as scheduled
- Smartphone for scheduling and visit documentation
Preferred
- Experience caring for a family member or in a paid caregiving role
- HHA, CNA or PCA certification (we pay for training if you don't have one)
- Experience with dementia, hospice or mobility-limited clients
- Bilingual [Spanish/English]
Schedule and pay
- $[XX.XX]–$[XX.XX]/hour; [+$X.XX] for weekends and overnights
- [Weekly pay / daily pay available]; [$0.XX/mile] between client visits
- Shifts from [4 to 12] hours; consistent clients and schedule
Benefits
- Paid training and certification
- [Health insurance for 30+ hours/week]
- Paid time off
- [401(k)]
- Referral bonus: $[XXX] per caregiver you refer who completes 90 days
Requirements: what's required, what's preferred, and what kills applications
Caregiver postings are where the most unnecessary requirements pile up, and it shows in the numbers: caregiver campaigns convert at 31% when the application is short, and collapse when it isn't.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| Driver's license, vehicle and insurance | Required for home care with multiple clients; not required for live-in or facility roles. State which one, because it's the single most common disqualifier. |
| Background check | Required by state regulation for home care agencies and licensed communities. Say it upfront. |
| Certification (HHA/CNA/PCA) | Depends on state and payer. Medicare-certified home health requires HHA training; private-pay and most Medicaid waiver programs don't. If you don't require it, say “no certification required — we train you.” That line alone widens the pool dramatically. |
| Experience | Optional. Family caregiving experience is real experience — ask about it instead of requiring paid history. |
| Minimum availability | Include it. Weekend and overnight availability is the constraint that matters; a caregiver who can only work Tuesday mornings is not a hire for most agencies. |
| High school diploma | Not required by the BLS for most of these roles and rarely needed. Drop it unless a payer mandates it. |
How to customize it for your setting
Home care agency
Distance is the deciding factor. Say where the clients are, not where the office is, and mention mileage pay and client matching. Our home care agency recruiting page has campaign data by market density.
Senior living and assisted living
Lead with shift, resident count and team support. Facility caregivers cost meaningfully less to reach than home care in our data; see senior living staffing.
Memory care
Screen for temperament, not credentials. One question — “Have you cared for someone with dementia?” — is more useful than a certification requirement.
Live-in and 24-hour care
Spell out the sleep arrangement, break coverage and pay structure (hourly vs. daily rate). Ambiguity here is the top reason live-in candidates drop out at offer.
What it costs to reach caregivers on social
Caregivers are the cheapest applicants in our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark: across 34 caregiver and home care campaign-months in 2026, the median cost per applicant was $3.76, the middle half of campaigns ran $2.99–$5.83, and 31% of clickers completed the application — the highest apply rate of any role family. Across 24 individual agencies the average was $3.47, with a range from about $1.22 to $15 depending on market density.
The reason is supply: four million people already do this job, most of them on social media daily and few of them on job boards. The lever is not volume, it's screening and speed — calling back the same day, before the applicant accepts another agency's shift. Role-level detail is in our caregiver recruitment cost and caregiver recruitment strategies pages.
Writing the ad version
On social, the whole ad is pay, area and flexibility: “Caregivers wanted — $17–$19/hr, weekly pay, clients near [Town]. Pick your hours, we train you. Apply in 60 seconds.” Three knockout questions: driver's license and vehicle, availability, and distance you'll travel. Don't ask for a résumé; most caregivers don't have one and the ones who do are applying from a phone.
Then respond within the hour. Caregiver applicants apply to several agencies in one sitting, and the first call back usually wins.
Frequently asked questions
What does a caregiver do?
Helps clients with daily living activities — bathing, dressing, meals, medication reminders, housekeeping, transportation and companionship — usually in the client's home, sometimes in an assisted living or memory care community. Caregivers don't perform medical tasks unless separately certified.
What qualifications do you need to be a caregiver?
Often none beyond being 18+, passing a background check and having reliable transportation. Some states and Medicare-certified agencies require HHA or PCA training (typically 40–120 hours). Many agencies train new caregivers themselves.
How much do caregivers make?
The 2025 national median for personal care aides was $17.21 an hour ($35,800 a year) per O*NET/BLS. Pay runs higher in high-cost metros and for overnight, weekend and specialized (dementia, hospice) work.
Caregiver vs. CNA vs. home health aide — what's the difference?
A CNA holds state certification and can work in licensed nursing facilities. A home health aide (HHA) has completed federally required training to work for Medicare-certified home health agencies. A caregiver or personal care aide typically has no state certification and provides non-medical support. See our CNA job description for the certified role.
Pay, employment and outlook figures: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (Home Health and Personal Care Aides) and O*NET OnLine, 2025 wage data. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, 34 caregiver campaign-months, and 24 agency-level campaigns 2025–2026. Last updated August 2026.