Rada started his career playing for Universitatea Craiova's youth team and also played for Gheorghe Popescu's famous football school from Craiova. He debuted in Liga I for Universitatea Craiova playing only four matches being loaned to AS Rocar Bucureşti. He returned to Universitatea Craiova and played there until 2004, scoring 1 goal in 42 appearances.
In 2004, he joined Rapid Bucureşti along with his teammate from Universitatea Craiova, Ionut Stancu. From Rapid he was loaned one season to Progresul Bucureşti, where he gained 14 appearances and scored two goals, one of the two goals was against his current team Steaua Bucureşti. That goal made Walter Zenga, Steaua Bucureşti's manager at that time, resign. On 27 July 2006, Rada suffered an injury and missed the start of the season. He spent a month under treatment at the Isokinetic clinic in Bologna. He was left out of the team for the first time on 26 November 2006 by Razvan Lucescu because of his performance against Mladá Boleslav in the UEFA Cup. George Copos, Rapid's owner, increased Rada's salary from €60,000 to €120,000 on 21 February 2007, due to his good performance. He was one of the lowest paid players from Rapid until his salary was doubled. He played for Rapid in 65 matches and scored three goals. His best performance at this club was the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup.
Steaua Bucureşti
Rada signed with Steaua Bucureşti on 25 July 2007 for three years. Steaua Bucureşti transferred him for a known fee of €800,000 but because the player was 50% owned by former Romanian football playerGheorghe Popescu, the club had to pay him another €800,000 thus resulting a total transfer fee of €1,600,000. Popescu said that he was mainly responsible for Rada's transfer to Steaua Bucureşti. He was put on the transfer list by his former club Rapid because the fans believed that the player did not give a 100% for the respective club. With his agreement and with the acknowledgment of George Copos he was put on the transfer list. Rada currently earns €120,000 per season, but he said that the money is not important to him because it was his dream to play for Steaua in the UEFA Champions League. He was sure that he made the right choice because he also had offers from other teams. He scored his first goal for Steaua Bucureşti against FC Vaslui in the current season of Liga I. He scored with a perfect header from a corner kick served by Banel Nicolita. The match ended with the score 1–0 for Steaua Bucureşti. He made his debut in the UEFA Champions Leaguegroup stage against Slavia Prague, match lost by Steaua Bucureşti with 2–1. He was loaned by his choice to CS Otopeni. On 28 December 2009 Steaua announced that Rada was sold to Al-Nasr.
Al-Nasr
On 28 December 2009 he signed on a year and half with Al-Nasr.
