Writing a Resume for a Nursing Position

Employment projections indicate that the demand for nurses will outpace the supply for at least the next five years. In spite of this positive trend, competition for the best nursing jobs will continue to be fierce. To ensure they can succeed in the highly competitive medical field, nurses must pay particular attention to how their credentials are presented on their CV.

Here are some tips to help you craft a winning resume for the nursing industry:

You should highlight any academic awards, grants, scholarships, or fellowships you received while pursuing your nursing degree in addition to the typical information (school attended, year of graduation, degree earned).

You can highlight your previous clinical experience if you are an experienced nurse and want to. This strategy works best if at least one of the rotations is directly related to your current line of work.

A list of relevant courses and clinical rotations will provide detail to prospective employers regarding your medical understanding, especially if you are a recent nursing graduate or have minimal nursing experience. Those who earned a good GPA in college should accentuate that fact by listing it in the resume’s Educational section.

All registered nurses who have gone through the necessary steps to become licensed should include their credentials here. Don’t forget to specify the date your license became active and the state(s) in which you have a license. There’s no need to put your license number on your resume if the hiring manager plans to request a copy of it after making you an offer.

A hiring manager should be able to get a sense of your qualifications after only a ten-second scan of your resume if you’ve included the right keywords that sum up your nursing experience. The best approach to accomplishing this is to include a section on your resume highlighting your nursing experience and qualifications. Whether it’s JCAHO standards and compliance or medication administration, a mention of your nursing specializations and other relevant abilities will help your resume stand out.

When applying for a nursing position, it can help to detail your years of experience in each specialty.

This part is extremely important for entry-level nurses and nurses with less experience to include on their resumes, since it highlights the skills and knowledge they have gained from formal education, clinical experiences, and mentorship.

Employers need to know the specifics of your nursing experience because most managers hire nurses based on their experience in (or understanding of, if you are a new nurse) a particular field of nursing.

If you are an experienced nurse, you should describe your area of expertise, the setting in which you have worked (acute care, outpatient, rehabilitation), and the average number of patients you cared for at each of your prior jobs.

If you are a new graduate or RN with little work experience, you should highlight any unpaid clinical rotations, mentorships, or other work you did while earning your degree.

Employers are always looking to hire the best and brightest. Including concrete examples of what you accomplished during each of your past employments will make your CV stand out. Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty. Tell me about a time when your efforts made a difference for one of your patients, their loved ones, your colleagues, your boss, or the people in your community.

Think about opportunities to contribute through membership on: committees or review boards; health education for patients or their families; oMentorship programs

Community health screenings; staff training on cutting-edge nursing issues; the debut of a brand-new facility or program

Education Beyond the Classroom

You can better demonstrate your value as a team player to prospective employers if you include more specifics about your involvement in the medical community and your achievements.