How To Write A Critical Care Nurse Resume
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Most hospitals and health care centers require nurses applying for critical care positions to submit a resume describing their qualifications. A well-written resume can help you show employers your relevant experience, skills and education for a critical care nursing job. If you’re applying for nursing positions in critical care or intensive care units, you may want to know how to enhance your resume to highlight your qualifications to employers.
In this article, we explain what to include on a critical care nurse resume, outline the steps to write this resume and provide a template and example to help you apply for this nursing position.
Template For An Icu Nurse Resume
Your resume should help a hiring manager understand more about you as a candidate and why you’re a great fit for the position they’re hiring for. Use this template as a guide as you’re writing your own resume for an ICU nurse position you’re interested in:
Objective nurse with seeking a position as a nurse in the ICU at .
Employment History | |
Education | ,
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Relevant courses, cornerstone projects and clinical hours]
Skills
cfredrickson@email.com
Objective
Passionate intensive care unit nurse with two years of experience operating in hospital environments and providing care to critically ill patients seeking a position with Patient First Healthcare Systems. CCRN and NCLEX-RN certified.
Employment HistoryICU Nurse | Cloud Clearwater | Montpelier, VermontAugust 2019 â Present
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Record all patient and care information accurately
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Establish and monitor cooperative relationships with patients, peers and physicians
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Assess patient data and administer medications and treatments
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Observe patient condition and communicate observations and changes to ICU staff and patient’s family
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Monitor the patient’s vitals and levels of pain
Registered Nurse | Crane & Jenkins | Montpelier, VermontJune 2018 â August 2019
EducationNorthwest Vermont University | Burlington, VermontBachelor of Science in Nursing, May 2018
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Minor: Biomedical Sciences
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Completed 600 clinical hours at Burlington Urgent Care
Skills
Icu Registered Nurseresume Examples & Samples
- As an RN you will ensure delivery of patient care including assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation of patient outcomes
- Revise plan of patient care as needed
- Provide compassion to the patient and the patients family members
- Attend staff meetings as needed
- Ensure that necessary supplies and equipment be available for patient care
- Assure the safety of patients, co-workers, significant others, and themselves
- Teaching shall be an ongoing process that includes provision of information about the patient’s condition, patient and significant other responsibilities, and options and recommendations for appropriate follow-up
- Demonstrate commitment to education and sharing of knowledge through interaction with orienting nurses, students, and pre-hospital care providers
- Maintain competence and current adherence to established standards of practice
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What Does An Icu Nurse Do
The job of an ICU nurse, also called a critical care nurse, stands in contrast to that of an ER nurse. ICU nurses are charged with caring for the most fragile patients for as long as they need intensive care. While ER nurses are bombarded with cases and must multi-task and make quick decisions constantly, ICU nurses must remain methodical and meticulous.
Patients in the intensive care unit require constant and consistent monitoring. ICU nurses need to be alert to any change in a patients health. They administer medications, care for medical machinery such as ventilators and any other medical equipment such as intravenous lines and catheters that a patient needs. Because of the fragility of their patients, ICU nurses may be called on at any time to administer CPR or any other lifesaving techniques.
ICU nurses must also work closely with the entire medical team and are the main point of contact both with the patient and the patients family. Nurse.org points out that ICU nurses are vital to a hospitals ability to care for trauma or end-of-life patients.
How much do ICU nurses earn?
You may not be surprised to know that experience and geography play a huge role in the answer to this question. ICU nurses may earn anywhere between $35.91 per hour to $54.94 per hour, according to ZipRecruiter, which lists New York as the best-paying locale and North Carolina at the top of the salary scale.
Entry Level Icu Nurse Resume
For your entry level ICU Nurse resume, we suggest placing special attention to your resume objective. As mentioned earlier this is your formal introduction to the Hiring Manager and is the best section to highlight your strengths and other value proposition.
If youre shifting careers or applying for the first time, use your objective statement to share your story: Why I decided to become an ICU Nurse. Bereft of experience, you should give the hospital other reasons to consider you over other entry level ICU nurses. Express your strong commitment to provide excellent care to critically ill patients.
Once youve succeeded in grabbing the hiring managers attention, make sure to substantiate your claims with your list of Skills and educational background.
How do you gain an advantage over other applicants with similar background? Add relevant skills such as fluency in foreign languages or proficiency in ICU medical software. Do not forget to include academic awards or honors received.
Lastly, you will have to rearrange your ICU Nurse resume to the functional format which will look like this:
- Contact Information
- Personal Information
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Icu Nurse Resume Summary Best Practices
Here are more resume tips regarding your layout and style:
- Clear and legible 12p resume font size
- Use 10 resume margins – thats default for a great resume design
- Use a one-page templateresume length if youve got less than 10 years of experience otherwise, opt for a two-page resume
- Save your resume as PDF before sending it to the recruiter.
To take it a step further, check out how your resume can stand out without leaning too much on the creative side.
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PRO TIP
If you feel that you dont have high chances in a particular company, due to lack of relevant experience, then you can still consider using a creative layout. That might help you get noticed and invited for an interview, as most of the other applicants will have boring resume designs.
Travel Neonatal Icu Registered Nurseresume Examples & Samples
- Free private housing at leading rental communities across the country
- Travel reimbursement and tax-free travel allowance to get you to and from your new therapy assignment
- Lucrative completion & renewal bonus
- Loyalty and referral program rewards
- Licensure assistance and reimbursement
- A comprehensive insurance/health benefits package including medical, dental, and more, starting on day one of employment
- Continuing education to help you enhance your credentials and stay current in technological and research advances in the healthcare field
- 24-hour support and personalized service
- Eligibility for paid time off
- Minimum of 2 years’ experience
- Ability/willingness to float to Telemetry if needed
- Active Massachusetts State Registered Nurse license
- Prior ICU experience
- 2+ years of specialized nursing experience
- Exceptional clinical skills and knowledge
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What Should You Include In Your Icu Nurse Resume
Given that recruiters only spend 6-7 seconds reading a resume, your ICU nurse resume must work its charm in this short time.
Not only does your ICU nurse resume need to showcase all your important career milestones and skills, but it also needs to be done in a crisp, concise, and impactful manner.
Follow the below-given guidelines to understand how and what exactly must your ICU nurse resume include:
Registered Nurse Icu Nightsresume Examples & Samples
- Assures quality of care by adhering to therapeutic standards measuring health outcomes against patient care goals and standards making or recommending necessary adjustments following hospital and nursing division’s philosophies and Resolves patient problems and needs by utilizing multidisciplinary team strategies
- Prepare patients for, and assist with, examinations and treatments
- Engage in research activities related to nursing
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Certified Nursing Assistant Resume
Use this template
Why this resume works
- Much like applying for an RN role, you should include your license right in your resume title . This effectively alerts the employer that you’re qualified for the role .
- In addition to your title, if you have any certifications or additional licenses, include them on your resume in a designated section.
Icu Nurse Resume Objective
Competition is tight for this job so it is important to prepare an ICU Nurse resume objective that will separate you from the rest and land you an interview. A well written objective statement will spark interest and prompt the hiring manager read the rest of your resume.
Keep in mind that this is the first thing the reader will see so use it to create a first good impression. How do you do this?
Present yourself as someone who matches the employers qualifications. Dont assume that the requirements for an ICU Nurse are cut and dry. Review the job post and take note of the details.
Keywords in particular are important. If the hospital uses an Applicant Tracking System , it will track the keywords on your resume as a pre-qualifying measure.
Your objective statement is like the formal introductory handshake with the prospective employer. It should be written in your own voice and answer the question. Why should you hire me?
In our sample resume objective for an ICU Nurse, we put in all of Donnas strong points. We started out a strong trait of an ICU nurse like dependable, compassionate or committed. Then we followed it up with her years of experience. Finally we closed it out with her certifications from the AHA and a skill that some nurses may not have: fluency in a second language.
We put all her strong points together in only 4 sentences!
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Icu Nurse Resume Layout And Format
The format and layout of your resume can make or break its success.
Sure, its great to pack your resume with lots of impressive skills and knowledge, but if the page is not structured clearly, hiring managers will struggle to find the important stuff!
Above all, your resume should be easy-to-read and professional looking.
Follow these formatting tips to get noticed.
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Your Nursing Resume Must Be Error
As a nurse, you need to show the hiring manager that you’re observant and have an eye for detail. Remember, you’ll be working with patients and should demonstrate accuracy and precision. To ensure a flawless resume, run your document through a resume checker and have your colleagues proofread it. Don’t let typos cost you a job!
Compose An Impressive Summary
Although you must write your ICU nurse resume summary only after writing the other sections, it comes right under the header of your resume.
Begin your ICU nurse resume summary with the years of experience you have and highlight your accomplishments and relevant skills in terms of the job description.
Ensure that your summary does not exceed 2-3 sentences and includes plenty of keywords, action verbs, and quantified achievements.
In case you are a fresher with no experience, write an objective instead of a summary and focus on telling the recruiters how you can leverage your knowledge and skills to benefit the hospital.
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Cv Skills Example: Compassion And Competence
An ICU nurse needs very specific medical knowledge and the ability to administer medication, monitor vital signs and other bodily functions, and perform life-saving measures. Those are the basic hard skills necessary to do the job. But an ICU nurse also needs a wealth of soft skills. ICU nurses deal with families and patients at some of the most stressful times of their lives and their empathy and communication skills make a big difference.
Your CV skills section should come together as a blend of hard and soft skills that give an overview of the best of your abilities. Dont forget that you need to take into account
Here are some other important skills, according to Onwardhealthcare.com.
- Extreme organization
What Is An Icu Nurse Resume
An ICU nurse resume is a page-long document that summarizes your career trajectory, lists your key skills, and showcases your professional experience and education.
It also highlights your most notable achievements in terms of the job description.
When you apply for jobs, your ICU nurse resume is the first thing that recruiters see to decide if you would be a good fit.
Thus, it is crucial to ensure that your ICU nurse resume showcases all the right information in a crisp format.
Also read:How to make a nursing resume?
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Include A Skilled Summary
The next thing recruiters want to read after the fantastic headline is a professional summary. The headline will capture their attention, leaving them eager to meet the owner of the resume and know what they have to offer the hospital.
The professional summary will provide information about you as an ICU nurse that prospective employers will love to know. It should be 2 to 4 lines long and include your certifications, experiential qualifications, and relevant accomplishments so far.
List Extra Certifications And Additional Information
If you have taken up extra certifications or training related to nursing, you must list them in your ICU nurse resume under a section titled Certifications.
Showcasing that you are certified will increase your chances of getting shortlisted.
Similar to your educational qualifications, you must mention the following details of your certification:
- The name of the certifying institution
- The name of the certificate course or training
- The location of the certifying institution
- Commencement and ending dates
Followed by the certification section, you can also add an additional information section to your ICU nurse resume.
In this section, you can list the languages that you speak, any volunteer work youve done, etc.
However, you must ensure that your ICU nurse resume must not exceed a page.
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Make Each Of Your Icu Nurse Resumes Unique
This cannot be overemphasized.
Customization does not imply the creation of a completely new ICU nursing resume.
If youre applying for jobs in the same unit, such as the trauma ICU or the medical ICU, but in different hospitals, your resumes may look pretty similar .
If youre applying to many ICU units, you should put extra time into customizing a Trauma ICU Nurse Resume and a medical ICU nursing resume.
Formatting Your Nursing Resume
Hiring managers typically receive a torrent of resumes whenever there’s an open position, so if you prepare your nursing resume haphazardly, you are more likely to get the boot than the job. To avoid that sad scenario, you need to make your nursing resume readable, logical, and pleasing to the eye. It should showcase your skills and experience while being ATS-compliant, and it should show off a bit of your personality, too.
It make sound like an impossible task, but before your get overwhelmed, start by taking it one step at a time. First, choose your formatting style: reverse-chronological, functional, or hybrid.
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Record Achievements That Can Be Measured
Your achievements at work reflect the story of the distinct value you bring to a company.
Avoid using a list of work responsibilities that is too long and boring.
Use numbers to help you put your accomplishments into context.
For instance, I developed and employed a monitoring technique for contaminated blood culture specimens, reducing contamination to less than 2.2 percent.
Icu Nurse Resume Examples
Let us help get you hired.
Talk to a resume writer today.
If you are a modern-day Florence Nightingale caring for patients in Intensive care units , youll be a registered nurse with specialized training and a nursing license. But thats not enough.
To get the job you want in ICU, you also need a resume that will help you stand out. We have written a full resume sample plus lots of resume examples to help you write the most compelling resume possible.
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Icu Nurse Work Experience
Experience is important in any job, but even more so for ICU nurses who are seeking positions in life-and-death situations.
We scanned through dozens of job posts to see what sort of experience is commonly required. Like most things, it varies according to the job. Some prefer experience with direct patient care, some want one or more years of experience in emergency care, others specify acute care or ER experience.
This shows that recruitment officers and employers are often looking for dependable candidates who have already proved their skills and abilities. But if you dont have much experience as an ICU nurse, you can list previous staff-nurse or other nursing positions.
You can also include volunteer work on your resume. Not only will this boost your work experience it will also show that you have a desire and commitment to help people outside of paid opportunities.
American Nurses Credentialing Center offers volunteer opportunities that can be helpful.
Dont just list where you have worked, also list accomplishments and skills and qualities that you want to highlight to show how well-positioned you are for the job.
In nursing school, did you organize study groups? Did you serve as an officer, maybe president of your class? If so, say so.