Nursing Education And Certifications
When preparing your nursing resume, include all the elements that will increase your chances of getting the job. You need to indicate the following:
- Your education level
- Your experience in other nursing environments
- Your years of experience as a nurse
On the topic of licenses, you need to share your area of specialization. Specialists include registered nurses , certified registered nurse anesthetists, and clinical nurse specialists. Including your area of expertise helps potential employers determine whether you’re the right candidate for the job.
Besides, including this information is easy to do and shouldn’t take up much space! Simply place certifications and licenses in a short section toward the bottom of your resume:
Nurse Resume Writing: The Experience Section
is usually the second section in a resume, unless youre a recent graduate.Experience, Work Experience, or Professional Experience
- Place of employment
- Dates of employment
- Brief description of your accomplishments and responsibilities in the job, as well as skills gained and used in that piece of experience
Just be consistent in whichever approach you take.Use bullet points, not paragraphs, and be concise, but specific.Improved patient care by reducing waiting times for call response by 8 minutes on average.Focus, as often as possible, on evidence of your effectiveness in your role, as opposed to simply describing job duties or responsibilities.
- Dont use personal pronouns. Instead, as in the examples above, start with a verb and leave off the understood pronouns .
- For past jobs, use past tense verbs. For any position you currently hold, use present tense verbs.
- Use bullet points, one for each sentence or phrase. You can end your sentence or phrase with a period or leave it off. Just be consistentuse one method or the other.
- Avoid superlatives. Nursing isnt a sales role and exaggerating does not fit the culture. But use adjectives and adverbs that show your level of performance. Be concise and stick to the facts.
- Generally, use 2-4 bullet points per job. For jobs where you stayed many years and had several important components, you might use up to 6 or 7 bullets.
- Quantify, quantify, quantify! Anytime you can tie in data, measurable results, or specific numbers, do so.
How To Craft A Good Nursing Resume Objective
The focus of the nursing resume objective is on what you can offer the healthcare organization you will be joining.
Its a place where you have to convince the recruiter that you have the necessary skills and education to complete the job effectively.
Heres how you can do that in 3 simple steps:
- Explain who you are:
a. A passionate recent graduate with Bachelors Degree in Science and Nursing .
b. An experienced ER registered nurse with an MA in Science and Nursing.
- Showcase your relevant experience, skills, and licenses:
a. Completed internship and practicum in ICU and other critical patient care wards at the University of Utah Hospital.
b. 2 years of experience in ER, developed skills in crisis management, effective triage strategies, obtaining and interpreting Lead EKG, and hospital workflow.
- What do you hope to achieve in desired workplace:
a. Looking to develop skills further and pursue certification and experience in perioperative nursing.
b. Looking to increase efficiency and patient well-being in Salt Lakes Regional Medical Centers Urgent Care Department.
Examples of good and bad nursing resume objectives:
Resume objective for an RN without experience:
Resume objective for an RN with little work experience switching specialties:
Resume objective for an RN without experience:
Why is this an example of a bad resume objective?
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Five Use The Right Formatting And Design
As mentioned, modern resumes need to be formatted to pass an ATS. This includes designing it in a comprehensive way that will not confuse the ATS. We recommend the following design and formatting features:
We recommend the top margin to be set at 1, side margins set to .63. Many experts believe this strikes the perfect balance of text to white space.
ALIGNMENT
Left alignment is standard since thats how most people read. You may think a justified alignment looks tidier, but it can leave uneven gaps between words and ultimately make text harder to read.
LENGTH
In the nursing profession, length should not be the focus of the resume. While we recommend 1-2 pages, some nurses may have resumes with 3 pages. Dont stress over it too much. If the resume is slightly over the page amount by a few lines try changing the margin, font style, font size or shortening statements. Bottom line is, it should look visually appealing and should include keywords.
FONT STYLE
We recommend Times New Roman or Arial to best utilize the functionality of the ATS. However, this is your personal preference. Take note that Times New Roman can be difficult to read if it is smaller than 11pt. If you are striving for a resume that looks visually appealing when printed, there are great ways to achieve that without going overboard with design.
Experienced Travel Nurse with 8 years experience in critical care nursing.
Experienced Travel Nurse with 8 years experience in critical care nursing.
FONT SIZES
Seven Common Resume Mistakes
Weve seen a lot of resumes over the years, and you might be surprised by the amount of strange information people have included on resumes. So, here are the top mistakes weve seen:
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Write A Cover Letter To Go With Your Nursing Resume
Our last parting wisdom to you is to have a cover letter that complements your resume.
The cover letter gives your recruiter the confidence that you are interested in them specifically.
Having a great resume is fine and all, but its much like giving someone a handshake and not giving a greeting. Its a complementary piece that needs a cover letter to reinforce and expound on the ideas covered within it.
In other words, the cover letter explains why you chose the company and helps them understand that you arent just spamming several companies with your resume.
Youve made it. Congratulations!
By this point, youve put a lot of time into your resume. You should feel proud of yourself. Youre on your way to landing that new job. Now, its time to prepare for the interview. If you need help with that, weve got you covered as well.
Who Is The Perfect User Of Nursing Resumes
The simplicity that comes with these makes Nursing Resume Templates ideal for any person who wants to draft their resume. Even so, they stand out when individuals who are trained in the medical field use them. Note that you must not be a nurse to use the templates. Doctors, medical assistants, and laboratory officers can equally benefit from these resumes.
Use the certified medical assistant resume that features a clean and modern layout to write your CV. It features 4 pages with real editable texts in print-ready style. It has CMYK colors and objects are modifiable using MS word and Photoshop. You may also see the Resume Cover Letter Template.
Any medical practitioner and trainee can use these templates. Note that, whereas nursing trainees use them when seeking employment, medical practitioners including pediatrics and clinical officers use them in their career advancement programs. You can also choose to design high-quality academic resumes for commercial purposes.
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S To Formatting A Professional Nursing Resume
Hiring experts generally agree that formatting and content are the most critical elements to focus on when crafting a resume.
Many healthcare employers are now using applicant tracking software as part of the hiring process. This means up to75% of resumes get rejected before the hiring manager ever sees them.
Optimize
An ATS quickly scans resumes and then sorts and ranks them based on qualifications. Optimizing your format to key on education and experience can help you gain approval from an ATS.
Organize
While you can choose how to format your resume, we encourage you to incorporate a reverse chronological design. This format lists jobs beginning with the most recent first.
Format
Next, it is essential to choose a format that employs effective white space and utilizes efficient subheadings. We suggest that you set your margins to 1 . You should align your text to the left since it makes it easier for the ATS robots to scan.
The best fonts to use for an ATS are Times New Roman or Arial.
Confidently Land Your Next Nursing Gig
Many job seekers languish in the job market, especially considering the number of nursing graduates produced by universities each year and the fierce competition. So, you must be creative and savvy to survive the market. Happily, you’ve already taken the first steps by reading this guide, so congratulations!
We know you’ve worked hard to get this far, and we wish you all the best as you write a power-packed nursing resume and get ready for interviews in 2022!
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The Best Nursing Resume Guide For 2023 With Templates
Career Resources / Job Searching / Nursing Resume Guide
Reviewed by: Kiley Griffin, R.N.
Imagine a registered nurse going into a patients room without a stethoscope or wearing sandals with their scrubs. The patient would feel confused and uneasy. This example is extreme, but it would relay to the patient their nurse isnt prepared.
The same holds true regarding your nursing resume. You dont want to walk into an interview without a quality resume to present to the hiring board.
You may be thinking
I dont have time to write a resume, and if I did, where would I start?
Nurses work long shifts, which can make it difficult to devote time to working on anything outside of their scheduled hours. Accordingly, we have created a guide to help you quickly and easily craft a resume.
This guide will help you enter the interview feeling confident and prepared. We will explore:
Registered Nurse Resume Examples For 2022
Without registered nurses , healthcare as we know it would cease to exist. They are the glue that keeps hospitals together and are truly on the front lines in service of their patients.
It’s also a field in very high demand. In addition to the rush of hiring during COVID-19, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting a 12 percent growth in demand for RNs through 2028.
Healthcare is tricky enough on its own. So, don’t be discouraged if you’re struggling to draft your nurse cover letter or write a resume that puts their best foot forward.
We’re here to help with five great RN resume samples that are succeeding in the real world in 2022.
It doesn’t matter if this is your first job out of nursing school or you’re a seasoned vet, these resumes are a great place to get started before writing or updating yours.
Resume Examples
Why this resume works
- There is a lot of debate about whether to include a resume objective on your RN resume. It’s the two sentences that sit beside or below your name. Only consider including one on your RN resume if any of the following are true:
- You’re undergoing a career change,
- You just finished nursing school and this is your first RN job, or
- You’re going to customize it to the nursing job description.
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Technicalities: Make Your Nursing Resume Look Professional
The overall design of a resume creates the first impression of you in the recruiters mind and that impression will, by and large, dictate the success of your resume.
Before the recruiter starts reading what you wrote, they will pick up on the fonts and formatting and form an image of you in their mind.
A neat and clean resume paints a picture of someone who is organized and attentive to detail.
Heres a quick example of how big a difference the appropriate font choice can make:
The resume on the left is hard to read and overall looks low-effort, whereas the right one appears as professional, organized and scannable.
Good choice of fonts and use of bold and italics allow recruiters to quickly skim through the resume and extract the most important information.
Heres how to ensure that your first impression is spot on:
How To Get Your Contact Information Right
Maybe youve created the perfect resume with amazing content on your skills and experience. But if you mess up the contact section, you wont be getting a lot of interview invitations .
For your contacts, include:
- Title – For nurses, your best bet is likely Registered Nurse.
- Phone Number – Double-check, triple-check this. One typo can really mess up your chances of an employer contacting you.
- Email Address – Make sure to use a professional email address , and avoid that email you created back in 5th grade .
- Location – Applying for a job abroad? Mention your current location.
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Vital Skills For Your Nursing Cv
Although every nursing role will be different, there are certain skills that are essential to nurses across the board.
Here are a few of them
Patient care The ability to care for patients is paramount to a nurses skill set and should be evident throughout your CV.
Knowledge of medication Administering medications and understanding their effects is another crucial skill for most nurses.
Ward management Not only is this skill useful if you plan on climbing the ranks within a ward, but it will also show that you know how a ward is run, and have a deeper insight into staffing levels and patient bed allocation charts.
Hygiene and health Ensuring you know what your patients area eating, and that they are clean and comfortable in their beds
How Do You Write A New Nurse Resume
Your resume must be professional, clear, and easy to read. It should contain three basic parts: summary, education, and experience. There are also other optional sections to consider to bulk up your resume.
Todays healthcare hiring managers are busy. Most employers use applicant tracking systems to screen candidates before reading their resumes. New nurses need the right resume to stand out in todays market.
Thats why we are giving you the steps to format and optimize your resume with the right contact and objective information hospitals and healthcare facilities want to see.
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How To Create A Cv Based On Examples
First of all, dont do mindless copypasta. Our CV examples have been carefully crafted by certified CV writers but, at the end of the day, theyre examples. You should use them as a point of reference while tailoring every CV you sendits the single most effective job-hunting strategy.Make sure your experience, skills, and personal profile match the requirements from the job ad. Also, make sure to add the right keywords. You guessed it, the ones that are used in the job ad. If you need help, check our comprehensive guide on how to write a CV.Our CV maker comes with ready-made content for every CV section, so with little adjustments and tweaks, you can have a job-winning CV ready in minutes.
How Do You Write A 500
Cover letters are a one page document, generally around 250-400 words. This means that you need to pack a lot of information in a short space. Unless the employer is asking specific questions that need to be answered in the cover letter, you should keep it to 250-400 words. You can do this by following the 3Ps or introduction, pitch and conclusion and keeping each to a minimum word count.
For example:
Dear Mr. Wayne,
When I learned that Big Tech Company had an opening for a customer service representative, I knew I had to apply. Ive been using your products as a student and in my personal life for the past decade. I am familiar with the user experience and as a current customer service representative, I can bring my personal knowledge and professional experience to your brand.
For the past year, Ive been working at Call Center Services, where I handle an average of 30 calls per hour. I assist customers with their issues in the quickest, most accurate way possible. This was noticed by management, who recognized me as the Employee of the Trimester during our summer season and awarded me Excellence in Customer Service at the end of the year. I am a leader among my peers and I am currently studying to become a backend developer knowing the issues users face have helped in my studies.
Thanks for your time.
Kathleen Smith
In this example we can see that the writer followed the 3Ps rule.
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