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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How To Align Your Resume With The Job Description
While the need for nurses is expected to grow, hiring managers may still sort through dozens of resumes to find the best fit. The right mix of skills and experience is critical when hiring, so its important to make sure your resume reflects the most important requirements for each potential job.
The best way to tailor your resume for each job posting is by including the skills and experiences that are most important to a prospective employer. How do you tell which requirements are the most important? In general, the information posted first is the most critical, along with any information that might be repeated. To make sure you locate the right skills and use the best keywords, compare your resume to the job posting.
The Best Nursing Resume Guide For 2022 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:
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Choosing The Best Resume Format For Nurses
In most instances, the most suitable format for structuring a nurse resume will be reverse chronological. This generally works well for job seekers in any occupation whose work history follows a linear path in a series of employee positions.In that resume section, progressive job experience and accomplishments are organized by employer / workplace in reverse order from most recent to earliest dates.
An alternative resume format may be appropriate for nurses who are new to the workforce or changing careers. Those with a more varied occupational background or especially impressive education might also look at the alternative functional resume format. Its also an option for some self-employed professionals with an assignment or contract-based background.
How To Organize Your Credentials Field On A Nursing Resume
You may have significant credentials to help you secure a great nursing position. Theres no problem with having credentials. The problem occurs when you dont know how to organize your credentials effectively.
Imagine a symphony conductor with great individual cello players that dont know how to play in sync with each otherit would be chaos.
The same goes for organizing your certifications. You may have great credentials, but not arranging them correctly could create issues for your resume.
Luckily, there is an industry-standard for listing your credentials.
The following order is encouraged:
Education: Start with your year studied, degree type and major, university name, and GPA . If you went to a prestigious school, you could also start with that. Additionally, if you are worried about age discrimination, wed suggest you leave out the years studied. Unfortunately, ageism sometimes plays a role in the hiring of nurses.
2012-2014 Masters of Science in NursingDuke University School of Nursing, 3.7 GPA
Your Licensure: With licensure, the important part is determining where to put them. If nurses have one or two licenses they will put them after their degree. However, if you have an extensive list of licenses, it may be better to place them in their own section.
Its crucial to include the following:
- If you have a license that falls under the nurse licensure compact
Sample Nursing Resume License Entry:
We suggest the following order for listing your certifications:
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Write An Engaging Professional Summary
A professional summary comes right after the header and introduces your qualifications to your potential employer. Its a short paragraph with three to four sentences but must be impactful and engaging to encourage the recruiter to read the rest of the resume. Highlight your top accomplishments, experience, and skills that set you apart.
What If You Dont Have Work Experience
Maybe youre a current student trying to land an internship or a recent graduate looking for your first full-time nursing job?
Fortunately, nursing students or graduates gain plenty of practical experience as they navigate their way through their studies. Only so much of the medical field can be taught in the classroom.
If youre a recent graduate, you might want to check out our guide on how to make a student resume!
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Skills Section Example: Necessary And Valued
Nurses work at the intersection of practical knowledge, technology and softer human interaction. The nurse job is about versatility, and so is your skills section. It’s important to show equal love to both your hard and soft skillscategories.
Hard skills enable your day-to-day productivityas a nurse, and your ability to solve most clinical and administrative problems. Specifically, they will vary depending on your past nurse education and experience.
Pay close attention to the nurse skills listed in the job description and descriptive wording. Using the same terminology not only ensures you pass the ATS but also shows the recruiter that you’re an attentive, detail-oriented nurse.
Remember we mentioned an additional language as being the second-most requested nurse skill? Well, TalentNeutron studies reveal the MOST commonly requested are computer skills especially electronic medical/hospital records software. Common program packages are Meditech and Epic software.
In the U.S., knowing your way around billing codes is also a common advantage.
Soft skills are the more abstract, people-oriented attributes you have as a nurse. They reflect your ability to interact positively with patients, understand the people around you, feel subtle emotional shifts or just generally be a kind, warm individual.
- Patient advocacy
Required Vs Preferred Qualifications
When reading job postings youll likely come across the terms Required Qualifications and Preferred Qualifications. Understanding the difference between these two is key.
Required qualifications. These are just what they say – requirements. Those who do not possess these qualifications will not be considered.
Preferred qualifications. These are the skills that are desired but are not deal-breakers for the employer. You may still be considered even if you do not possess these. If you dont have all the qualifications listed, dont sweat it, you could still apply and be considered for the role.
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What Are The Shortcomings Of Ats
The problem is that ATS does not read a resume as a human would – it simply collects data. It doesnt care about aesthetics either. It is programmed by an employer to search for the right keywords, in the right order, on the right part of the resume.
Most ATS systems are programmed to score resumes according to keywords. However, they can be configured to search and score resumes based on various other criteria.
Also, the system can get confused pretty easily. For example, if the font is too fancy or if it encounters unrecognizable symbols, it may score the resume as unqualified and moves on to the next resume. It does what it is configured to do, nothing more and nothing less.
Start With A Master Resume
A good place to start, especially if youve never written a resume before, is by putting together a master resume. This will not be what you send to job applications, but will serve as a starting point that you can edit and personalize during the application process.
The reason for starting with a foundational nurse resume is so that you can then alter it slightly for each role you apply to. No need to reinvent the wheel but, never submit a cookie-cutter resume to every position. Dale Carnegie once said that, A persons name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Personalizing your resume matters, with both how you mention and address the future employer and how to include your specific qualifications that match what they are looking for.
Taking a few moments to target your resume could lead you to the interview of your dreams. And not targeting it could lead you on the fast-track to nowhere.
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How To Write Experience Section In Nurse Resume
Using our cutting-edge resume builder tips and instructions, drafting an experience section that speaks into the eye of the manager is hassle-free. Moreover, the experience section is the backbone of your resume. According to trending nurse resume formats, an ideal experience section condenses your core skills to prove your specific values to the company by using relevant your job history.
Hiring managers give extra credits to professional resumes that are organized, error-free and lucid. You must list your past employers with the timescale alongside a brief bio of the nature and financial worth of the business you worked previously. Nurse resume samples recommend arranging your job experiences in bulleted points to ease the recruiters reading ease and pace. Additionally, avoid work experiences prior to a decadeas the field of nursing has undergone drastic changes during the same period. If you must list an important job related to nursing completed prior to ten years, ensure that you condense it.
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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Understand The Job Description
When writing your nursing summary statement, tailor it to the exact job you are applying to. For instance, your summary for a hospital job might look a bit different than your summary for an outpatient clinic job. Get to know what the employer is looking for by carefully reading through their job description. Think about which skills or qualifications from the job description you can incorporate in your summary.
Related:How to Become a Registered Nurse: Career Guide and Requirements
Organize Your Resume According To Ancc Preferences
Once youve written your introduction, skills, and experience sections, its time to move onto your education and licenses.
However, nurses have a lot of education and certifications compared to other professions. It can be confusing deciding how to include all this extra information on your resume or how to organize it.
Fortunately, the American Nurses Credentialing Center has a standardized order for how you should list your nursing credentials on your resume.
List your education and credentials according to this order:
Heres an example of a nursing resume that follows proper ANCC order when listing education and credentials:
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Do You Need An Objective Or Summary On Your Nursing Resume
When crafting your nursing resume, you have the option to use career objectives and summaries.
When to include a career objective in your resume:
- You can use an objective when changing or modifying your career.
- For instance, if you plan to change from a surgical assistant registered nurse to an emergency room registered nurse, you’d use an objective to highlight that you’re pursuing a new subfield within nursing.
When a summary is right for your resume:
- Use a summary to highlight your most valuable experience and skills. These are ideal when you have vast experience in nursing.
- For example, if you’ve worked in a health setting for 10 or more years, you can include a summary.
When not to use objectives or summaries:
- Unclear objective example: “Looking for a nursing job to apply my skills and knowledge.”
- This lacks specificity and reads “I just need a job to pay the bills.” While that may be true, employers want to know you’re passionate about your work and will improve your workplace.
When objectives or summaries are worth including:
Nurse Resume Summary Statement Examples
The profile statement in an official resume must be a gist of the certifications and factual accolades the reader will encounter ahead in the resume. The motive of the summary statement is to astound the recruiter and specifically list the technical reasons on how you add can value to the company.
An ideal resume summary must be a bold and confident statement that outwits the rest of the candidates. As there are many bonus traits that enhance the professionalism of a nurse, you must assess diverse nurse resume samples of summary statements such as the below before finalizing on one-
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Writing Your Nursing Resume Objective Or Summary
Think of your nurse resume objective or summary as an elevator pitch. Crafting a good objective is all about precision and brevity.
When to use an objective
Whether you write a nursing resume objective or summary depends on your experience. If you dont have a lot of experience in nursing, then you should write an objective. Objective statements highlight training and goals for the future.
Dont make the mistake of over-emphasizing your relative inexperience.
Highlight what experience or training you have accumulated. For example, lead with any licensure or state designation youve earned to begin your objective. Then go into some of your skills that make you a good fit for the job.
When to use a summary
If you have experience in the field, we suggest that you use a resume summary.
Within the summary, make sure you include how many years youve been in the field with your designation or licensure and specific field expertise. Then outline your goal in applying.
Heres an example:
Hard-working and passionate Registered Nurse with over eight years of management/supervising experience and paramedic background looking to continue to grow and enhance my skills for the wellness of the facility. Currently completing mymasters in nursing with a specialty in Executive Leadership.
Will Your Nursing Resume Beat The Ats
Optimizing your resume for the Application Tracking System increases your chances of being called for an interview. The ATS is a tool that many companies use to quickly scan resumes and weed out applicants without relying on someone to read through them first.
Most resumes aren’t designed to beat ATS, and end up being filtered out before they ever reach the recruiter. However, if you know how to properly format your resume, you’ll pass the ATS scan and make your way to a person. Here’s what you should know about the role of fonts, font size, margins, header names, logical order, skills, and page length, as far as ATS-friendly resumes are concerned:
- ATS-friendly fonts make it easy for a computer to read your resume. Some of the most commonly used ATS-friendly fonts include: Times New Roman, Calibri, and Arial. Preferably, they should have a font size of 10-12 points.
- Beyond just font type, font size also matters. Preferably, your body font size should be 10-12 points, while your headers can be bigger.
- Keywords are the main focus of the ATS, so make sure your skill keywords and header names match what’s in the job description.
- The ATS is not sensitive to the number of pages, but one page is the standard across professions.
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