Tips for Writing an Effective Nursing Résumé

A résumé is basically a brief summary of your professional qualifications. It is a marketing and branding tool. When you are job hunting, a résumé is a must, of course. But it is also a snapshot of your growth as a professional nurse. In this post, I’ll give you 6 tips to writing a nursing résumé that will get you noticed when searching for your first – or subsequent – nursing positions.
What is a Résumé? And is it Résumé or Resume?
Résumé is a French word that means “summary.” Dictionary.com (résumé, n.d.a) expands the definition to provide detail of what the summary refers to: “a brief written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience, as that prepared by an applicant for a job.” Okay, that’s fairly clear.
In the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. résumé is another word for curriculum vitae (résumé, n.d.a). And from the Latin resumere, a résumé is a “biographical summary of a person’s career” (résumé, n.d.b). Still clear? Maybe not.
According to the online dictionaries I’ve noted above, you can use any form or variant of the word résumé you’d like: résumé, resumé, or resume.
Personally, I don’t like to use the word without the accents (l’accent aigu in French) because in English the word resume means to take back, and is pronounced riˈzo͞om. I just can’t bring myself to use resume when I mean a résumé; so, I either use résumé or resumé.
What’s the Difference Between a Résumé and a Curriculum Vitae?
In many countries, a résumé and a curriculum vitae are the same things — a brief summary of your qualifications. However, in the U.S., they are not quite the same and are used for slightly different purposes.
In the U.S., when you are applying for a job you provide the employer with a résumé. This is supposed to be short and sweet — in fact, many experts caution against having more than one to two pages! The idea is to provide your qualifications, but tailor the information so that it is relevant to the job you are seeking.
In the academic world, for example, when are applying for a faculty position, you provide the search committee with your curriculum vitae or CV for short. However, an academic CV is usually anything but short! It contains ALL personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience from your entire academic career. It is usually a long document, especially if you have been teaching for a number of years!
For example, a nursing faculty CV includes all education, certifications, previous clinical and academic positions, teaching activities, research activities (including grants and funded research), and practice activities. It contains the citations for all of your scholarly work from your master’s thesis and/or doctoral dissertation/capstone project to your publications (published abstracts, books, book chapters, and journal articles) and podium and poster presentations. Service activities are also included, such as academic committee work and international, national, regional, and local community and professional involvement.
Résumé Style Formats
There are three basic résumé style formats you could go with a professional style that is chronological in nature, a functional style that highlights your skills, and a hybrid of the two (Hloom, n.d.). There are also formats that are a little more creative and specialized, such as a Portfolio. While some companies would want one type of résumé — let’s say a professional style — in nursing, you might present both a résumé and a portfolio.
Professional style is also known as a chronological résumé or reverse-chronological résumé. In my experience, this is the best format to use for your basic nursing résumé (or for the résumé that you use to apply for nursing school). And use reverse-chronological order. That means put your most recent education, experience, publications, etc. first and work backward. Recruiters want to know, first, where you came from, not that you started as a candy striper in high-school.
If you are a new graduate with little healthcare experience, this format will highlight that fact. But, I don’t think it matters as much because recruiters know that you are a new grad – they are not expecting tons of experience on your part. For your initial nursing résumé, I’d tell you to put down any healthcare-related experience you have – you worked as a telemetry tech or nurse’s aide or medic, and, yes, that you were a candy striper. (Later, as you get more nursing experience, you’ll take off the candy striper position!)
A functional style résumé emphasizes your skills and achievements. While that format may be great for a new grad or someone transitioning from one career to another (Hloom, n.d.), it’s not a common format used in healthcare. The functional format doesn’t emphasize experience, which is why it may seem like the better option for new grads. But because the format is different from the expected professional format, the recruiter won’t necessarily have time to decipher your résumé to find the information they are looking for and ATS systems may not be able to decipher it either resulting in a rejected application (Hloom, n.d.).
The sections of a functional résumé begin with skills and usually end with education history. The sections are (Hloom, n.d.):
Personal Information
Professional Profile or Summary
Relevant Skills
Professional Experience / Work History
Education
You can find examples of this résumé style online.
Specialized Résumé Formats include a creative format, portfolio format, infographic, and ATS or applicant tracking system formats (Hloom, n.d.). The ATS formats are used for online applications. Be sure to read the directions if your job search includes an online application and résumé. (If you need to use this type of format, Google it to find out more information.)
I’m NOT recommending that you use any of these formats for your basic nursing résumé. That said, many schools of nursing are encouraging students to create an electronic professional portfolio (AKA ePortfolio) to have available for job interviews.
“A professional portfolio is an organized collection of relevant documents and artifacts that showcases your talents, most relevant skills, and charts your professional growth” (UNCF Special Programs Corporation, n.d.).
The purpose of a professional nursing portfolio is to highlight your knowledge and skills. Nursing schools may use it to provide evidence that you’ve met their terminal competencies or outcomes. In a job search, just like a nursing résumé, it is a marketing tool – a tool to market YOU! But, you don’t want to overuse it in a job interview. A portfolio is not a replacement for your nursing résumé, it’s “an extension” (UNCF, n.d.). The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has a very helpful document if you are interested in creating your own portfolio. See the retrieval information in the reference list.
How to Get Started
There are many ways to begin writing a résumé. The easiest is to open a new document in your word-processing program (e.g., Microsoft® Word, Corel® WordPerfect®, or Apple’s Pages) and choose a premade résumé template. The templates give you the categories to include on your résumé and all you have to do is fill in the blanks or follow their prompts. Easy.
I use Microsoft® Word, so the choices I had were Chronological Resume (they spell it without the accents), Creative resume, Polished resume, and Resume (color). You can also search for online templates if you want more choices. They all contain some basic categories: Experience, Education, Skills, Activities (e.g., volunteer experience, leadership activities, publications, etc.).
You can also do a search on Google or your favorite search engine for Résumé templates (resume templates works as a search term, too).
Tip #1: Stick with a Professional Résumé Style
Here’s my advice for a nursing résumé style — keep it simple and professional! I would NOT use a “Creative” or artsy-looking résumé template — that’s not the job. If you were an artist or a craftsman or a web designer, I’d say, absolutely show your creativity; but NOT for a nursing position. Seriously.
I know that some of you may be thinking that the creative style would help you stand out — I think it will, but not in a good way. Sorry. But I promise to give you tips for standing out in the next section!
What to Include (and Not Include!) in Your Nursing Résumé
An effective nursing résumé will capture the recruiter’s attention and, hopefully, get you an interview for the position you are seeking.
Tip #2: Don’t Include Superfluous Information!
Basic information includes contact information – name, address, phone number, and email address. If you speak one or more languages, that is relevant information too. By the way, no need to label this section; just begin page one with this personal information. Make sure that your name is on every page of your document.
Don’t put down marital status or the number of kids you have or that you love puppies. Some questions are illegal for the recruiter to ask and some info may paint a picture of you as less than serious about your career. Nobody cares about your hobbies or personal interests, either – sorry to be so blunt. If the recruiter wants to know what you do in your free time, then you can share your interests. But remember my post on interview tips — don’t share too much information!
In this day and age, social media contact information is probably okay to include, but I’d limit which ones I shared. You should definitely link to your LinkedIn profile or a business website that you’ve created. LinkedIn is considered a professional profile and useful for networking with other nurses, healthcare professionals, and recruiters.
I wouldn’t link to your personal Twitter account, Instagram, or Facebook pages, though. Consider the impression the recruiter might have of you after viewing your tweets or pictures or pages. That’s not to say that the recruiter might not find you online anyway, even if you don’t give them your information – but the possibility decreases if you don’t provide your social media URLs.
Some formats suggest that you include a career objective statement or a profile or qualifications summary (4-5 bullet points). “To use my knowledge and skills as a registered nurse in a cardiovascular unit” or “To function as an evidence-based, theory-guided registered nurse ….” to me is a waste of valuable résumé space! I mean what else are you going to say – that you don’t believe in evidence-based care? Keeping this in is not a critical flaw and some experts recommend it, so do what you feel is right.
Licenses and Certifications are usually found after the basic info. Your RN/APN license numbers, state, and an expiration date are important to note. If you are an advanced practice nurse put these credentials first, then follow with specialty certifications.
Certifications are awarded from different certifying bodies, so specify the official name of the specialty certification, especially if your certification credential is used for multiple specialties, like RN-BC. For example, Certified Acute/Critical Care Nurse – Adult [CCRN], Certified Emergency Nurse [CEN], Certified Medical-Surgical Registered Nurse (CMSRN®), Certified Pediatric Nurse (CPN), Registered Nurse-Board Certified (RN-BC), etc. Check out the article from nurse.org in the reference list for a complete list of nursing credentials. Note the expiration date of your certifications.
If you have healthcare skill certifications, such as ACLS or PALS or any of the others, these can be listed in this section, also. But these are not more important than advanced practice or specialty certifications.
Tip #3: Include Relevant Information
Your nursing résumé.
Your nursing résumé. Photo by Hugo Barbosa on Unsplash
Decide on the categories of information you will include on your nursing résumé. Again, some templates will be prefilled with categories — you can edit the category labels or add others or delete as you need.
Typically, Education is listed first, then Experience. (You could switch these if you feel the need.) Again, use reverse chronological order – your highest earned degree first, your last job first, and work backward. Be sure to include dates of attendance and majors. GPA is not really necessary — you will have to submit your transcript as part of the application packet, so they can look this up themselves.
Usually the “major” for a baccalaureate in nursing degree is recorded as Nursing; for a master’s degree in nursing though, your major is typically the program you were in — Critical Care Clinical Nurse Specialist, Family Nurse Practitioner, Nursing Leadership and Management, Nursing Informatics, etc.
Any additional education or skills training can be listed after your degrees. Did you take a phlebotomy or an I.V. certification course? Did you take an advanced critical care course or complete a post-master’s palliative care certificate? Include where you took the course and dates of attendance.
For the Experience section — put in only relevant nursing, clinical, and healthcare experience. I’m talking employment, here, not volunteer work. You may have been a medic in the military or a telemetry technician on a cardiac floor while you were in school — put that down. If you were a certified nurse’s aide or home health aide, put it down. If you were a work-study student and ran the skills lab helping other students, put it down.
Many new grads list their experiences in nursing school clinicals because they don’t usually have much nursing experience, as yet. This is acceptable. Once you start working as a nurse though, update your résumé with your registered nurse experience and remove your school clinicals from your résumé. If you took a healthcare or nursing course that was not required for your degree or you were selected for a nursing internship — this is above and beyond and special, so be sure to note these.
The same advice goes for jobs that were not nursing related. Don’t put them on your nursing résumé unless you feel that they add something special – something that will make you stand out and that your potential employer should know about. For a staff nurse position, the fact that you were a top seller for Mary Kay Cosmetics or a barista at Starbucks probably isn’t going to help you get the position. If you managed your own start-up, that shows entrepreneurship, leadership, and organizational skills that might work in your favor. A job that emphasized customer service (in our world, patients and families) could also be of help.
Some templates will suggest that you briefly describe your skills and responsibilities with each position you list, but I don’t know that this strategy is particularly helpful for a nursing résumé. If you list a nurse’s aide position, for example, the recruiter is going to know what a nurse’s aide is responsible for. Remember that if the recruiter wants to clarify anything on your résumé, they’ll ask you at the interview. So, again, this formatting addition is up to you. If you do add this description, make sure to use keywords from the job posting in your descriptions.
Skills Summary. Here you can identify any specific advanced skills or abilities you have. Healthcare skill certifications can go here, too. Don’t forget to include soft skills.
Soft skills are skills that help us work with other people and care for our patients and their families; they are components of emotional intelligence (Kroning, 2015). Strong communication skills, teamwork, leadership, work ethic, attitude, collaboration, adaptability, empathy, problem-solving and critical thinking, clinical reasoning, patient and nurse advocacy, networking, and professionalism are essential skills in the workplace and vital to healthy work environments and quality patient care (Henricks, 2017; Kroning, 2015). You can list these skills in your résumé – and be sure to talk about your abilities in these areas in your interview!
Volunteer and Community Experience should be a separate section. Volunteer work is important to note – but don’t list under the employment experience section. In this case, the experience doesn’t have to be all healthcare-related. Volunteering shows passion and commitment and a willingness to help others — all good attributes for a nurse! Maybe you volunteer at the Health Fair each year? Or help register people for the blood drive at church? Or teach CPR to teachers at the elementary school?
Tip #4: Include Activities that Demonstrate Commitment to the Nursing Profession
I’m talking about any professional or scholarly activity that shows your dedication and desire to promote nursing and network with other nursing professionals. These activities are not that common on new graduate nursing résumés, so if you have any of these, you will stand out.
Professional activities and involvement would include listing any professional nursing organizations that you are a member of and any activities that promote a positive nursing image. Were you a member of the National Student Nurses Association or served in a volunteer capacity in the student nursing organization at your school? Are you an active chapter member of a local specialty organization? Leadership positions are a plus. Did you attend Nurses Day at the Capital? Did you give testimony to the State Board of Nursing about the Nurse Practice Act?
Awards and Honors: List any nursing school awards or honors you received, such as Dean’s list honors, acceptance to the Nursing Honors Program, etc. Do make sure that you note if you are a Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI or Sigma) member. Induction in STTI means that you met quality and leadership criteria — only the top students are invited to membership.
Scholarly activities include professional presentations, including poster presentations, during Nurse’s Week at the local hospital or at a conference, for example. Presentations in class, don’t count. Are you published? I know a few nursing students who have been co-authors with faculty. Or maybe you published the lit review that you did for your evidence-based practice project or the results of your capstone project?
Save your completed résumé by clearly labeling it as your foundational résumé. Use whatever words make sense to you — résumé_first, résumé_base version, résumé1, résuméoriginal, whatever. Each time you need to target your résumé for a new opportunity, you’ll want to start with this original document.
Tip #5: Target Your Résumé to Organizational Values and Culture
An effective nursing résumé might get you a job interview!
An effective nursing résumé might get you a job interview! Photo by Nik MacMillan on Unsplash
Now that you have your base résumé done, you should adapt or tailor your template to the specific institution and position for which you are applying. You do that by modifying your original résumé to target the culture of the institution and the keywords in the job posting. Why? Because a recruiter (or an ATS system) will recognize the institution’s values in your résumé and decide that you might be a good match for the organization and the position.
First, research the institution you are applying to. This is just smart and this information will help you if you get an interview, too. Find out all you can about the institution by reading their main web pages. Pull up the nursing department webpage and learn about the nursing culture and patient care philosophy. You will then want to strategically place organizational values and keywords into your descriptions of your responsibilities or qualifications in your targeted nursing résumé.
Keywords for nursing positions typically include caring, patient-centered, evidence-based, theory-guided, collaboration, teamwork, professional, integrity, critical thinking, compassionate, etc. I want you to be honest, of course. But if you share the same values as the organization, you are more likely to be satisfied with your job and the institution as a whole.
Save this targeted version of your nursing résumé with a different file name – maybe with the initials of the hospital. For example, résuméJHN or résuméUCH, etc.
Tip #6: Keep Your Nursing Résumé Updated!
In nursing, you pretty much write your initial résumé or CV and then just keep it updated as you gain experience and take advantage of new opportunities. This is a must for faculty, by the way! (More on CVs in future posts.)
Make sure that you are updating your foundational or base version of your nursing résumé. This way, when you apply for different positions you’ll have the most recent version of your résumé to modify for job opportunities.
If you haven’t yet, check out last week’s post on job searches. Ryan echoes several points that I made here and gives you more tips to think about in your job search!
References
Henricks, S. (2017, December 28). 5 soft skills every nurse needs to deliver the best patient experience. Retrieved from https://blog.amplionalert.com/5-soft-skills-every-nurse-needs-to-deliver-the-best-patient-experience
Hloom.com. (n.d.). Resume format guide. Retrieved from https://www.hloom.com/resumes/resume-formats/
Kroning, M. (2015). Fostering soft skills is a must for nurse leaders. American Nurse Today, 10(2). Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/fostering-soft-skills-must-nurse-leaders/
Nurse.org. (2017, July 8). Complete list of common nursing certifications. Retrieved from https://nurse.org/articles/nursing-certifications-credentials-list/
Résumé. (n.d.a). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 8, 2018 from Dictionary.com website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/resume-
Résumé. (n.d.b). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved May 8, 2018 from Dictionary.com website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/resume-
UNCF Special Programs Corporation. (n.d.). Developing your professional portfolio. Retrieved from http://www.mmgconnect.com/userfiles/files/resource_profportfolio_2012.pdf