Nursing Resume Examples

Choose the right format for your nursing resume

As anyone in nursing knows, it takes a little planning and preparation before you perform a procedure to make sure that you get it right.

The same goes for your resume. Before you write it, it’s necessary that you prepare for success by choosing the right format.

The format of a resume refers to the way that the information is arranged on the page. Which format you should choose depends on the amount of nursing experience you have.

There are three main resume format types: chronological, functional and hybrid.

If you’re a nursing applicant with more than five years’ experience, you should use a chronological format.

If you’re fresh out of nursing school or have less than two years’ experience, use a functional format.

And, if you are somewhere in the middle with between two and five years working as a nurse, you should use a hybrid format.

The main difference between the three formats is where the main focus is put on your resume.

Chronological formats work well for people with a lot of experience because they put the emphasis on all the work experience that they have.

Meanwhile, functional formats put the emphasis on your skills instead of your work experience as a clever way to distract from your inexperience.

As it indicates, a hybrid format is a halfway point between a functional and a chronological resume, and it gives balanced weight to your work experience and your skills.

Based on that information, you can make sure that you’re choosing the format that presents you in the best light.

Promote your nursing skills

Every nursing role is going to require its own unique skills. However, there are generalized skills that are useful across the board for most nursing positions.

It’s going to help to include some of these sought-after skills in your resume as they apply to you.

Common sought-after skills for nurses include:

• Professionalism
• Patient safety
• Written communication
• Oral communication
• Compassion
• Chart reading
• Observation
• CPR certification
• First-aid certification
• Record keeping
• Taking vital signs
• Math skills
• Metric fluency
• Urgent care
• Equipment expertise
• Time management
• Critical thinking
• Empathy
• Cultural awareness
• Organization
• Medication dosages
• Language skills (eg. Fluent in Spanish, Polish, Tagalog, etc.)
• Patient care
• Friendliness
• Feeding
• Nurturing
• Bathing
• Dressing
• Patient transport
• Physical endurance
• Procedural preparation
• Diagnostic tests
• Familial notification
• Preventative care
• Teamwork
• Calm under pressure
• IV administration
• Neurological assessment
• Interpersonal skills
• Patient and family education
• Confidentiality
• Computer literacy
• Continuous education

Doctor up your resume with some of these crucial keywords where they’re applicable to your experience and describe who you are as a nurse.

Bonus pro tip: Study the exact language used in the ad or job posting and try to incorporate the keywords and phrases that the employer mentions if they’re relevant to job duties you perform.

Use a template to make sure your resume looks clean

Just in the same way that you want to make sure that a room is sanitized and clean before you perform a medical procedure, you want to be sure that your resume has a clean and easy-to-read design for hiring managers.

The reason is: Studies have shown that recruiters only look at a resume for an average of six seconds before moving onto the next one. If a resume is hard to read, it’s probably getting skipped.

Using a template is an easy way to avoid this. A resume template is a preformatted document that was created by a professional designer. They took care of all of the design elements to make sure everything is well-presented and easy to read.

All you have to do is pick a template that you like and fill in your information. It saves you all the time of tinkering with columns, borders, shading and fonts.

JobHero has loads of resume templates that you can use to create your own resume.

But even more useful, JobHero features a handy resume builder that lets you choose from a selection of templates and gives suggestions and guidance for what to include in each resume section.

Furthermore, it auto-suggests phrases about your work history that are tailored to the exact job title you are applying for. That way, you can rest assured that you’re saying the right things in your resume.

A resume builder is truly the easiest and fastest way to create a resume. It’s like having an expert look over your shoulder to guide you step-by-step as you write your resume.