Résumé Tips for Healthcare Professionals
Résumé Tips for Healthcare Professionals
We asked some of our resister nurse consultants to share their tips and tricks with us when it comes to resume building. Here is what two of our RNs had to say about what they found to be helpful through their experiences…
Diandra Leane – Registered Nurse / Experienced Research Assistant
- Highlight your best skills first at the top of your resume under “Summary” or “Objectives.” If you are a New Grad you will want to focus on your education, if you are a seasoned nurse, your focus should be on the experience and qualifications you will bring to the job. You can also use this opportunity to convey your enthusiasm about the role.
- Tailor your resume to the company and position you are applying for. Your resume should look slightly different to each position for which you are applying. Find what specific skills the employer is looking for in the job description and include a few in your resume, things like “works well under pressure, good communicator” etc…
- Do not forget about “soft skills,” these are so important in nursing. Examples such as working well within a team, having a strong work ethic, and excellent communication skills are traits employers are looking for.
- Use a template and stay away from embellished fonts and borders, these can distract the reader from the actual content of your resume
- Include any professionally-related endeavors outside clinical duties like specialty certificates, leadership experience, any nursing association roles, enrollment higher/advanced education, research work etc…
- When describing your clinical experience be sure to state the full hospital name, city & state, unit name, and the number of beds
- Be specific when you describe the duties you performed in your prior work. Instead of writing “cared for 4 patients,” elaborate to say “responsible for the clinical care, assessment, and documentation of 4 telemetry level patients”
- Do not leave out any participation in unit based councils, hospital committees and volunteer work that can help set you apart from other applicants
Dianne Barnard: Registered Nurse / Writer
- I definitely think that a resume should be highly personalized and that it should clearly show that you want to add value and receive value.
- I think a mission statement on a CV is not wasted space.
- I also believe that potential employers want to see volunteer history as this shows them what kind of person that you are in your spare time. In addition, having time to volunteer in some ways shows that a person knows how to organize their time in a work-balance kind of way. Literature shows that people want to feel valued and to add value at work and rank this even higher than salary. People want job satisfaction in today’s world.
- I think that relevant work experience should be expanded. It is not enough to say charge nurse on a psych floor. Details should be teased out
to demonstrate the ability to communicate, problem solve, organize, leadership skills, so on and so forth. - I think that the challenge is CV real estate. You want to get the best bang for your buck in a limited space. Nobody reads a 4 page CV. The challenge is to provide enough of a teaser and information about yourself as a person, an employee, and create a vision that makes the employer see you working with them, and for them. The CV gets you a seat at the interview table, where you can expound on details and seal the deal.
