8 Nursing Resume Examples for 2024

In this guide, we share proven resume examples for nurses, providing strategic advice tailored to this vital healthcare role. Learn to highlight your patient care skills and medical knowledge effectively. You'll find the essentials of what a hiring manager seeks in a nursing resume, from clinical experience to certifications.

  Compiled and approved by Grace Abrams
  Last updated on See history of changes

  Next update scheduled for

At a Glance

Here's what we see in effective nursing resumes.

  • Quantify Your Impact: Good resumes show your impact with numbers. In nursing, it's important to include metrics like patient satisfaction scores, medication error reductions, patient care hours, and staff training sessions led.

  • Match Skills With The Job Description: Include skills on your resume that you have and match the job description. Common nursing skills are patient assessment, wound care, EMR/EHR proficiency, IV administration, and infection control.

  • Understand Industry Trends: Good resumes reflect the latest trends. For example, show you are up-to-date with telehealth competencies as it is becoming more common in patient care.

Where to place education

When you are looking for a job in nursing, where you put your education on your resume matters. If you are new to nursing or just finished your studies, show your education first. This tells your future employer that your training is fresh and you are ready to start. If you have been working in nursing for many years, your work history should come before your education.

Always make sure that any special nursing qualifications or licenses are easy to find. These are important and can set you apart from other applicants.

Highlighting nursing skills

As someone applying for a nursing job, show your clinical skills and your ability to care for patients. Use simple words to describe your experience with specific tools or procedures. This makes it clear you can do the job well.

Include any experience you have with electronic health records. Knowing how to use these systems is key in today's healthcare and makes you a strong candidate.

Ideal resume length

For most nursing roles, a one-page resume is best. This is enough space to show your skills, experience and education. If you have worked in nursing for more than 10 years, you can use two pages. Make sure every word adds value.

If it is hard to fit your qualifications on one page, use a template that uses space well. Remember, clear and easy to read is always good.

Focus on patient care

In nursing, your resume should show how you care for patients. Talk about times when you made a difference in someone's health. This could be through direct care or by working well in a team.

Also, if you have been involved in any patient education or health promotion, make sure to include it. These are valuable parts of nursing that involve more than just medical care.

Beat the resume screeners

When you submit your resume for a nursing job, it often goes through an applicant tracking system (ATS) first. This system looks for certain words and phrases to decide if your resume fits the job. To help you get past this step, follow these tips:

  • Include keywords from the nursing job description in your resume. Look for skills or tools mentioned in the job post and add these to your resume. For example, if 'patient care' or 'medical charting' is listed, make sure these are in your resume.
  • Use a simple format for your resume. ATS can read plain text better. Avoid using tables or images that can confuse the system.

Remember, a clear resume with the right words can help you get noticed. Make it easy for the system to see you are a good fit for the nursing role.

Tailor your resume

When you tailor your resume, show how your skills meet job needs. This helps hiring managers see you as a good fit. Focus on what you've done in past work that matches the job you want. Here's how to make your resume stand out for nursing jobs.

  • Highlight your patient care skills, use phrases like managed patient care for 20+ patients daily.
  • Include any specialized areas you've worked in, such as pediatric nursing or emergency care.
  • Show your team work and leadership by mentioning if you've led shifts or trained new staff, like supervised a team of 5 nurses.

Quantify nursing achievements

Highlight your impact by using numbers. Numbers show the size of your contributions in a clear way. They help you stand out. Here's how you can think about your experience:

  • Think about the number of patients you care for in a day. This shows your ability to handle a busy workload. For example, 'Managed care for up to 20 patients per day.'
  • Consider how you have helped to improve patient care. Maybe you helped reduce patient wait times. You could write, 'Implemented a new triage system that reduced patient wait times by 25%.'

Remember to include any programs you started or took part in that improved the ward. For example:

  • If you led a team to lower infection rates, mention the percentage decrease, like 'Led an initiative that cut infection rates by 15% over six months.'
  • If you trained new staff, quantify it, 'Trained 35 new nursing staff in the latest care protocols, improving team efficiency by 30%.'

Use numbers to show how you save time or resources. For example, 'Streamlined patient reporting processes, saving 10 hours of staff time per week.'

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