INDUSTRY STATS
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nursing positions are at a 9% growth rate, which is as fast as average. With that said, there are currently 3,080,100 jobs in the market right now. The total number of jobs is expected to increase by 276,800 to 3,356,900 in the period of 2020-30.
What’s more, the median annual wage for the Nursing jobs was $75,330 in May 2020. The lowest 10% earned less than $53,410, and the highest 10% more than $116,230.
Our conclusion? The Nursing job market is wide open for candidates.
Top Professional Nurse sections that make the best resume
- Header
- Professional summary
- Experience (with numbers and results)
- Relevant skills
- Education
- Certifications
How to write a Professional Nurse resume experience section
Professional Nurse Resume’s Job Experience Checklist:
- Use 4-6 bullet points per job title;
- Don’t go further than a decade behind when describing your job history, unless you’re applying for an executive position;
- Combine job responsibilities as well as achievements with numbers in results when you describe your past work;
- Start each sentence with a power verb and avoid overused buzzwords;
- Use either C-A-R or S-T-A-R methodology, when describing your experience.
The work experience samples below come from real Professional Nurse resumes that got people hired at top companies. You can use them as an inspiration to build your own resume:
- Give compassionate care to patients suffering from injuries to debilitating conditions.
- Assess patients conditions and administer medications.
- Observe behavior and symptoms and report changes to on-call physicians.
- Educate families about patients conditions and provide support as needed.
- Frequently act as a charge nurse and preceptor to students.
- Proactively learned new procedures and treatment protocols from more established nurses.
- Assisted physicians with procedures and managed Iv's.
- Monitored telemetry and responded to codes.
- Stocked supplies and reported malfunctioning equipment.
- Took samples and specimens for doctor ordered lab tests.
- Educate patients on issues and post-op or delivery care.
- Assist doctors with in-ward surgeries and non-invasive procedures.
- Provided neonatal care and education.
- Primary care,assessment and evaluation pf gynecological and obstetric patients.
- Paediatric ICU
- Theatre
- Pain Management Unit
PRO TIP
Include quantitative data throughout your Professional Nurse resume to impress the hiring manager. Real facts and figures that show off your competency as an audit manager go a long way. Did you reduce the costs of audits? Manage a large team? Boosted efficiency? Show off the real numbers!
Action Verbs for your Professional Nurse Resume
Recommended reads:
Professional Nurse Resume Skills’ Tips & Tricks to Impress Recruiters
Resume Skills Section Checklist:
- Ensure your hard skills section (including technologies) are exactly matching the job description.
- Don’t simply list your soft skills. Apply the “show, don’t tell” principle - let your job achievements speak for themselves.
- Find a way to showcase your skills beyond the skills section.
- Your resume’s skill section is important to ATS systems - so don’t skip it.
Top Skills for your Professional Nurse resume
- Excel
- CPR
- Bilingual
- Cannulation
- BSL
- Scout/Scrub
- Patient care
- ACLS
- Customer service
- Communication
- Compassion
- Patience
- Flexibility, adaptability, and emotional stability
- Proactive, ethical, and responsible nature
- Honesty
- Team-player
- Strong work ethic
- Time management
PRO TIP
When picking skills to feature in your resume, make sure they'll be relevant to the position you’re applying to. The point of listing skills is for you to stand out from the competition. Stay away from repetitive, meaningless skills that everyone uses in their resumes. Or else, they’ll backfire and make you look like an average candidate.
Recommended reads:
Professional Nurse Resume Header: Tips, Red Flags, and Best Practices
CHECKLIST For Your Professional Nurse Resume Header
- Your name and surname in a legible and larger resume font
- The job title you’re applying for or your current job title as a subheading to your name
- Link to your portfolio or online profile, such as LinkedIn
- Address (City and State for the US; just your city for rest of the world)
- Email address
- Headshot (required or welcomed in the EU; not required and sometimes frowned upon in the US)
Stick to popular email providers such as Gmail or Outlook. And use these professional formats to create your username:
- first.last@gmail.com
- last.first@gmail.com
- firstlast@gmail.com
- f.last@gmail.com
- first.l@gmail.com
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Some companies, states, and countries have non-discrimination policies about what kind of information can be included on your Professional Nurse resume. This might include a photo (which is often included in a resume header and might be on personal web pages you link to). You can always email the company’s HR department to ask about their policies before you apply.
Professional Nurse Resume Summary Best Practices
Checklist: What to include in your Professional Nurse resume summary:
- Years of experience;
- Highlight top 3 skills and proficiencies;
- One big professional accomplishment you’re most proud of, that you can tie with the aforementioned skills;
- Use short, direct sentences - but no more than three - to keep the HRs interested.
Resume Summary Formula:
PRO TIP
Your summary section should act as a professional taster. Use it wisely. Effectively convey your professional profile and let the hiring manager know that if they hire you, they won’t be disappointed. Make sure to include keywords from the job description too! Elaborate on your abilities further in your experience section. Again, cater to the job description.
Recommended reads:
Listing Your Education, Certifications and Courses
Resume Education Section Checklist:
- Ensure your hard skills section (including technologies) are exactly matching the job description.
- Don’t simply list your soft skills. Apply the “show, don’t tell” principle - let your job achievements speak for themselves.
- Find a way to showcase your skills beyond the skills section.
- Your resume’s skill section is important to ATS systems - so don’t skip it.
Top Certifications for your Professional Nurse resume
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
There are dozens of certifications that you can claim as a Professional Nurse. But, some are more effective than others. That’s why you mustn’t include every certificate other applicants might have. Try instead to earn and list a few of the difficult ones.
Professional Nurse Resume: Additional Writing & Formatting Tips
There are three basic resume formats you can choose from:
- Reverse-chronological resume format;
- Functional resume format;
- Hybrid (or Combination) resume format;
The most optimal format for your particular case will depend on your years of experience, as well as whether you’re switching industries or not.
Reverse chronological resumes are best suited for experienced individuals who are sticking to their industry. The experience section takes a central place, and its bullets contain your responsibilities and achievements, coupled with numbers and results.
Functional resumes are used by less experienced jobseekers or career changers. Note that it’s not a format that recruiters prefer, as most are used to the classic chronological alignment. Instead of a list of job titles, functional resumes focus on your skills, and through what experiences you gained them.
Hybrid resumes are great for both experienced and entry-level candidates, as well as career changers. They combine the best of both worlds - most often in a double column format, where one side of the content is focused on your experience, whereas the other - on your skills, strengths, and proudest moments.
Professional Nurse Resume Summary best practices
Here are more resume tips regarding your layout and style:
- Clear and legible 12p resume font size;
- Use 10’’ resume margins - that’s default for a great resume design;
- Use a one-page template resume length if you’ve got less than 10 years of experience; otherwise, opt for a two-page resume;
- Save your resume as PDF before sending it to the recruiter.
To take it a step further, check out how your resume can stand out without leaning too much on the creative side.
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Sometimes you’ll want to go after a job which requires more experience than you have. Instead of using a typical Professional Nurse resume layout, you can use a creative layout. Getting noticed is the most important challenge and a creative resume layout might help you get invited for an interview as most of other accountants have boring resume designs.
Other sections to include in your resume
Depending on the type of company (corporation or start-up; innovative or traditional), job seniority level and your location, you may want to include more sections to your Professional Nurse resume:
Professional Nurse Resume: How to Make Yours More Creative & Stand Out
When you send your resume to a potential employer, chances are it's the fiftieth one they've seen that day. That's why you need to make your Professional Nurse resume stand out for the right reasons. That means showing your personality, not just your professional experience. Employers are far more likely to remember a candidate who seems like a genuine person and not a robot. Do this by including your passions (which is also a great place to demonstrate skills on a resume), share your favorite books, or even what your usual day looks like.
What Makes a Great Professional Nurse Resume: Key Takeaways
- Choose a resume layout that sends the right message across and fits your current career situation;
- Create a resume header that shows your desired job title, and easy to find contact numbers;
- Be specific about your experience, accomplishments and future goals in your summary;
- Feature detailed metrics and specific examples that show the impact you made in your previous roles when describing your experience;
- List soft skills backed by examples;
- Add all of your technical skills and certifications that you have and match the job description;
- Show off a dash of personality in your resume that will demonstrate your culture fit and the right mix of hard and soft skills.
