Putting a resume together is one of the first things you do as a new nurse grad when entering the job search. Your resume is the first thing many employers see and what will land you an interview, so you want to make sure your resume does a great job of accurately representing you!
Fonts
- For your resume you want to use an easy to read font that is professional and clean. Examples of font choice would be Times New Roman, Calibri, Cambria, or Ariel.
Format
- Format needs to be simple! We have all seen the resumes that have multiple columns, multiple colors, and all the frills which is great if you are looking for a job like that! However, in the field of nursing you need to remember that your job involves being professional, keeping patients safe and following rules so your resume must reflect this! Additionally, it is important to have your resume mirror the hospital or medical center you are applying to. If their website is classic with clean lines — your resume should be too.
- I did this by utilizing page breaks to divide my resume and using different size fonts for the headers and body.
Length
- Try to keep your resume to two pages max! Most recruiters do not want to read a novel to get to know you, so keep it short and sweet, cut unneeded sections if necessary!
Logo
- I decided to go with a simple logo of just my initials to attract the eye to the top to my resume. This would be the part of your resume where you could be creative if you wished, as the rest should be clean and sophisticated.
Contact Information
- It is very important to include your contact information at the top of your resume so that it is easy to find for any potential employers. This information should include your name, phone number, email, address, and website link (if you have an online portfolio).
Educational Experience
- List your education by most recently attended institution and only list the institutions where you obtained a degree. Include the years in which you attended, the degree you obtained, your major/minor, and GPA.
Job History/ Experience
- List your job history in order, starting with your most current job you have. Only list jobs that pertinent to nursing or the medical field, they do not want to read about how you were a movie theater attendant when you were 16. However if you were a CNA or phlebotomist prior to becoming a nurse that would something important to list! If you are a new nurse or recent graduate, you could list any pertinent clinical rotations to the job you are applying for such as your ICU clinical or Med Surg clinical.
- Include your role whether it was as student nurse or registered nurse, the department you were in (if it was a specialty), and the facility where you worked.
- I like to have five bullet points on my current or most recent job, and two-three bullet points on the rest.
- Use the bullet points to explain and describe your role, include what you did, what you learned, examples of the patients you worked with, interventions you performed, procedures you assisted with, who you consulted or collaborated with, how you communicated with patients, medical conditions you treated, events you participated in, how you ensured patient safety, built patient trust, what assessments you performed, how you educated patients, and lastly how you improved patient care.
- Always try to relate these bullet points back to patient care and the patient experience.
- Examples:
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- Worked as a nurse in the emergency department treating critically ill patients of all ages and backgrounds.
- Performed therapeutic nursing interventions to establish individualized care.
- Assisted in the implementation of life-sustaining devices such as central lines, arterial lines, and artificial airways.
- Assisted with sterile procedures and wound dressings.
- Collaborated with all members of the medical team and differing outside agencies to ensure that patients were receiving appropriate medical care.
Certifications/ Licenses
- Include any pertinent medical certifications, such as Basic Life Support, Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support, Pediatric Advanced Life Support, and Trauma Nursing Core Course.
- Include any medical licenses such as nursing license, CNA license, EMT license or any others that are still current.
Volunteer Work/ Community Service
- Include the facility you volunteered at, your role or title, the amount of hours you accrued, and descriptions of your role.
- Examples:
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- Volunteered alongside nurses and physicians to promote patient care in the Emergency Department.
- Experienced and observed triaging, treatment, and discharging of a large variety of trauma patients ranging from acute appendicitis to farming accidents.
References
- I usually like to include around three references. These references should be from a variety of sources, such as your teachers, clinical instructors, preceptor, nurse manager/ charge nurse, nurse educator etc. Make sure to include your references credentials, their role or relation to you, their phone number, and email. Don’t forget to ask your references in advance if it is okay that you list them! Most of them like to know ahead of time if they should be expecting a phone call about you.
Other Sections You May Want To Include
- Interests
- Academic Achievements
- Personal Goals
- Awards
- Strengths
- Professional Memberships
- Publications
Finishing Touches
- Proof read your resume, even read it out loud, and have someone else (preferably a medical professional).
- Double check for any grammatical errors and ensure all of your wording is correct.
- Make sure all of your indents, margins, and bullets are the same. Make sure your last item on page one does not carry over to page two or that your paragraph does not get divided by page breaks.
- Print your resume to ensure formatting looks the same on paper as it does on the computer.
- Print several copies to have ready to hand out at your interview!
Lastly here is the Free Downloadable Resume that you can edit and fill in with your information! Just click the link, download to desktop (should be done on a computer rather than smartphone), open up with Microsoft Word, and begin editing!
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