Entry-Level Nurse Resume

Nursing is a rewarding career, with opportunities to care for sick, ill, disabled, or otherwise in-need patients. However, if you want to be hired as a nurse, you’ll first need to write a great entry-level nurse resume.

An entry-level nurse resume should include a resume objective, educational background, relevant nursing skills, clinical, residential, or internship experience, and any licenses or certificates you currently possess.

To give you some ideas on what employers look for in their nurse applicants, here’s a video walk-through on how to make a professional resume for a nursing role:

And to ensure your nursing resume reflects your best qualities as a healthcare provider, use the following five tips below to guide you.

1. Write a convincing entry-level nurse resume objective

Entry-level nurses have an advantage over other professionals when building their resumes for the first time because of the extensive internship and resident experience they’re required to complete before graduating.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find a job. Hospitals are busy places, and hiring managers don’t always have time to look over each applicant in detail.

Start your resume with a convincing nursing resume objective to make a strong first impression and show employers that you’re worth their time.

Your objective should quickly summarize your educational background, relevant work experience, nursing skills, and desired position.

2. Include essential skills for an entry-level nurse

All nurses must possess certain expertise and certifications, as well as a variety of hard and soft skills. That’s why it’s essential to highlight relevant nursing skills on your resume.

Due to the volume and variety of patients and doctors nurses will interact with daily, you must possess certain soft skills, such as leadership, time management, and organizational skills. Nurses also need to have great personality traits, such as being friendly, caring, patient, dependable, and adaptable.

Here’s an example of essential soft skills that are needed for an entry-level nurse:

Additionally, here’s an example of seven hard skills needed to be a successful entry-level nurse:

Hard skills 

• Licensed RN
• CPR/First Aid
• Phlebotomy
• Wound care
• Recording vitals
• Medicine administration
• Patient transportation

3. Add a detailed nursing education section

Writing your resume’s education section as an entry-level nurse is different from writing the education section of your resume in other industries.

This is because medicine has many different specializations and educational requirements that entry-level nurses need to include in their education section.

For example, your education section should include the following information: education, relevant coursework, and licenses and certifications. These three parts make up your overall educational background, and because you’re a fresh nursing school graduate, employers will want to immediately see them when reviewing your entry-level nurse resume.

Below, we’ve included examples of a well-written education section for an entry-level nurse, complete with relevant coursework, licenses, and certifications:

Education

In the education section, you’ll want to include details such as the year of graduation, GPA average (only if above 3.0), and academic affiliations.

Here’s an example of a complete entry-level nurse education section:

Bachelor of Science in Nursing, May 2021

GPA: 3.7/4.0

Student Nursing Association, Member 2018-2021

Relevant Coursework

When listing relevant coursework, you need to detail the coursework most applicable to the nursing position you’re applying to. For example, if you worked in the radiology ward, include radiology-related coursework to indicate how you’re qualified.

Here’s an example of four practice methods to keep in mind when listing nursing school coursework:

• Observational methods

• Principles of teaching applied to nursing

• Pharmaceutical oncology

• Qualitative analysis

Licenses & certifications

Licenses and certifications are great resume builders, and should always be included when writing an entry-level nurse resume because medical centers and hospitals are legally required to employ only licensed and certified nurses.

Not listing the correct licenses or certifications could result in your entry-level resume being automatically rejected, so make sure to specify your license number and the issuing organization.

Here’s an example of how to include licenses and certifications on your entry-level nurse resume:

Registered Nurse: New York State Board of Nursing, License #0000000

Basic Life Support (BLS) certified by the American Heart Association

Listing certifications and licenses is critical for gaining employment as a nurse, and can directly impact your compensation, so make sure you do it properly.

4. Include clinical and other work experience

While your entry-level or nursing student resume should be heavily focused on medical-specific educational and internship experiences, there’s often room for notable non medical-related work experiences as well.

Your clinical work experience section should be focused on preceptorships, residencies, and internships because these will likely be the most relevant experiences you possess for the position you’re applying to.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when detailing your clinical work experience:

DO

1. DO include the official job or internship title, specifying internship, part-time, or preceptorship
2. DO quantify your experience by using hard numbers when listing achievements and responsibilities, such as the numbers of patients, beds, and procedures.
3. DO write out acronyms if it can’t be assumed with 100% confidence the reader will know their meanings

Additionally, here’s an example of three things you should avoid in your clinical experience:

DON’T

1. DON’T include too many non-relevant bullet points
2. DON’T use personal pronouns such as “I” and “My”
3. DON’T forget to provide evidence for any achievements, skills, or experience you mentioned in your resume objective

Additionally, if you held a position that required the use of transferable skills, consider adding it. Employers appreciate nurses with universal employability traits such as management skills, communication skills, and organizational skills.

5. Implement relevant action verbs

Finally, using action verbs throughout your entry-level nurse resume is another great tactic to impress and grab the hiring manager’s attention.

Action verbs convey initiative and show leadership skills, whereas phrases such as “responsible for” or “duties include” are vague and not particularly impressive to read.

Prospective nurses will want to use action verbs such as “provided”, “assessed” and “evaluated” to better display their nursing abilities.

Here’s an example of great action verbs to use on your entry-level nurse resume: