As a nurse practitioner, you'll diagnose and prescribe treatments for patients like a doctor would. With this extra responsibility comes a greater need to show you're capable of doing the job. Prove you can with an outstanding nurse practitioner resume.
Do you have ample experience educating patients and their family members on what to expect during recovery, but are struggling to clearly show it on your resume? Look to our downloadable ICU registered nurse resume sample and job-specific writing tips for ideas.
No experience yet? We've all been there. To land an entry-level job as a nurse you'll need to emphasize your certifications and education.
Landing a job as a new grad registered nurse isn’t easy. The healthcare industry has stringent hiring standards because people’s lives often depend on the competent (and qualified) care of medical professionals. Our new grad RN resume example will help you write a resume that can get you hired at even the most competitive hospitals.
To get a great job as a newly graduated nurse practitioner, you need a resume that showcases your top skills and clinical experience. Use our new grad nurse practitioner resume sample and skills list to help you make a job application that gets you hired.
Operating room (OR) nurses are instrumental throughout the surgical process. Follow our OR nurse resume template and writing tips to show hiring managers your invaluable perioperative nursing skills.
Having trouble writing a resume as a nursing student? Our nursing student resume sample and writing tips will help you demonstrate to hospitals that you have the skills necessary for an internship.
Applying for positions as a CNA? Look through our certified nursing assistant resume sample for inspiration and tips for when you write your resume.
To help you prepare your resume, here’s a text template that uses proper resume format for a nursing position. You can simply copy and paste the template below to help you start on your resume:
Phone: 775 422 3142
Address: 1243 Valley Wood Drive, Reno, NV 89523
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yourprofile
Nurse RN with 6+ years of experience providing quality care to a wide variety of patients. Possesses a Master’s qualification in nursing and currently focused on earning a Doctorate Degree in this field. Aiming to leverage my experience and knowledge to effectively fill the nursing position at your hospital.
Registered Nurse: 143591
Virginia Board of Nursing
Active until October 2024
No matter what type of medicine you specialize in, getting a nursing job in a good hospital is challenging. You need to convince hiring managers that you have more than just the right licenses — you need to show them that you’re the perfect RN for the job at their specific hospital or clinic.
That’s why knowing how to write a strong nursing resume that advertises your skills, experience, and certifications is essential.
Follow these eight tips to make an effective resume that gets noticed by employers and lands you more interviews.
To immediately grab the attention of employers, your resume should begin with a concise yet detailed resume introduction that summarizes your experience, education, and licensure as a registered nurse.
We recommend using a nursing resume objective because it allows you to quickly and clearly highlight all the qualifications that hospitals are looking for on your resume.
Here’s an example of a strong nursing resume objective:
Nursing Resume Objective ExampleNurse RN with 8+ years of experience providing quality care to a wide variety of patients. Possess a Master’s qualification in nursing and currently focused on earning a doctorate in the field. Aiming to leverage my experience and knowledge to effectively fill the nursing position at your hospital.
With eight years of experience providing care for patients, this RN candidate makes it clear they’d make a good hospital nurse. Plus, they have a Master’s degree and are pursuing a doctorate, revealing another level of dedication to the role.
Ultimately, your resume objective should show hiring managers that you’d be an effective caregiver by illustrating your relevant abilities and prior achievements.
Quick TipYou can also try using an online resume summary generator to come up with some ideas for your introduction.
One of the most important parts of any nursing resume is a strong, up-to-date skills section. In fact, to even qualify for nursing jobs you need to have certain technical skills.
For example, here are some of the top nurse skills for today’s job market:
And here are some additional hard nursing skills and certifications to put on your registered nurse resume, depending on your specialization and the needs of your potential employer:
| HIPAA | Cardiopulmonary resuscitation |
| First aid | Knowledge of preventative care strategies |
| Tracheostomy care | Insertion of central lines |
| IV administration | Wound dressing |
Although nurses require specific technical skills to do the job, those aren’t the only skills required. As a nurse, you also deal with patients and colleagues each day, which demands a strong set of soft skills.
Soft skills are the skills you pick up through working with others and learning how to cope with your workload. Nursing resumes should include soft skills in the summary, skills section, and work experience section to make it clear to hiring managers that you have them.
Here’s a list of soft skills to emphasize on a resume for any nursing position:
| Critical thinking | Communication |
| Interpersonal skills | Customer service |
| Teamwork | Reliability |
| Dependability | People skills |
| Problem-solving | Attention to detail |
| Language skills | Able to multitask |
| Organizational skills | Empathy |
Writing the experience section of a nursing resume isn’t as straightforward as in other industries.
Hiring managers want to make sure your experience is directly relevant to their hospital, and the best way for them to determine that is by looking through your work experience section.
To make your qualifications as clear as possible, include facility- and unit-specific information in your resume bullet points, such as the total number of beds available at your previous hospital, and the types of units you worked in.
More specifically, you should include the following information on any type of nursing resume:
This information gives hiring managers a clear idea of what type of nursing experience you have, and whether you’d be a good fit for their hospital.
Once you’ve written your introduction, skills, and experience sections, it’s time to move onto your education and licenses.
However, nurses have a lot of education and certifications compared to other professions. It can be confusing deciding how to include all this extra information on your resume or how to organize it.
Fortunately, the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) has a standardized order for how you should list your nursing credentials on your resume.
List your education and credentials according to this order:
Here’s an example of a nursing resume that follows proper ANCC order when listing education and credentials:
Nursing Qualifications in ANCC OrderEDUCATION
Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing – Graduated 2018
Rutgers School of Nursing, 3.8 GPA
Registered Nurse (RN): License number 5668124
New Jersey Board of Nursing, active since January 2019
CERTIFICATION
Certified Pediatric Nurse (PED-BC)
Accreditation Board for Specialty Nursing Certification, 2019-Present
As a nurse, your licenses are essential to your ability to legally practice medicine. As a result, your licenses are one of the first things hiring managers are going to look for on your resume.
Make sure they can find exactly what they’re looking for on your resume by listing your licensure clearly and completely.
If you have numerous licenses, list them in a dedicated “Licenses” section on your resume. Otherwise, just list them in the education section of your resume.
Here’s the information you should include for each license you add:
Here’s an example of the entry of a properly formatted license on a nurse resume:
Nursing Licenses Section ExampleLICENSES
Registered Nurse: 362585
California Board of Registered Nursing
Active until October 2024
One of the most effective ways to show employers your capabilities and successes as a nurse is to quantify achievements in your work experience section.
For example, when writing your resume, ask yourself the following questions:
Numbers give the hiring manager a clear picture of your skills and abilities because they add context to the accomplishments on your resume.
Here’s an example of a bullet point without numbers:
Here is the same statement with numbers and context added:
Each time you find a job ad, scan the posting for resume keywords that can be incorporated into your RN resume. Tailoring your resume to the job posting ensures employers see exactly how you fit the position being advertised.
Here’s an excerpt from a job posting for a licensed practical nurse (LPN) — the keywords are underlined:
When writing your nursing resume, take note of keywords like this and work them into your experience section when possible.
If you’re worried you still don’t have enough qualifications on your resume, consider adding an additional section for your honors or any of your professional affiliations.
There are numerous professional organizations for nurses, and listing them on your resume is a good way to make yourself look more accomplished and possibly get an immediate “in” with the hiring manager (if they belong to the same organization).
Some examples of popular nursing affiliations include:
When listing organizations on your resume, include the name of the organization, the date you were admitted, and a short description of your role within the group.
Now that you know how to make a resume for any type of nursing job, you’re ready to start applying for work. However, making a resume still takes a lot of time and effort. If you want to make the process easier, try using an automated resume builder to do all the formatting and design work for you. At the end of the process, you’ll have an attractive, professional resume ready to use for any nursing position.
Conrad Benz is a Digital Media Specialist & Resume Expert at Resume Genius, where he helps countless job-seekers craft standout resumes and launch their careers. His...
Learn More
