Your resume is your first impression! Hence having a generic resume that doesn't stand out from others is not enough. You have to create one that leaves a positive impression on the reader's mind.

Recruiters spend at most 10 seconds reading a resume. Hence, your resume must instantly and concisely highlight your skills and qualification for the job.

A good resume will surely land you a lot of interviews and make it easy to get the right job. Hence, in this article, let's discuss the components of a resume, some tips for writing an excellent resume, and the mistakes to avoid.

Components of an Impressive Nurse Resume

1. Contact Information:
   
   The first thing that you need to include in your resume is your name and contact information. Or how else will the employer contact you after being intrigued by your resume?
   
   On your resume, your name should be in a larger font than the rest of the text. Below your name, you can also add your credentials and highest degree or licensure. Along with that, you should also include your contact information, including your phone number, address, email, LinkedIn profile, etc.
   
   Make sure you are using emails that look professional. Also, it will be a good idea to change your voicemail message to something more formal.
   
2. Professional Summary:
   
   A professional summary will help the reader understand your skills without them having to read your entire resume.
   
   Your professional summary is a great way to concisely describe your experience, qualifications, and achievement. You can write a short paragraph or bullet points of everything you want to include here.
   
   There are a lot of details that you can add, including but not limited to-
   • Your years of experience
   • Keywords listed in the job post
   • Facility designations
   • Professional certifications and awards
   • Language skills
   • Soft skills
     
     Still, it would help if you ensured that the summary is brief. You have to treat it as an elevator pitch that immediately grabs attention and makes the reader want to know more about you.
     
3. Nursing Skills and Area of Expertise:
   
   Many nurses make the mistake of listing their hard skills at the end of their resumes. But this, at times, can cost you your interview. In nursing, your hard skills are as crucial as your soft skills. Hence remember to list them out.
   
   You can list them with reference to the skills mentioned in the job posting to increase your chance of getting past the Applicant Tracking Software (ATS, Resume reading AI).
   
4. Licensure:
   
   Though you may already have added this at the beginning of your resume along with your name. In this section, you can add extra information about your license, such as your state of licensure, license number, and license expiration date.
   
   For example: Registered Nurse - New York, #RN0001, expires: 25/11/2024.
   
5. Certifications and Credentials:
   
   Here is another section that can strengthen your profile. But here you should ensure that you are not using the short form of your credentials. This is because the ATS system may not be programmed to understand these short forms and may discard your profile.
   
   Write your credentials in complete form and then add the shorter version using brackets "().
   
6. Work History:
   
   Here you should add all the relevant work experience you have for the job. Again, make sure to add it in chronological order, with your most recent position being the first and then the previous ones.
   
   Provide your employment date, your position title, and your employer's address and name. Incorporate primary duties, accomplishments, research interests, and committee assignments. Also, make sure to keep your entries uniform throughout the section. Also, it would be best if you made sure to differentiate part-time and full-time positions using appropriate sub-headlines.
   
7. Educational and Training:
   
   You should add your highest degree first and then add the previous education you have acquired. Ensure to include the institution's name, the degree sought or completed, and the completion date or expected completion date. The order in which you want to provide this information is up to you, may it be the date first, degree first, or institution first. But still, you should keep your entries consistent, regardless of your preference.
   
8. Awards, Accomplishments, and Affiliations:
   
   Though this section is not mandatory, we highly encourage you to add it to your resume to make it more enticing to the reviewer. This can include the accomplishments that you have gained related to nursing or any volunteer work you may have done.

Tips For Creating A Great Resume:

• Ensure the resume highlights any skill or certification required for the position or program.
• Ensure you include all the information necessary for the job, but remember to keep it concise.
• Make sure to add your computer skills, such as experience with Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR). Healthcare is going digital, and your experience with using technology is a plus point for your resume.
• To increase your chances of getting selected by the ATS, include keywords from the job posting in your resume.
• Add volunteer experience to show your employer that you care for the betterment of the community.
• Make sure to proofread the document for typos and grammatical mistakes.

Mistakes To Avoid In Your Resume:

• Omit your salary expectations.
• Don't include personal information.
• Do not include your nickname.
• Do not use first-person pronouns like 'I' in your resume. It is meant to be written in the third person perspective.
• Don't use an unprofessional email address like "potterhead80@gmail.com."
• Do not include inappropriate voicemail greeting for the phone numbers you have given in the resume.

Take away:

Now that you know what to include, how to write it, and what mistakes to avoid, you can create an exceptional resume that can land you interviews wherever you want to work. So make sure you execute everything correctly, and best of luck with getting selected for an interview.