Tag Archives: Resume

What’s your qualifications summary?

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Ok. Go to your resume and read your qualifications summary. Would it grab a potential employer’s attention and make them read on? Or would they drop it in the pile of all the resumes that say “Have critical thinking abilities”? (which isn’t a bad thing to have, of course — I hope all new nurses have it — but it’s so general and uninteresting.)

You want your qualifications summary to really describe you, your accomplishments, and how they would fit with the organization. Qualification summaries require time for you to really think about yourself. How would other people describe you? What are some common statements you’ve received from clinical instructors or an employer? Make sure to take this time to write down your unique attributes, your prior accomplishments, your transferable skills, and relevant work or clinical experiences.

Once you have a good list of what to include, condense it down to 5-10 lines, which can be formatted in paragraph form or in bullets. It should be strong, specific, and not redundant with the rest of your resume. Use action verbs to make your summary interesting – “Achieved”, “Developed”, “Collaborated”

One last thing to keep in mind — hiring managers are scanning resumes for key words that match the job descriptions. Be sure to use relevant key words for the job you are applying for. This means that you may need to tweak your qualification summary from application to application.

We’d love to help you improve your qualification summary. Write it in the comment section below and we’ll make suggestions.

If you’re currently working, do you think your qualification summary helped in any way to get an interview? If so, spill your secret!

A Guide for Resume Writing

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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Association Colleges of Nursing developed a career central for new nurses. One useful resource is “The Complete Guide to Resume Writing for Nursing Students and Alumni” by Mary Somers from Johns Hopkins University. It’s full of practical tips that can take a good resume to an eye-catching, dazzling winner of one. Below are some excerpts:

  • “The hiring manager has to see how your previous accomplishments are relevant to her needs.”(Make sure your resume clearly states all the great things you’ve done, not just a list of titles you’ve held.)
  • “We recommend that you develop several resumes that are individually targeted to the positions you are seeking.” (This is an excellent tip for making your job search more strategic and thoughtful. Don’t send the same resume for a new grad program at a children’s hospital as you would for a public health nursing position.
  • “Include all experience related to nursing in [Professional Experience] section, such as internships, part time nursing assistantships, research projects.” (Newly graduated nurses often have a lot of healthcare related experiences in and oout of school. Make sure to highlight it in the professional experience section.)
  • “Avoid use of italics, underlined texts, graphics, and shading.” (This is important if a employer uses a scanning program which digitally looks for keywords in the resume. It’s an important reminder that the formatting of your resume is as important as what your resume says.)
  • “Proofreed! Proofread! Proofread! Do not send our your resume if there are any typographical errors.” (You’ve worked too hard to get passed over just because of an embarassing mispelling.)

Welcome!

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Hello and welcome.

This blog is to chronicle the adventures of a new nurse. We want to create a community of new nurses to support each other through job searching and working in your first job. We’ll talk about how to survive your job search and also how to thrive in your first of nursing. We want to help you organize your job hunt and support you when you finally land the job of your dreams. It’s an exciting time to be a nurse and we want to make sure we document all of it!

We have lots of topics we want to write about, but feel free to leave comments on what you’d like to see, questions you may have or requests for advice.

Improving your resume: Since a journey of thousand miles, must begin with a single step (Lao Tzu), your first step is to look at your resume. Whether you’re at the beginning of your job search or in a job right now, go look at your resume.

If you’re applying to jobs, is your resume clear to read? Is it updated with recent certifications, courses, or volunteer experiences? Have you received feedback from other people about it?

It you’re working right now, does your resume accurately reflect your job responsibilities? Are your recent continuing ed classes on there? Any awards, distinctions, or milestones that you can include?

We’ll see you back here next time!