Preparing a well-written resume takes time, but it can help a travel nurse land a job at a new facility. Hiring managers review hundreds of applications for each open position, so you want to ensure that your resume accomplishes a few standards. It should be:
- Thorough, to provide facilities with all of the information they need
- Organized, to make is easy to read and understand
- Well-written, to prove professionalism and attention to detail
Writing to these standards may take a couple of drafts and rewrites. To help you with the process, we’re here to provide our top 5 tips on creating a resume for travel nursing jobs.
List All Licenses and Skills
Noting licenses is essential to relaying your experience to facilities. Before delving into work history, you can stand out by listing certifications, licenses, and skills first to provide a solid first impression to facilities. For example, a travel nurse can impress a hospital by listing an Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) certification or an Ultrasound-guided IV certification.
After licenses, listing skills can give facilities a better understanding of a travel nurse’s capabilities. Good skills to note include general proficiencies, such as working well with others, as well as specific specialities, such as proficiency in working with geriatric patients.
Draft a Summary
After noting your licenses and skills, adding a summary near the top of your resume can offer potential employers insight into your experience. A short example of an effective summary might be something like this:
“Travel Nurse with 3 years of experience in hemodynamic monitoring, medicine administering, and diagnostics testing. Specializes in neurological assessments with proven ability to treat traumatic injuries. Effectively balances competing priorities for rapid completion of emergency cases.”
Your summary should showcase an overview of your skills and experience. As you write it, consider what skills or experiences a facility might value in a travel nurse.
Note Your Availability
One of the first things a facility will want to know is your availability: Do you work night shifts? Do you exclusively work day shifts? Are you flexible with either? Facilities usually know what shifts to fill with a new travel nurse, so mentioning which shifts you are available for can help aid a job search. Many facilities list the position’s shift on our job board as well, so remember to note the times when applying.
Be Thorough in Your Work History
Facilities will not only need to know where you worked, but also the details about the work—this includes facility type, trauma level (if applicable), patient ratio, and more. Including information about the hospital alongside your duties will help employing facilities better understand the context of your experience. For instance, couple the information about what you did with the logistics of the facility:
“Managed nurse team in 50-bed ICU”
This gives potential employers more information in fewer sentences, making it quicker and easier to understand your background and qualifications.
Keep It Simple
After you fill your travel nurse resume with licenses, certifications, skills, work history, availability, and anything else you may need, the result might be slightly cluttered. Remember to take a moment to revise your resume. Organize the content, cut unnecessary words, and re-write when necessary.
As you prepare your resume, you may find that it exceeds the standard one-page format. Don’t worry if your resume spans past the first page or even the second. As long as the content is arranged in a clear and logical fashion, it’s better to be thorough than leave out valuable skills and experience.
Resumes require a lot of information about your work history and abilities, so take your time as you are putting it together. You may need to write a few drafts or make tweaks and adjustments to better angle your experience toward a certain facility.
Let us know if you have any questions by contacting us at any time. We are always happy to help.
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