Nursing Skills for Your Resume With Examples, Tips, and Guide
- Why Nursing Skills Matter on Your Resume
- Key Nursing Skills To Include on Your Resume
- How To Identify the Best Nursing Skills for Your Resume
- How To List Nursing Skills on Your Resume
- Examples of How To List Nursing Skills on Your Resume
- Tips for Highlighting Nursing Skills Effectively
- Common Mistakes To Avoid When Listing Nursing Skills
- Additional Resources
- Frequently Asked Questions About Nursing Skills for Your Resume
Vying for the best nursing jobs can be a competitive process. In addition to being a licensed registered nurse (RN), having a robust and skills-packed resume can help you get the attention of hiring managers and recruiters.
Learn more about the best nursing skills to list on your resume, the top nursing skills for specialized roles, critical care nursing skills, and more.
Why Nursing Skills Matter on Your Resume
As part of the hiring process, health care organizations needing a nurse will review the candidate’s qualifications and specific nursing skills to ensure they are a good fit. Also, the required nursing competencies for job applications can vary depending on the type of role or where the care is being given (i.e., a nursing home versus a hospital).
Demonstrating professional competency
Listing nursing skills can showcase your qualifications and expertise and validate that you can meet job requirements. Not only do you have your nursing license, but you’ve also provided quality patient care in a health care setting that aligns with the prospective employer’s needs.
Meeting employer expectations
Some employers may prioritize specific nursing skills in their hiring process because of the nature of their organization. For example, the skill requirements for critical care nurses may differ from those of a school nurse or a nurse on a surgical unit.
While some nursing skills are universally appealing (like patient relations), someone hiring for a neonatal intensive care unit (ICU) nurse versus someone who needs a nurse to work in a burn unit will likely be looking for different specialized skills.
Enhancing patient care quality
Soft skills for a nursing resume can be just as critical as medical skills. These can include empathy, working with patients and their families, providing pre- or post-operative care instructions, and helping to improve patient outcomes.
Key Nursing Skills To Include on Your Resume
Nursing skills can be divided into different subcategories. If you’ve had various nursing experiences, you can choose the skills most relevant to the types of work you seek. Here are some areas to consider including on your nursing resume.
Clinical skills
It’s essential to demonstrate hands-on clinical proficiency on your resume. That means you’ll include skills like:
- Catheterization
- Central line dressing and care
- Dialysis
- Venipuncture
- Vital signs monitoring
- Wound care
Patient care skills
Another critical component of a nursing resume illustrates your ability to provide direct patient care and manage treatment plans. Some of those schools can include:
- Administering medications
- IV therapy
- Patient assessment
- Patient safety
- Physical assistance
Technical skills
Technical proficiency is integral to modern nursing practices, so your nursing resume should also reflect those skill sets. Some examples are:
- Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems
- Medical equipment operation
- Telehealth
Communication skills
Strong communication skills help nurses provide effective patient care and power team coordination. Examples include:
- Family communication
- Interdisciplinary collaboration
- Patient education
Critical thinking and solution-seeking skills
As the health care professionals who may spend the most time with patients, nurses often have to rely on critical thinking skills to handle emergencies and complex cases. To amplify this skill set, you can include skills such as the following:
- Clinical judgment
- Prioritization
- Rapid response decision-making
- Triage
Compassion and empathy
Building patient trust and providing holistic care is important in any nursing role, but even more so when dealing with critically ill patients, hospice patients, or parents of sick and injured children. Skills that are helpful to mention may include:
- Compassionate care
- Emotional support
- Patient advocacy
Leadership and management skills
Nurses looking for advanced roles also wish to demonstrate their ability to lead teams and mentor new nurses. Skill examples in this category may include:
- Charge nurse responsibilities
- Mentorship
- Team coordination
- Training new nurses
How To Identify the Best Nursing Skills for Your Resume
When working on your nursing resume, use these strategies to help you figure out your top skills.
Analyze job descriptions
Reviewing job postings for nursing positions can offer a lot of clues as to the top skills employers seek. You may see some common skills across various postings, while others might be employer-specific.
Perform a self-assessment
Another exercise to help you develop a list of critical skills for nurses is to reflect on what you’ve learned and how you apply those learnings at work. What type of patient care have you provided? What do you do on a typical shift? Think about things like hands-on nursing duties, how you communicate with patients and health care team members, and administrative tasks you may have.
Leverage feedback from supervisors and colleagues
Have you gotten feedback from patients you’ve treated, family members you’ve educated, supervisors, and fellow nurses? Insights about how you are perceived in the workplace can help you realize some of the skills you bring to the job.
How To List Nursing Skills on Your Resume
Besides knowing the best nursing skills, you must know where and how to include them.
Create a dedicated skills section
Organize your skills section on a nursing resume to feature critical nursing skills prominently. You can include more general skills in a separate sub-category or within your main skills section.
Here’s how it might look:
Key Skills
- Neonatal care
- Patient relations
- Surgical care
- Trauma care
- Treatment planning
Integrate skills into the work experience section
Another way to highlight nursing skills is within the bullet points featured in the employment history section. This is where you typically describe tasks and achievements.
Example
- Deliver acute patient care in a fast-paced ICU with complex patient cases, assisting medical doctors to expedite successful surgeries
- Collaborate with medical professionals across departments to improve clinical workflow by 17% within six months
Use certifications to validate skills
Nursing certifications can help validate specialized skills; these should be on your resume. You can include it in your professional summary if it’s especially relevant, and list the details of your resume in the certification details education section.
Example
Certifications
- Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN), State of Pennsylvania, 2015
- Basic Life Support Certification, American Heart Association | 2021
Examples of How To List Nursing Skills on Your Resume
Example for new graduate nurses
If you’re writing your first resume as a new RN, you may have fewer skills than seasoned ones. However, there is still an opportunity to list nursing skills relevant to entry-level positions.
Sample resume entry for new graduate nurses:
Student Nurse Intern, IU Health, Bloomington, IN | December 2021 – May 2022
- Provided direct care to patients, including administering medications, monitoring vital signs, and changing dressings under the supervision of a registered nurse
- Participated in daily health care team meetings, presenting on patients’ progress
Example of specialized nursing roles
Specialized skills for ICU, ER, or pediatric nursing roles are essential when seeking similar jobs. If you’ve had several specialties in your career, highlight the ones that best relate to the job you’re seeking currently.
Sample resume entry for specialized nursing positions:
- Completed a 120-hour practicum in the surgical ICU
- Prepared surgical tools and operating areas, replenished medical inventory and equipment, and ensured compliance with sanitation and hygiene regulations.
Example for nurse managers and leadership roles
Your resume must showcase leadership and administrative skills for supervisory or managerial positions.
This is what a sample resume entry for a nurse manager job might look like:
- Lead, mentor, and coach a team of more than 25 licensed practical nurses (LPNs) to identify opportunities to enhance clinical workflow
- Collaborated with nursing teams across departments to develop comprehensive treatment plans for critically ill patients
Example for travel nurses
In addition to their clinical skills, travel nurses must be adaptable and flexible.
This sample entry for travel nurses touches on that specific skill set:
- Provided top-notch nursing care in multiple settings across five states, receiving commendable feedback from superiors and patients alike
- Enhanced cross-cultural communication by employing multilingual skills (English, Spanish), improving patient engagement and treatment outcomes
Tips for Highlighting Nursing Skills Effectively
Use specific terminology and action verbs
Using precise and vibrant language to describe nursing skills can keep readers more engaged and provide a better understanding of how you apply your skills. Action verbs play a significant role in helping to amplify your nursing experience.
| Examples of action verbs to use when describing skills: | |
|---|---|
| Administered | Analyzed |
| Collaborated | Communicated |
| Conducted | Coordinated |
| Delivered | Diagnosed |
| Enhanced | Identified |
| Implemented | Improved |
| Interfaced | Led |
| Managed | Oversaw |
| Performed | Provided |
| Resolved | Supported |
| Treated | |
Quantify experience with nursing skills
Nursing employers are also interested in your work’s impact on previous health care organizations and patient outcomes. Your resume is an excellent opportunity to share data, metrics, and numerical evidence that support the notion that you’re a valuable candidate.
Examples
- Oversaw the preparation of 15-plus patients daily in the ICU, helping facilitate timely prep to reduce operating room waits for procedures by 12%
- Coordinated with nursing teams, patients, and families to improve satisfaction ratings by 23% during the first six months
Tailor skills to the job description
Each nursing job may involve slightly different responsibilities, requiring you to rely on other skills. When sending a resume, customize it to the requirements in the specific job listing.
For example, if you’re seeking a job in neonatal care and have previous experience as a nurse in a pediatric office, highlighting those skills and experiences (such as parent education and monitoring newborn vital signs) can significantly impact general nursing skills.
Common Mistakes To Avoid When Listing Nursing Skills
When crafting your nursing resume, avoid making these mistakes when describing your skills.
Being too vague or generic
Avoid using broad terms like “good nurse” and “good bedside manner.” Instead, be specific about your skills and experiences.
Overloading the resume with too many skills
Always think of quality over quantity when writing a resume. Focus on the most relevant nursing skills for the jobs you’re pursuing.
Failing to keep skills updated
Resume writing is never “one and done.” Add it to your resume whenever you learn a new nursing practice or update your skills. That includes removing outdated practices or technologies that are no longer used.
Additional Resources
Links to nursing skills training and certification programs
- Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses
- American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN)
- American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)
- Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation
- Pediatric Nursing Certification Board
Career advice articles and job application tips for nurses
- Action Verbs To Use on Your Resume
- Nursing Resume Examples and Templates for 2024
- Registered Nurse Resume Examples and Templates for 2024
Frequently Asked Questions About Nursing Skills for Your Resume
Soft skills are important for nurses because providing patient care and working in teams is essential for success. Soft skills include empathy, communication, conflict resolution, adaptability, and resilience.
Computer skills can be important for nursing roles. Some that you should put on your resume include EHR systems, databases, telehealth applications, and e-prescriptions.
Nursing resumes that balance clinical experience, specialized skills, emotional intelligence, and a proven track record of positive patient outcomes can stand out. The resume should also list qualifications, including degrees, certifications, and licenses.
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