Are you a new nurse looking to build your first nursing resume? Or are you an experienced nurse looking to update your current resume so you can advance your career?
Either way, if you are on the job market you need to ensure that your resume is tailored to highlight your acquired nursing skills. This will help you stand out as the best candidate for the job you are applying for.
After all, there may be other qualified candidates who are also applying for the job you have your eyes on, nursing shortage or not. So your resume must stand out amongst the rest to give you the best chance of landing your dream job.
And one of the best ways to do this is to utilize your resume to highlight desired nursing skill sets that recruiters look for in qualified candidates.
If you want to learn how to highlight desired nursing skill sets on your resume to help you land your next job as a nurse, then keep reading!
Hard Nursing Skills to Include on Your Resume
Undeniably, nursing is a field that requires a vast amount of both knowledge and technical skills.
Clinical nursing skills are a set of physical capabilities and knowledge that comes only through specialized training.
They are referred to as hard skills, and nursing employers look for these skills in job candidates so you want to ensure they are highlighted in your resume. In this case, if you got them, flaunt them!
Administering Medications
Nurses are quite often the care team member who is responsible for the administration of medications via oral, intramuscular, intravenous, and various other routes.
Nurses must ensure that each patient receives medications while following the Five Rights of Medication Administration: right patient, drug, dose, route, and time.
While this is ingrained in nurses during nursing school, it is for good reason. Following these 5 Rights ensures that medications are administered safely, accurately, and on time.
Highlighting your ability to manage patient care in a way that ensures safe medication administration via a variety of routes is one way to demonstrate your competence in this area.
Intravenous Therapy
Intravenous medication administration is extremely common in many clinical settings and is an important skill for nurses to have.
A variety of therapies can be administered via IV, including antibiotic treatment, blood products, biological agents, sedatives, and more.
Depending on your nursing licensure level and specific role, you may administer medications in any or all of these categories.
Not only are nurses responsible for administering these medications but they are also responsible for monitoring for adverse effects that could potentially occur with each. Therefore, they must be knowledgeable regarding what adverse effects are common with each medication class.
What’s more, nurses are typically responsible for the technical skills of starting the IV and hooking up the tubing in a way that will not interfere with other medications or IV solutions that may be running at the same time.
Thus, it is easy to see how managing a patient’s IV medication administration is an important skill set for a nurse. So, you want to list this on your resume if it’s a skill you have.
Vital Signs
Obtaining and observing vital signs is a basic and integral part of a nursing assessment. Without these measurements, patient conditions cannot be adequately known.
It is important that every nurse, regardless of level, is familiar with how to obtain vital signs and how to use them to determine when a patient’s condition is declining.
Therefore, it is a valuable nursing competency that can be listed on your resume.
Basic Life Support/Advanced Cardiac Life Support
Having the ability to perform under pressure, manage a high-stress situation, and provide various life-saving measures is an extremely valuable skill set for any nurse. Listing BLS as a skill on your resume demonstrates that you can perform CPR and utilize equipment such as an AED.
Highlighting additional certifications such as ACLS further accentuates this skill set and expands it to include advanced life-saving techniques important in managing such emergencies as cardiac arrest, myocardial infarctions, and strokes.
It sets you apart as a candidate that values the role that emergency measures have in saving lives and improving patient outcomes.
These certifications should most certainly be highlighted in the skills section of your resume.
Emergency and Critical Care Nursing
If you have experience working as an ER or ICU nurse, you should list this in the skills section of your resume.
By listing these, you make it evident that you can perform under pressure, think quickly on your feet, and respond to emergencies with confidence.
You stand out as a candidate that is extremely competent in managing changes in patient condition, a skill greatly desired in any nursing role.
Telemetry
Telemetry is a specialized skill that demonstrates a high level of competence when it comes to caring for cardiac patients.
Listing this skill on your resume tells recruiters that you have this advanced knowledge of telemetry lead placement, remote cardiac monitoring, rhythm strip interpretation, and more.
It puts you one leg up on your competition and looks great on a resume.
Ventilator Care
Ventilator care is another highly specialized skill that typically only comes from certain areas of nursing, such as ICU nursing, but it stands out on a resume.
Listing ventilator care in your skills section tells employers that you know how to manage a ventilator’s settings and alarms, and how to troubleshoot issues when they arise, none of which are easy tasks.
Highlighting this skill set on your resume will only aid you land your next nursing job.
Electronic Health Record Skills
Healthcare companies have increasingly moved to utilizing electronic documentation systems and this trend will only continue. So nurses at all levels must know how to use these systems.
Most nurses will have at least some experience working with electronic documentation but it is still one of the most common requirements listed by employers on job descriptions, so don’t leave this out!
It may even be helpful to list what EHR system you are competent in, be it EPIC, Cerner, etc. It may help you stand out just a little more, especially if the system you are skillful with is the same one being used by the company you are applying to.
Patient and Family Education
Studies have shown that the more informed a patient is regarding their health and treatment plans, the better the health outcomes for that patient.
Patient education is paramount in ensuring compliance with treatment plans and nurses often play a large role in this education.
It is a great skill to have so don’t forget to mention it while crafting your resume.
Medical-Surgical Skills
What medical-surgical skills could you mention on your resume that may help you stand out as a candidate with a vast knowledge of hard skills already under your belt?
Perhaps you know how to insert a nasogastric or orogastric tube, place a foley catheter, or are specially trained to place central lines.
Perhaps you have a knowledge of wound care that would demonstrate your expertise in working with postoperative patients in need of dressing changes.
Whatever the skill set, if you have it and you think it would help you obtain your next job, list it!
Specialty Skills
Similarly, if you have experience working with obstetrics, pediatrics, or infants and you think that the skills that you acquired would be beneficial for the role you are applying for then by all means, highlight these skills!
You should certainly tailor your resume to the position you are applying for, as this will seem less generic to employers and will allow you to showcase the particular skill set that you know they will be looking for.
Soft Nursing Skills to Include on Your Resume
While hard, clinical skills are crucial for nurses to have, soft, interpersonal skills are just as important.
These skills showcase a level of professionalism, the ability to work in a team, and adequately manage patient care on a unit.
Let’s take a closer look at the soft skills that should be listed on your resume.
Communication Skills
Nursing is a profession that revolves around other people. Therefore, having the ability to communicate effectively is paramount to providing quality care.
Doctors rely on timely and accurate information to be communicated to them by nurses, other healthcare team members may need to be alerted on patient conditions for continuity of care, patients need to remain informed on the treatment plan, and families will often pressure you for a constant stream of information.
Communication on a nursing unit is no small feat and it is certainly worth incorporating into your resume.
Empathy
Again, nursing is a profession that holds people at its heart, and it is vastly important for all healthcare professionals to be able to empathize with their patients.
Empathy allows you to take better care of your patients, communicate with them more effectively, and follow up with them appropriately.
This, then, improves health outcomes which is an important marker for healthcare companies, so don’t be afraid to put this on paper for recruiters to see.
Time Management and Multitasking
If you have ever worked on a nursing unit in any capacity, you have seen first-hand what it takes to manage 6+ patients and their care.
As the nurse, you are able to prioritize what tasks must be completed now, what can wait 30 minutes, and what can wait a few hours.
Then, when more information and issues are thrown your way, you know how to reprioritize that list and reroute yourself to address concerns that inevitably arise on the unit.
You must be able to juggle medication administration, complete nursing assessments, communicate, and address patient and physician concerns promptly.
Time management and multitasking are extremely valuable skills to have as a nurse and employers want to know that you have them.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a skill set that all nurses must master, difficult as it can be.
It is what allows you to prioritize certain aspects of care, recognizes a change in a patient’s condition, know what actions to take during an emergency, and be able to articulate your reasoning for it all.
It can be the difference between life and death. So if you are skilled in this area, make sure your employer knows it by dropping it in the skills section of your resume.
Teamwork
Teamwork makes the dream work, right? And as a nurse, you are at the center of the patient’s care team.
You communicate and coordinate every aspect of a patient’s care with multiple team members. You work with nursing aids, respiratory therapists, doctors, case managers, social workers, and more.
Knowing how to work as a functioning member of the healthcare team is a valuable skill, and employers want to know that you can do this with ease.
Leadership Skills
Many nurses develop leadership skills simply by functioning in their role as a manager of patient care, as it takes a leadership mindset to be able to communicate needs and coordinate care.
You also likely have had nurses aids or other nurses as part of your care team that you helped direct and oversee to ensure patient care was optimum.
You know how to lead, so let this skill set shine on your resume!
Continuous Learning
The skills section of your resume is also a great place to list any continuous learning that you have completed during your career.
Are PALS certified? Do you have a certification in a nursing specialty? If you do, make sure you weave it into your resume!
Employers are impressed when nurses go “above and beyond” with special certifications and credentials. It demonstrates that you are an expert in your field.
Other Nursing Skills by Specialty
Numerous other skills could be important for you to list on your resume, depending on the experience you have and the position you are applying for.
Do your research. Make sure you read the job description carefully and see if you can pick out some keywords to add to your resume that will make you stand out as the ideal candidate for the job!
Let’s take a look at other skills that might be valuable to recruiters based on the nursing specialty.
Emergency Nurse Skills
- Triage
- Pain Management
- IV Therapy
- Obtaining & Interpreting EKG results
- Glasgow Coma Scale
- Stroke Scale
- Emergency Room Care
- Nursing Assessment & Evaluation
Intensive Care Nurse Skills
- IV Therapy
- Pain Management
- Cardizem/Glucose/Heparin Drip Management
- Intra-aortic Balloon Pump Management
- Post-cardiac Catheterization Care
- Post-stroke & MI Care
- Tracheostomy Care
- Focused Patient Care & Assessment
Medical-Surgical Nurse Skills
- IV Therapy
- Pain Management
- Pre and post-operative Care of the Surgical Patient
- Wound Care
- Nasogastric/Orogastric Tube Placement
- Foley Catheter Placement & Care
- Multitasking & Time Management
- Chest Tube Management
Pediatric Nurse Skills
- Knowledge of immunizations
- Pediatric VS parameters
- IM injections
- Patient and family education
- Ability to work well with pediatric patients
Obstetric Nurse Skills
- Knowledge of the birth process
- Post-birth care of mother and baby
- Pitocin drip
- VS parameters for infants
- Post-operative wound care
- Knowledge of immunizations
- IM injections
Nurse Practitioner Skills
- Developing care plans
- Prescribing medications
- Leadership skills
- Time management skills
- Diagnostic skills
- Pharmacology
- Patient and family education
Key Take-Aways
- When applying for your next nursing job, it is extremely important to put your best foot forward by presenting a great resume
- The skills section is a critical component of a resume and is the best place to highlight your acquired skills
- Make sure to list a blend of both hard and soft skills so that employers can see that you are well-rounded and well-prepared for the job you are applying for
- List skills that are relevant to your desired job and that will stand out to recruiters
Sources:
Nightingale College. RN Resume: Important Skills That Will Make Your Nursing Resume Stand Out.
If you found this post helpful, please let me know in the comment section! I’d love to hear about your favorite roll as a nurse or helpful tips you have used to land your nursing gigs.
