Critical Details for Your Travel Nurse Resume
Your travel nurse resume can possibly play a big role in landing travel nursing jobs, especially the best jobs. Despite the nursing shortage, the competition to land the best jobs is fierce. In today’s market, facilities often receive more than 50 submission profiles within 3 hours of making a job public. It’s not uncommon to see assignments closed for new submissions within an hour of opening.
Satisfy everyone’s needs with your travel nursing resume
To get counted and stand out, you need to display all the details that hospitals could possibly want to see. Ultimately, they’re looking for information that says you have what it takes to step right in and be a productive member of the team with minimal orientation and limited training. Different hospitals gauge this ability in different ways so they’ll want to see different details.
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The goal is to include everything that any hiring manager might want to see so that your resume satisfies everyone’s needs. In this post, we’ll focus on a few basic areas in which most travel nursing resumes are lacking. That includes information about current and previous employers, information about the type of work previously performed, and specific information about the candidate. For a comprehensive list of details to include on your resume, please review our blog post on that subject.
Hospital details on your travel nursing resume
Having reviewed thousands of resumes, the vast majority bereft of any information regarding current and previous employers, I have come to the conclusion that such information is the most underrated and underutilized aspect of the healthcare professional resume. Facilities seeking travel nurses and permanent employees really want to know about the organizations candidates worked with in the past. It gives them a very good idea of how previous experience relates to their organization.
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For example, if you worked at a hospital, you should list, at a minimum, the number of beds in the hospital, if it was a trauma hospital, if it was a teaching hospital, and any honors, accreditations, or awards that the hospital achieved. The list of items that can be conveyed regarding your previous employers is extensive. Get creative with it if you’d like, but just be sure that your resume includes it.
Job specifics on your travel nursing resume
Potential employers also want to know specifics about your previous jobs. You should always indicate whether or not a particular job was a travel assignment because hiring managers prefer candidates who know what to expect as a travel nurse. If you worked in a hospital ICU, list the number of beds in the unit, the nurse to patient ratio, the type of charting system that was used, the name of the computer charting system used, and the types of patients the unit received (i.e. neuro, cardiac, renal, etc.).
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If you worked in a hospital ER, how many patients were admitted daily? If you worked in a hospital L&D unit, how many births per month were performed, and did you receive high risk patients in that unit? Such information tells the hiring manager that you have experience working on units similar or busier than their unit.
Measurable contributions on your travel nursing resume
Finally, when conveying information about yourself, it’s best to provide information that conveys your unique and/or measurable contributions, as well as honors, awards, and recognition that you received. Contributions that saved money, improved patient safety, improved patient satisfaction, improved staff satisfaction, etc. should all be added to your resume. If you have an outstanding attendance record, then add it to your resume. If you were bestowed charge duties, or preceptor duties, then add them to your resume. All licenses, certifications, professional affiliations, and career related volunteer work should be on your resume. While this is all important information, I have to say it’s less important than the information covered in the 2 previous paragraphs.
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I can’t stress enough how important it is to get all of this information on to your travel nurse resume, and ultimately in to your profile with the companies you work with. I’ve often said that it’s not always the best candidate, but the best profile that gets the assignment. Your profile will be quickly scanned by very busy individuals who are seeking a very particular set of details. If those details are not present, it’s much easier for them to just move on to the next profile than it is for them to research, contact you, or pose questions to the company that submitted you for the assignment.
Good, experienced recruiters know this, and will work to ensure that your profile includes this information. However, you may not know how good or experienced your recruiter is until it’s too late. Moreover, providing this information up front can help your recruiter get your submission profile completed quickly so that it’s ready to submit sooner. Taking charge of this information can have huge impact on your career.
