The demand for healthcare professionals—specifically nurses—remains high. This means you can land a top nursing job even as a nursing student. But first, you need to give your student nurse resume the same care and attention you’ll give to your patients. Follow our resume-writing tips and view our nursing student resume example to make your job application stand out.
Highlight Your Academic Career
Start by placing your license front and center on your student nurse resume, if you already have one and are in school for a more advanced nursing degree. Once you get more experience, you can move this information further down on your resume.
Highlight your nursing skills and clinical hours on your resume as well by listing specific clinical skills you’ve mastered and details about your clinical rotations. Because nurses need vast clinical knowledge, include your GPA on your resume if it’s high, certifications, and any academic awards you received. As you gain more nursing experience, you can remove academic information such as GPA from your resume.
Write a Nursing Student Resume Objective or Summary
Think you need a nursing student resume objective? Keep in mind that resume objectives are outdated in most cases. Consider including a nursing resume summary instead. It will make your resume look more modern and give recruiters a better understanding of what you bring to the table.
A resume is a brief summary of your qualifications, typically about 2-4 sentences, placed beneath your contact information. Resume summaries aren’t required—many applicants skip them, but it’s a good place to write a sales pitch for your skills, especially when you’re new to the field and have less concrete experience.
You can also use it to mention when you’ll be applying for a nursing license, if you’re new to nursing and don’t have a license yet or are applying to a position that requires a different license (for example, you have an LVN license but are applying to an RN job). If you’ve already applied and your license is pending, add this information to your resume summary.
Add Nursing Student Skills to Your Resume
Highlighting the nursing skills you’ve mastered on your student nurse resume to showcase your capabilities as well as help get your resume past applicant screening software. Even if you don’t have previous work experience, you can include skills that you mastered during clinical hours.
These are some examples of essential nursing student skills for a resume:
- calculating and administrating medications
- performing physical assessments
- checking and monitoring vital signs
- basic life support
- Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support
- IV therapy
- oxygen therapy
- tube feedings
- communicable diseases
- infection control
- calculating drug doses
- managing electronic medical records
When it comes to soft skills, its best to include only the ones you can back up with facts, for example with awards, recognitions, or references. Listing soft skills without any evidence uses up valuable space on your resume, and employers might not take what you say at face value.
You can showcase your skills in a dedicated skills section, either in the left-hand column of a two-column resume or before your education and experience sections. Another option is to add the skills to the relevant clinical rotations or internships where you learned them.
Nursing Student Resume Template
Hannah Evans, RN
Idaho Falls, ID 83401 | (555) 555-5555 | hannah@email.com
Idaho RN and BSN nursing student offering a combination of diverse clinical experience, academic excellence, compassion, leadership and strong interpersonal skills. Dedicated to providing quality, cost-effective and evidence-based care to help patients achieve optimal outcomes.
EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY ONE | Idaho Falls, ID
Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program, 20XX to Present
GPA: 3.8/4.0 | Member: Student Nurses for Progress
Faculty Award for Excellence in Academics | Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society for Nursing
UNIVERSITY TWO | Lewison, ID
Vocational Nursing Certificate, 20XX
RN, Idaho Board of Registered Nursing | LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse)
Certifications: ACLS, BLS, CPR and AED (all current)
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Student Nurse / Clinical Rotations | 20XX to Present
Develop and implement nursing care plans for patients and coordinate with multidisciplinary team members to facilitate integrated and comprehensive care.
Highlights:
- Labor & Delivery | HOSPITAL ONE (225 hours)
Currently work within Maternity Care Unit, a state-of-the-art birthing center. Gained experience in antepartum, labor, delivery, post-partum and mother-baby care.
- Medical/Surgical | HOSPITAL TWO (250 hours)
Served patients at 105-bed, acute-care facility offering 24-hour emergency services with fast track, surgery, OB/GYN, diagnostic imaging, cardiology, gastroenterology, diabetes education and pediatrics.
- Hematology Oncology | MEDICAL CENTER ONE (120 hours)
Precepted by RN in the Hematology Oncology Center. Treated hematological disorders and served patients whose malignancies were treated with chemotherapy/radiation.
- Family Practice | MEDICAL CENTER TWO (150 hours)
Treated ambulatory patents in family practice clinical preceptorship with Suzanne Smith, RN.
- Additional 500 hours completed in ICU, PACU, ED, Telemetry and General Surgery areas at Hospital Three and Medical Center Three.
Office Manager / Medical Assistant | 20XX to 20XX
- JOHN WILSON, M.D. — Lewisonton, ID
Completed routine medical tests including 12-Lead EKG, visual acuity, strep, urinalysis, and pregnancy. Coordinated patient intakes, managed records, received insurance authorizations and processed billing.
Find Your First Nursing Job
As an RN, you can expect to earn a median yearly wage of $78,420, according to Monster’s salary data. You’ll find the highest level of employment for nurses in the following cities:
Additionally, you can search for nursing jobs nationwide on Monster, and compare salaries in other cities with Monster’s salary tools.
How Healthy Is Your Nursing Student Resume?
Get a check-up and treatment plan for your resume from Monster’s Resume Writing Service. Upload your resume to get a free assessment from our resume scanning technology within a few days. Get detailed feedback on your resume’s appearance and content, and a prediction of a recruiter’s first impression. For a fee, you can also enlist our professional resume writers to implement the changes and give your resume a boost.
