Entry-Level Nurse Resume Sample

Congratulations on your decision to become a nurse. You’ve chosen to become a critical component of the healthcare system, someone people rely upon to take care them and their loved ones, and that is worthy choice. It’s also a smart financial choice — the job outlook for registered nurses is growing at 16%, and the median pay is nearly $70,000/yr.

If you’re reading this, that means you’re either completing your studies, or you’re close to it and need more student clinical experience. No worries — the resume writing methods taught on this page will help all of you format not only your student resume, but any resumes you write in the future. Here’s how to get started:

1. Write a Smart Resume Objective

First, I’m going to quote the example’s entire resume objective, and label the parts that make it strong.

Motivated Registered Nurse¹ seeking to leverage a BS in Nursing and 1,223 hours of accumulated clinical experience² into a full time position at your hospital. Recently graduate with a 4.0 GPA, excellent bedside manner, and a sunny attitude³.

1. Let the hiring manager know right away that you’re a registered (or licensed) nurse. Describe yourself with an attribute — are you: Motivated? Efficient? Organized?

2. As a nursing student, part of your curriculum requires that you accumulate clinical experience. It’s smart to include the number of hours in your career objective — it lets the hiring manager know right away that you’ve gained plenty of experience, and are worth interviewing.

3. While it’s not a requirement for nurses to be sunny and have good bedside manners, it certainly doesn’t hurt. If you’re not the sunny type, think of some other attributes that an employer would like, such as multi-tasking ability, efficiency, depth of knowledge, or variety of skills.

Additionally, if you have any leadership experience you should emphasize your leadership and management style in your nursing resume objective as well because these are great skills for any aspiring medical professional to have.

2. Student Clinical Experience, Skills, and Tools

Next up, writing your Student Clinical Experience section, which is sort of like Professional Experience on a traditional resume. We’ve formatted this resume to include experience, tools, and resume skills all in the same section. While it’s a bit unusual, that’s ok — as long as your resume is clear and provides all of the necessary information, you can format your resume any way that you would like.

The following image makes it clear how each work experience is formatted — 1) skills learned, 2) experiences bullet points, and 3) tools used.

This format works because it clarifies for the hiring manager exactly what the candidate has learned from his or her clinical experience.

• Skills: Tells the hiring manager the general type of nursing care the candidate learned during student clinical experience.
• Experience: Tells the hiring manager concrete examples of the types of care the candidate performed during the student clinical experience.
• Tools: Tells the hiring manager what types of tools they learned how to operate and use during the student clinical experience.

Altogether, these three aspects of the candidate’s experience section gives the hiring manager a very clear picture of his or her skills or abilities, which is critical to landing an interview.

3. Don’t forget your Licenses and Certifications

This section is simple, but you should remember to include three points:

• Name of the certification or license
• State or location where it is valid
• Date that it expires

Getting licensed, registered, and certified is a big part of successfully launching a career as a nurse. Certainly, it’s even more important for getting promoted, increasing your responsibilities, and increasing your salary.

With those tips, you’ll be able to write a solid student nursing resume that lands you more interviews.

But if you’re still having trouble, let our free resume builder do the work for you1