Congratulations! So, you’ve decided to make the change and enter the travel nursing world, what’s next? There’s a lot to consider prior to applying for specific contracts.
Determine what you want out of your experience. You need to consider where you would be willing to travel. What is your preferred length of contract? What specialty? The list goes on.
All of these considerations will help you narrow down which agency you want to work with. From here, an agency recruiter will help pick out appropriate assignments for you to apply.
At this point, you will be doing the rest of the leg work. With travel nursing becoming more popular, so is the competition.
Your travel nurse resume is the first opportunity to make the best impression of yourself.
Writing resumes, especially for nurses, can be difficult to articulate your experience compared to different career industries.
The same standard resume tips apply when crafting a travel nurse resume.
Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Stick to basic fonts and using black and white color.
It’s possible your resume might be run through an applicant tracking system (ATS). Since ATS’ are used to streamline weeding out candidates, you want to remove any elements in your resume that might interfere with your resume readability.
Here is a comprehensive list of things to avoid for better success.
Nurses need to pay high attention to detail due to the nature of the job. This skill will first be showcased in your ability to use proper grammar and vocabulary in your resume.
The use of proper grammar shows that you are meticulous, and you took time to write your resume. There are many online resources that help proofread your work such as Grammerly.
Word choice is everything. When discussing your skills, opt to use action verbs instead of writing full sentences. Action verbs are powerful and bring a sense of confidence you need when applying for jobs.
Another tip from Indeed.com suggests using the same words in your resume that the job description lists. You are trying to convince the employer that you have the experience and skills they need for that position. This is a sure way to catch the attention of the ATS, hiring manager, or recruiter.
The ideal length of a resume seems to be conflicting. The best rule of thumb is to be as concise as possible.
Employers can expect to see a long list of work experience as the nature of travel nursing is to change jobs often, but no need to list your first job at 16 at McDonald’s. Only relevant NURSING experience.
Keep a few bullets about your experience at each job. Remember that a cover letter is an opportunity to be more thorough in depicting your experience.
Keeping the previous tips in mind, you’ll want to include these major categories in the content of your travel nurse resume.
This is where you will put your name, phone number, and professional email address.
This is where you list your degree(s). Start with the highest level of education, then work backward. No need to list high school information.
Experience needs to be listed in reverse chronological order. List your most recent or current employer, and work back.
If you have any employment gaps, be prepared to address that.
In this section you will want to list any state(s) licensing info or advanced certifications. Nursing.org has an example of what information to include in this section.
If you’ve done any research, volunteering, academic writing, or been awarded any achievements, include these here.
These reflect your ability to go beyond what is required of you and your willingness to be a leader in non-clinical capacities.
Once you’ve got all areas filled in, read it. And read it again. Look for any misspellings or redundancies. Even have a third fresh set of eyes read your resume. They may pick up on something you didn’t see. One mistake could be the reason an ATS, or recruiter tosses your travel nurse resume.
Now that you’ve crafted a resume you are proud of, you are ready to send it out! Good luck and happy job hunting!
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