10 Skills To Put On Your Travel Nurse Resume
The travel nurse resume is one of the very first impressions that a travel nurse will leave when it comes to obtaining an assignment and getting in front of a future employer. It is vitally important to take the travel nurse’s resume seriously and to know exactly what to include in yours that will make you stand out above the rest.
We wanted to help all of our travel healthcare professionals out by creating a one-stop shop blog. Here’s Wanderly’s ultimate guide for you to learn the ten most essential skills to put on your travel nurse resume, what to do if you do not have these skills, and what to exclude to ensure your most important skills are the first things seen.
Related: Travel Nurse Salary
What is the Nursing Resume Screening Process?
- Recruiting
- Multiple rounds of resume review
- Review by the nurse manager
- Standard background check
Typically, a recruiter will be the first one to collect your resume along with your application for a travel nursing assignment. They will review your resume, decide whether or not you possess the necessary skills, and then submit you much more easily and quickly to a hospital; both they and the hospital will be able to see exactly what you have to offer right off the bat.
There are many different people who will end up looking at your travel nurse resume. On average, your travel nurse resume will go through the hands of four or five people before reaching the nurse manager who you will be interviewing and working with. That includes the recruiter, an account manager at the agency, the managed service provider representative and or a quality assurance person. When it has gone through the hands of all those folks, only then it will get passed along to the nurse manager.
We want to make sure you include all of the pertinent information over the last seven years. Standard background check in the industry is seven years and the hospitals and vendor managers require the agency to run it in parallel to your resume. It will go through the hands of multiple people before it ends up at your future employer, which is exactly why it is so important to be filled with the exact qualifications necessary to do the job.
How to Conduct Research and Gather Content for Your Nursing Resume
The best way to know how to gather all of the various types of content and information you will need for your travel nurse resume is to conduct some research. Start by looking up the hospital or facility you want to work at so you can tailor your mission statement accordingly. One thing that veteran travel nurses do is update their resume and work history at the beginning of their assignment and the end of the assignment. This way, they don’t have to worry about remembering the facility specifics later on.
Wanderly also allows you to keep your profile updated. Research the types of licenses, certifications, and skills that are typically required for the position you are applying to, so you can be sure to include them. Also, research examples of a travel nurse resume to see what types of styles you like and think stand out.
10 Skills You Need on Your Travel Nurse Resume
Making sure that your travel nurse resume stands out to a future employer is up to you, but we want to list out the 10 skills that we know are absolutely necessary to assist you in doing so. With over 100 years of combined travel nursing experience, our Wanderly experts know just what to look for, include, and exclude for you to be successful and seen in this industry.
1 – Licenses and Certifications
This one may seem obvious, but we have a few pointers. When you are listing out your licenses and certifications, be sure to list every single one of them. In addition to listing them, you will want to include all of the information about them. List
- The professional name of each license and certification
- The exact date you obtained the license or certification
- The exact expiration of each license and certification, and
- The state body that issued it to you.
If you are a registered nurse with a license in a compact state, be sure to include this information.
Related: Nursing School Tips
2 – Previous Experience
When you start listing out your work history, be sure to list every single facility you have worked for in travel nursing. It is not necessary to include work history that does not pertain specifically to travel nursing. We think it’s awesome that you bartend on the weekends, but your travel nurse resume does not have space for it UNLESS they provide a quality reason for a gap in travel nursing employment.
When listing facilities be sure to include the full name, start and end dates, your specific position, trauma level, teaching hospital credential, number of beds, acuity, and the electronic medical record type.
3 – Specialty Specific Information
There are definitely specialty positions that are harder to find, tougher to keep, and even more difficult to snag than others in the travel nursing world, so ensuring that you include all of your specialty specific information that qualifies you above and beyond other candidates is absolutely pertinent. Be sure to include exact experiences on
- Specialty units
- Your specific role on the unit
- Any certifications that are pertinent to your specialty, and
- A reference from a charge nurse or above that you worked with.
4 – Education
You will want to include all of your education on your travel nurse resume starting with your college education and continuing with each school you attended after. You do not need to include your GPAs or anything of that nature. Your degrees earned from each individual institution, dates of attendance at each individual institution, and the location including the city and the state for each individual institution is just right. If you graduated with any special honors, you will want to be sure to include those as well.
5 – Professional Affiliations
A professional affiliation can signify that you take being deeply involved in the profession of nursing very seriously. There are different ways to be involved in professional affiliations and different ways to express which ones you are involved in on a resume. If you participate in any boards or forums at your facility, that is important to note.
If you are associated with a state association or legislative body that is something you can include if you wish, too. If you are actively working in any organization to improve policy, safety, or competence in the profession of nursing you should list it here.
6 – Employment Gaps
This one is actually really important, even though it might seem like you are tattling on yourself. Here’s the deal, most employers will find out about an employment gap anyway and not all of them really care that much. Trying to hide it is way more detrimental to your chances of getting a job than just being honest about taking time off for a holiday, or vacation, or health concern, etc.
By including these in your travel nurse resume, you have an excellent opportunity to explain why these gaps occurred–most likely relieving any concern by a potential boss and ensuring that when they run a background check, there aren’t any holes that will slow the process down.
7 – Desire to Work at that Facility
At the top of every travel nurse resume you have an opportunity to list a mission statement or personal statement expressing your intention for the entire resume and the facility and people who are receiving it. If you are able to, include a tiny snippet that is very unique to the specific facility you are applying to will go really far in showing them your true dedication and desire to work at that facility. Keep this statement limited to one sentence if you can.
8 – Community Service
When filling out the travel nurse resume, you will be inputting a lot of professional career information, and that is very important as it serves as the foundational impression for the job you are applying for. However, if you can include any community service on your travel nurse resume, we highly recommend this. Not only does it break up the work history portions, but it also shows that you are a well-rounded person that gives back to the community around you when you are not at work. It looks good and it sets you apart.
9 – Other Interests
Think of this as a fun section, but only include it if you have room. The rest of the sections are much more important. However, if you do have room to include other interests, this is another place to highlight specific things about you that do not apply to other candidates. By including your hobbies and interests in your personal life, you are showing another side of you that really highlights your humanity. You never know; a future employer may have a favorite interest in common with you, which will make your resume stand out even further. Obviously, do not include anything that could potentially be controversial.
10 – Personal Information
This is an absolute must. This section is not negotiable, and it is one of the most common mistakes we see on travel nurse resumes. At the head of your resume, it is vital that you include personal information including your name, address, email address, and phone number. The people handling your resume need to run a background check, and they also need to know how to contact you if you got the job. One more thing. Make absolutely sure before you send your resume in that your contact information is written out correctly. One small mistake could be the reason they never get a hold of you. Double, triple, quadruple check!
Formatting Your Travel Nurse Resume
Headings
The way that a travel nurse resume is formatted is really important. It needs to catch the eye, while simultaneously not confusing the reader by having so much content that is disorganized and all over the place. You want your headings to be succinct, bolded, and in a larger font than the rest of the content. Make it easy for the reader to find exactly what they are looking for on your resume if they need to get to one piece of information quickly. Keep the heading short, but make them stand out.
Layout
In all honesty, the layout is not nearly as important as the content that you put within the document itself. However, you want it to look neat, tidy, and succinct. The less words the better while still including everything pertinent. Use bullet points when possible instead of sentences to break it up and leave it easier for the reader to digest.
As a general rule, start with a heading that includes all of your personal contact information and proceed to the categories that encompass the skills mentioned above, and end with references that are charge nurses or higher and all professional. As long as you keep it organized and the same throughout the entire document, you should be good to go.
Things to Avoid
- Do not be too wordy.
- Do not print your resume in colored font.
- Do not choose a font that is in any way difficult to read.
- Do not write the entire thing in sentences.
- Do not make typos, spelling, or grammatical errors.
- Do not include irrelevant content, as the important content will then get lost.
- Do not lie.
- Do not embellish.
- Do not include anything unless you are positive.
- Do not shy away from showing your best self to your future employer! Fight for your job, and good luck!
Leaving the Right Impression
We know the travel nurse resume is one of the very first impressions that a travel nurse will have when it comes to obtaining an assignment and getting in front of a future employer. It is vitally important to take the travel nurse’s resume seriously and we want to make sure you are equipped to stand out and show completeness.
These are the ten most essential skills to put on your travel nurse resume, and if you have any further questions, feel more than free to reach out to the Wanderly team. Wanderly is here to help you, and we know that with the right direction you can land any of the jobs on our platform.