You will notice that there are two suggested headings on the resume which relate to your employment and practical experience. When applying for graduate nurse positions that you will probably need to include both headings, as follows:

• Professional Experience – this relates to any clinical or health care experience – that is, your placements, and paid, unpaid work e.g. employment as an EN, or carer work in the aged care sector. The aim here is to showcase some solid clinical experience.
• Employment History – under this heading provide a summary of other employment you have had. This will be non-nursing related paid employment e.g. working in a supermarket, hospitality or perhaps other career positions you’ve had. Here your purpose is merely to communicate that you actually have a record of being employed.

There is also a potential third extra heading that can be added by people who haven’t had paid employment, but who have gained important transferable skills through volunteer work. So, the additional heading might be either “Volunteering”, or “Community Work” or similar.

How to Write About Your Professional Experience

Note that the sub headings used should also be highlighted by making them “bold”. Document your experiences in reverse chronological order, i.e. start with your most recent experience first.

Let’s look at each of these parts in detail:

The Position and Date

Indicate the position you’ve held – I suggest Student Nurse, others sometimes write “Clinical Placement” or similar. If you are writing about paid work as an Enrolled Nurse, then that’s the title for the position. How much information should be supplied in terms of the date? If you have had say 2 years paid work you might simply put year/year. For a shorter period of work or a placement of a couple of months you might need to show month/year to month/year.

POSITION: Student Nurse DATE: Jan 2012 - present

ORGANISATION: ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

(Note: Include here, in brackets, using a smaller font, perhaps also in italics, a sentence about the organisation where you did your placement e.g. covering things like – type of facility, size, number of patient beds or area of specialisation e.g. a hospice, trauma rehabilitation etc. Proving this type of context about your experience adds to your professional credibility)

Next, write a sentence about the role scope or purpose e.g. Working in a multi disciplinary team environment, completed two week rotations in each of general ward, recovery ward, theatre and admissions.

ACHIEVEMENTS (or CONTRIBUTIONS – if you prefer)

List in bullet point form some of the contributions (clinical work you completed during your placement, for example:

Within scope of practice:

• Assisted patients with washing and dressing.
• Checked and recorded vital signs.

Keep your list relatively short – ideally no more than 5 or 6 bullet points. You can add significant impact to your achievement or contribution statements by describing, where possible, key deliverables or performance measurables that were associated with each position, and quantify them where possible.

For example:

• Time – can you describe tasks or actions that you had to complete within particular time frames, or deadlines?
• Budget – were you required to work within budget guidelines? Alternatively did your actions contribute to saving or making money for the organisation?
• Quality – were you required to work within recognised quality standards, or use relevant quality assurance procedures?
• Maintaining a desired level of performance
• Meeting or exceeding designated performance targets or outcomes

A final thought about Professional Experience – how many entries should be included, and in how much detail? It would be a good idea to write about your last two, and more extensive clinical placements. Provide a summary only of your earlier placements, and use a similar format to that which is explained below for writing about your Employment History.

Should you have had other paid, or unpaid professional experience and as a result developed clinical skills in addition to those gained in your clinical placements, it would be a good idea to give some detail about this…..rather than just a summary.

Another consideration about how much detail to include for professional experience which is not recent will be the effect on the overall length of your document. If the job application instructions indicate a two page limit on your resume, then you’ll need to prioritise how much, and which information you provide.

Employment History

Under this heading include information about any paid employment you have had. Provide details of your employment history in reverse chronological order. Many students will have had part time and casual work while studying, often in jobs which are not related to nursing. Other students might have had full time career positions before changing their career direction. In either case, employers will almost certainly see your past employment history as a bonus when considering the merits of your application. It is therefore important to include some brief detail about these jobs.

Why do employers value this experience? Perhaps the most important thing to employers is information about how you will have developed transferable skills…..skills you possess which can be readily adapted to Nursing.

For example:

• You will have demonstrated reliability, turning up to work on time and completing your assigned tasks
• Often you will be working with others in team situations.
• Many part time/casual jobs are related to delivering service – hence they could involve
  • Using interpersonal or other communication skills
  • Dealing with different types of people in terms of their age, gender, social background and culture
  • Resolving complaints
  • Being flexible in adapting to customer requests
  • Working in busy and fast paced environments
  • Being given leadership or supervisory responsibility,
• and so on……

Example

POSITION: Crew Member DATE: 2011 - present

ORGANISATION: McDonalds Restaurant, Enfield SA

Worked as team member in an exceptionally busy restaurant. Required to communicate with, and provide high quality, fast service to a very diverse customer base. Occasionally was shift leader and assisted in training new team members.

Community Work (or Volunteering) – optional

Writing about any community or volunteering work that is not related to Nursing can be useful if you have had limited, or no paid employment. If you’ve done this type of work, and it’s related to Nursing, consider including this detail under the “Professional Experience” heading ……but only if space allows. Use exactly the same format for writing about this which is shown above for writing about “Employment History”.