Nurse resume: example and guide for registered nurses

Example resume

Example

Danielle Brooks

Registered Nurse, BSN | Medical-Surgical and Telemetry

danielle.brooks@example.com · (614) 555-0147 · Columbus, OH

Summary

Registered nurse licensed in Ohio since 2022, with three years on a 32-bed medical-surgical and telemetry unit. Cares for 5 to 6 adult patients a shift, charts in Epic and precepts new graduate nurses. BLS and ACLS certified. Looking for a day-shift RN role on a step-down or cardiac unit.

Experience

Registered Nurse, Medical-Surgical and Telemetry Unit

Aug 2022 - Present

Larkspur General Hospital · Columbus, OH · Full-time, 12-hour shifts

• Care for 5 to 6 adult patients a shift on a 32-bed unit, including post-op, heart failure and telemetry patients.
• Gave scheduled and PRN medications with bedside barcode scanning, with no reported medication errors in 3 years.
• Led the unit's fall prevention huddles; falls with injury dropped from 6 to 2 in one year.
• Precepted 4 new graduate nurses through a 12-week orientation; all 4 were signed off on schedule.

Patient Care Technician

Jun 2020 - Jul 2022

Brightwater Community Hospital · Dublin, OH · Part-time, during nursing school

• Took vital signs, blood glucose checks and intake and output for up to 12 patients a shift on a 28-bed unit.
• Helped patients with mobility and hygiene, and reported changes in condition to the charge nurse.

Education

Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), GPA 3.6

Aug 2018 - May 2022

Midland Valley University College of Nursing · Columbus, OH

Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) provider courses

Feb 2026

American Heart Association · Columbus, OH

Skills

• Patient assessment and care planning
• Telemetry and cardiac monitoring
• IV insertion and infusion therapy
• Medication administration (barcode scanning)
• Wound care
• Patient and family education
• Epic charting
• Precepting new nurses

Languages

• English native speaker
• Spanish B1 · intermediate

Interests

Volunteer at a free community health fair (blood pressure screenings) · Half marathons

Danielle has three years as an RN on a med-surg and telemetry floor, after two years as a patient care technician while she studied. Her nurse resume fits on one page and gives a nurse manager what they look for first: the license, the unit and the patient load.

What this nursing resume does well, and you can copy:

• the headline under her name says the credential (RN, BSN) and the specialty;
• every job names the unit and the number of patients, so the reader can compare with their own floor;
• each bullet has a number a manager tracks: patients a shift, falls, medication errors, nurses precepted;
• the charting system (Epic) and the life support courses are easy to spot, for a recruiter and for screening software.

You can start from the same layout or pick another one among our resume templates: you can switch templates at any time without retyping. More nurse resume examples by specialty come below, in the summary and experience sections.

A recruiter or nurse manager reads a nurse resume with a checklist in mind. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, registered nurses provide and coordinate patient care and educate patients and the public, and they work in hospitals, physicians' offices, home health, nursing care facilities, outpatient clinics and schools. The questions behind the checklist:

• Are you licensed here? The BLS states that registered nurses must hold a license issued by the state in which they work.
• Have you worked on a unit like ours? Med-surg, ICU, emergency, labor and delivery, pediatrics, home health: the setting matters more than the job title.
• Can you carry our patient load? Your usual ratio and the acuity of your patients say it in one line.
• Do you have the certifications the posting asks for? BLS almost always, ACLS or PALS on many units.
• Which charting system do you know? Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), MEDITECH: write the one you used.

Demand is steady: the BLS projects employment of registered nurses to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, with about 180,800 openings a year on average. The median annual wage was $97,550 in May 2025. That figure is for your research, not for your resume: pay is discussed at the offer stage.

Use standard section headings, in this order, so a hospital's applicant tracking system (ATS) and a busy reader both find each part:

1. Header: name, credentials (RN, BSN), city and state, phone, professional email, LinkedIn if it is up to date. No full street address.
2. Summary: two or three lines with your years, specialty, unit type and one result.
3. Licenses and certifications: your RN license first, then BLS, ACLS and specialty certifications.
4. Clinical experience: newest job first, with the unit in the job title line.
5. Education: BSN, ADN or diploma, school, city, graduation date.
6. Skills: clinical skills, charting system, and a few soft skills you can prove.
7. Optional: languages, volunteer work, professional memberships.

The example above puts the license in the summary and the life support courses under education, which works on a one-page resume. With several certifications, give them their own section near the top.

Your license is the first thing a hiring team checks. The BLS explains the path: graduate from an approved nursing program, then pass a qualifying exam. That exam is the NCLEX, developed by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). To take it, you first apply for licensure with the board of nursing of the state where you want to practice, then register with Pearson VUE and wait for your Authorization to Test. Other requirements, such as a criminal background check, vary by state.

On the resume, write the license type, the state board and the month it was issued. The license number is not needed on a document that circulates: give it on the application form when the employer asks for it.

If you live in a state that belongs to the Nurse Licensure Compact and hold a multistate license, add the word “multistate”: it tells an employer in another member state that you can start without waiting for a new license. NCSBN's compact site listed 43 member jurisdictions on October 31, 2026. If you move from one compact state to another, you must apply for a license in your new home state within 60 days.

Most nursing job postings ask for Basic Life Support (BLS), and many units add Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) or Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS). The American Heart Association is one of the organizations that teach these provider courses. List each one with the issuer and the expiration date printed on your card, and renew them before you apply: an expired card stands out on a nursing resume.

Specialty certifications (critical care, emergency, medical-surgical, pediatrics, gerontology...) come from professional associations. The BLS notes that they are usually voluntary, but they show a level of competency and some employers require them. Write the full name once, then the initials: a keyword search may look for either.

Two or three sentences under your name: your credentials and years, the unit you work on, one result with a number, and what you want next. Skip “compassionate and hardworking”: every nursing resume says it. Our resume summary guide has more examples for every career stage.

Give every nursing job the same structure, newest first:

• the job title with the unit: “Registered Nurse, Emergency Department”, not just “Staff Nurse”;
• the facility, its city and state, and the dates in MM/YYYY;
• a first bullet with the unit size and your patient ratio, then two or three results.

Bullet examples you can adapt, with your own numbers:

• Triage about 20 patients a shift in a 40-bed Level II trauma emergency department.
• Monitor 4 laboring patients a shift on a 12-bed labor and delivery unit, including continuous fetal monitoring.
• Teach heart failure discharge plans with the teach-back method; 30-day readmissions for the unit's HF patients fell from 21% to 16%.
• Ran monthly hand hygiene audits on 2 units and raised compliance from 84% to 95%.
• Coordinate home visits for a caseload of 25 patients, including wound care and medication reconciliation.
• Float to 3 other medical units as needed, with the same ratio.

Pick 6 to 10 skills from the job posting that your bullets already prove. Clinical skills change with the unit:

Add the charting system you used (Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), MEDITECH) and two or three soft skills with a proof: clinical judgment, clear handoffs, calm under pressure, teamwork with physicians and therapists. The full list and how to choose is in our guide to skills for a resume.

Without RN experience yet, your clinical training takes the place of work history. A new grad nurse resume puts education near the top and treats the capstone like a job:

• Capstone or preceptorship: the unit, the patient population, your total hours and your patient load at the end.
• Clinical rotations: one line under your degree with the specialties (med-surg, pediatrics, obstetrics, mental health, community).
• Healthcare jobs: patient care technician, CNA, EMT, medical scribe: each one as a full job entry, with patients a shift.
• Volunteer work: health fairs, flu clinics, camp nursing, with the number of people you screened.
• Your NCLEX status in the summary, with a date.

Moving into nursing from another field, or from LPN to RN? Keep the reverse-chronological order, lead with your new degree and license, and keep the bullets of older jobs that carry over to the bedside: patient contact, teaching, documentation, work under pressure. For a first job outside healthcare, see our resume with no work experience.

• Reverse-chronological: newest job first. Nursing careers read as a sequence of units, and hiring teams expect this order.
• One page for new grads and most staff nurses; two pages after many years, several specialties, or charge, education and research roles, as long as page one shows your license and current unit.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no Social Security number: that is not the practice in the United States.
• A simple layout: one column, standard headings, a readable font, saved as a PDF unless the portal asks for Word.

Large hospital systems screen applications with software before a recruiter opens them. Run your file through our ATS resume checker: you get a score out of 100 and the reason for every lost point, so you can see whether your license, unit and certifications are read correctly.

• No unit in the job title: “Registered Nurse” alone tells a manager nothing about your floor.
• Duties instead of results: “administered medications” is in every registered nurse resume; the ratio and the safety record are yours.
• An expired or missing BLS card, when the posting lists it as required.
• The same resume for every posting: an ICU posting and a clinic posting don't use the same words.
• RN after your name before the license is issued.
• Typos in drug names or certifications: read the file aloud before you send it.

• Hospital career portals: most health systems post every opening on their own site, with an online application.
• Job boards: Indeed, LinkedIn and nursing job boards, with alerts for your specialty and city.
• Nurse residency programs for new graduates, often with fixed application windows.
• Travel nursing and staffing agencies, if you hold the experience and the license they ask for.

If the posting asks for a cover letter, our cover letter generator writes one from your resume and the job posting, and you edit it word by word. Before the interview, prepare your questions to ask the interviewer and your answer to tell me about yourself.