Any resume advice for a Direct Entry grad?

[BCgradnurse]

Hi,

I'll be graduating from my DE program this spring, and am starting to think about my resume. I have not worked as an RN (but not counting that out), so what should I list on my resume for experience? Should I put my RN clinicals as well as my NP clinicals? Also, I have over 20 years experience in another aspect of health care. Should I list all those jobs, or maybe just put a general statement that I have 20 something years of experience as a medical technologist?

Thanks for your help!

[BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP]

For the most part, my clinicals in the hospitals were excellent and we were treated very well, but there were a few nurses that gave us "attitude" about our program, and did not want to work with us. I have not run into any such problems during my NP clinicals. In fact, the MDs and NPs I've worked with have been extremely supportive. There is a study out there by Ellen Rich (Nurse Practitioner, 2005) that determined that RN experience doesn't relate to NP clinical skills, and as you said, MDs gave DE NPs a higher rating than those with RN experience. I don't know if I'd take all this as gospel, but I guess the bottom line is that DE graduates are competent. The disturbing thing (to me, anyway), is that it seems to be other nurses who are unsupportive of DE students/grads. I feel that we're all members of the same profession, no matter how we got there, and we can't be putting down each other if we're going to advance the profession of nursing as a whole, and get the respect we deserve as LVNs, RNs, NPs, CNSs or whatever.

[ANPFNPGNP]

the disturbing thing (to me, anyway), is that it seems to be other nurses who are unsupportive of de students/grads. i feel that we're all members of the same profession, no matter how we got there, and we can't be putting down each other if we're going to advance the profession of nursing as a whole, and get the respect we deserve as lvns, rns, nps, cnss or whatever.

do you think this has anything to do with the fact that the nursing profession is dominated by women?

[llg, PhD, RN]

I would recommend listing your student clinical experiences on a separate piece of paper -- clearly labeling them as student clinicals so that there is no confusion about they are. On your main resume, you can see something like, "See attached list of student clinical experiences." to direct the reader to them.

That way, the interested reader can see what they are -- without there being any confusion about what they are. It also prevents you from being viewed as someone who is trying to embellish her resume by "padding" her work experience with student clinicals. By listing them on a separate piece of paper, you provide the information while avoiding any confusion or negative interpretations.

[BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP]

As much as I hate to say it, it seems that way. Why...I don't know. I've also sen it in my previous life as a med tech, which is also very female dominated. I've seen some MTs being really nasty to bio majors who were hired to work in the lab, even though these people were perfectly competent with training, and saved us from working overnights and extra weekends!! Granted, they didn't have the same theoretical background as the MTs, but they did fine and there was always someone around to ask if they had a question. So, I don't know where these bad feelings come from, but they are out there, unfortunately. Does anybody have any insight into this issue?