Adding clinicals to a resume

Raviepoo · Jan 26, 2015

Nurses are expected to be honest. If you fluff up a resume, what else are you willing to fluff?

I was a hiring manager once, but not in nursing. Even in a career field with very little emphasis on honesty and trustworthiness, I would cross anyone who seemed to be blowing smoke up my *** right off my list. Managers would like to think that they can trust their employees

Simply put, any confusion can be cleared up during an interview that I probably scored for the very reason that I was vague and oversold my resume.

shall62 · Jan 29, 2015

I had never thought that putting schooling on your resume like that could be considered overselling or trying to fluff it up to look good. But you're right some sort of schooling would be needed for the position anyway. i have almost 10 years CNA experience and 5 of them is on the floor i am applying at. thanks for the different perspective!

Jules A, MSN · Jan 30, 2015

I had never thought that putting schooling on your resume like that could be considered overselling or trying to fluff it up to look good. But you're right some sort of schooling would be needed for the position anyway. i have almost 10 years CNA experience and 5 of them is on the floor i am applying at. thanks for the different perspective!

What I felt the other posters were referring to was the comment that it is acceptable to oversell/fluff because it can be cleared up at interview which I would also disagree with.

I also added clinical rotations and the hours in my resume under Clinical Experience. Not standard resume protocol but I had nothing else health care related and felt my well rounded clinical rotations were worth mentioning. I dropped that section as soon as I had a nursing job to add.

Good luck with your job search.

elijahvegas, ASN, RN, EMT-P · Jan 31, 2015

I couldn't imagine why that would seem "shifty" or "sketchy". I never mentioned anything about "fluffing", since that would imply that you're capable of or have done more than you actually have.

If you're applying to a hospital where HR isn't familiar with your school, I think it's more than okay to let them know what exactly your education entailed at an institution they've never heard of. My clinical instructor once told me about students that had less than half the clinical hours from their school than ours require us to do. And she's come across a few that barely had any clinical experience whatsoever. In my mind, I don't want HR thinking that I came from a second-rate college that just milled us out for tuition money, so I would definitely mention just how rigorous the clinical aspect was on my resume.

And as far as the heading goes, I chose Internship/Volunteer because (well for one thing I actually have volunteer work I can list under that category) in our student handbooks, our clinical rotation is referred to as an Internship, and on our schedule it's labeled OJT/On the Job Training. So it's not like I'm picking these terms out of random. This is how the school refers to them, so I'll do the same. And once again, if there's any confusion, I'd be more than happy to clear that up.

HR managers differ from one to another in terms of whose application theyll instantly throw out vs who they would give an interview to. Unless you have inside knowledge on what your possible employer is looking for, it's generally a hit-or-miss situation. What's a thumb-up from one is an instant trash for another. It all depends on how you want to market yourself.

vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN · Jan 31, 2015

I wouldn't. I list skills, not hours of schooling. The schooling is in a completely different section of my resume. If you have a license the employers assume you did clinical rotations.

A career counselor at my school created my resume (from the same template used for all new grads, lol!) It had a "skills" section where she detailed each skill we had completed during clinicals.

She also made a section labeled "clinical sites". Where we could list the facilities we did clinicals at.

Below that was my prior work experience.

In this way, I displayed my clinical experience and my work experience.

It was difficult to keep my resume to Just one page with all this, but my resume found me a few jobs post graduation.

HTH!!