New Grad - Peds Resume Critique

lizpedsrn · Jan 12, 2015

Also I have more experience with children, but it dates back to about 4 years ago (child swim instructor at YMCA for 1 year, children's tutor for 1 year), but not sure if it should be included since 1. it is so old and 2. it may make my resume more than 1 page

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Jan 13, 2015

Objectives are useless as clearly your goal is to get a job. Are you trying to secure employment pre-graduation/licensing?

SimoneB · Jan 13, 2015

I would shorten the descriptions of your work and volunteer experiences and add descriptions of what you did in your preceptorship and ICU rotations. I guess you are still in preceptorship so this is hard but this is what managers are interested in. What diagnoses did you gain experience with, what critical care procedures and skills did you cover, specify that you did post op care for particular common procedures. You don't have to list everything you ever did and in fact should keep it concise so they will not stop reading because it is too long; just give them a sense that you have meaningful experience that you can elaborate on in PICU and ICU. Many people also put the number of hours spent in each rotation (you can get this information from your school), especially if you went to a program that has more clinical hours than average. I personally think its ok to go to 2 pages but all the information should be tailored to your specialty.

Also, maybe you know already but you should get your ACLS and PALS ASAP so you can add it to your resume as everyone else will be getting them.

Also take out blood born pathogens (everyone has to do this) and Greek week or at least put it somewhere else. I don't mean to belittle this as a leadership experience but it feels sophomoric and makes you sound really young. Also leadership should not be grouped with certifications anyway.

Good luck in your job hunt! It's great that you are planning ahead.

luluRN14 · Jan 14, 2015

Great Start! Suggestions:

Remove objective and replace with section of Candidate Highlights. This allows you to showcase specific things you achieved that make you a stand out candidate in your first few bullet points. For example, when I was in nursing school, you had to go through a selection process to be accepted into a pediatric ICU preceptorship, and not everyone was selected. So my first bullet point might be:

- Selected from pool of senior nursing students by nursing school faculty and hospital administration for (level) Pediatric ICU Preceptorship experience.

First thing, that lets the recruiter know that people in hiring and evaluation positions selected you, so you're worth taking a little extra time to look at. Second, I would include action and outcome based statements about your clinical rotations. There are mixed feelings about whether a description should be included, because most nursing school curriculum is very similar. With that said, you have some unique experiences. Have you worked with vents? How about vent weaning? Have you shadowed your preceptor during blood admin protocol? These among many others are things that not all nursing students get to experience. Make sure you mention things like this! An example of an action/ outcome statement might be:

- Performed vent weaning protocols for vent dependent patient to facilitate successful step-down to Room Air.

Another suggestion I received during my application process was to include a clinical skills list in bullet points: for example:

-IV removal -wet to dry dressing changes - catheter insertion and removal - etc.

These are all skills that HR/nurse managers want a new grad to at least have experienced, and not all new grads have this experience. Preceptorships vary drastically depending on institution policies and how comfortable your preceptor is giving you increasing responsibility. Just remember you are selling yourself as the best candidate above all others for a job, why do they want you??

Check out the blog post from BluePipes, it's specifically tailored for nurses. When I was applying to jobs I found their blog info really helpful on navigating the world of resumes in the era of applicant tracking systems (the online resume parsing systems). They say don't worry about the length of your resume. Mine was a full 2 pages when I started - it helped get me the job I have now.

Top 10 Details to Include on a Nursing Resume - RN Resume

Good luck!

lizpedsrn · Jan 16, 2015

Thank you everyone for your help! I really appreciate the criticism and it feels good to give my "pre graduate" resume a makeover. I am going to remove greek week as well as my objective in order to make room for the skills list and adding more detail to my preceptorship area. I am applying pre-license due to some of the applications for new graduates being looked at in February.

I do have a few questions though --

1. Should I be adding my special experiences to my resume or is this more of a cover letter topic?

2. I have been looking into PALS certification since I was thinking it may give me an upper edge but have read a couple forums on here suggesting not to worry about that until I have employment since a lot of times they will send you to training for this. Is PALS something I am able to take without being licensed? And will I be able to fully take all the information in with my skill/knowledge level?

Thank you all again!

CoolKidsRN · Jan 16, 2015

What do you mean by special experience?

You can take PALS anytime. All you need is an up to date BLS card. In addition you should be able to do high quality CPR, rhythm interpretation, know your meds, etc.

As a peds nurse myself, I agree with the above posts. You can cut out the objective section. I would make sure that any volunteer experience you include in your resume is recent (i.e. volunteer work during college). Rather than expand what you did in your volunteer section, I would cut that out and instead expand on specific clinical skills you acquired while in nursing school clinicals (especially your PICU clinical). Lastly, make certifications and leadership two separate labels. I would be more inclined to combine "Education and Certifications", first listing your BSN institution, RN license (when you obtain that), then BLS, and PALS, etc.