Building a Strong CV With Nursing Student Competencies

You’ve put in the long hours and hard work in nursing school, passed the NCLEX-RN and earned your nursing license. Congratulations! Now, it’s time to put your curriculum vitae (CV) together and apply for your first nursing job. When you prepare your CV or resume, you can organize it in response to the student learning outcomes from your nursing program while focusing on how well you achieved those learning outcomes. This demonstrates to prospective employers that you can provide excellent patient care while adhering to protocols and standards.

In order to build a strong CV showing you’ve fulfilled the required learning outcomes, you must first ensure that your nursing education is through a respectable institution like Concordia St. Paul’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. You’ll also want to emphasize your nursing student competencies. What are competencies in nursing, exactly? Competencies refer to your nursing skills and knowledge, as well as your ability to deliver patient care safely and effectively. Here’s a guide to developing your CV in preparation for securing your first nursing position, with nursing competencies examples.

Essential Components of a Nursing Student Resume

Many students struggle to put together their first resume after graduating with a degree because they don’t have much experience yet. This is where nursing students have an advantage. As a CSP Global ABSN student, you’ve already engaged with clinical learning experiences and developed a professional skill set. In other words, you have plenty of nursing student competencies to highlight.

The first step in writing a CV is organizing it into appropriate sections. Here’s a quick look at what you’ll want to include:

• Personal information: At the top of your CV should be your full name and contact information (phone number and email address). Be sure to use a professional-looking personal email instead of your school email.
• Summary: Following your personal information, you should write a brief summary that includes a few select student nursing core competencies. You could also highlight special skills, such as fluency in another language, as well as any other relevant info, like veteran status.
• Education: In this section, you’ll list your degrees, institutions and graduation dates.
• Experience: You’ll want to separate this section into different health systems and community-based agencies. Title each subsection with the name of the facility and start/end dates of your clinical experience. Then, add some bullet points about your responsibilities there.
• Certifications: List all your earned certifications here, including CPR, ACLS, TeamSTEPPS, quality and safety certifications, grief support certifications, leadership credentials and so on. You’ll also list your RN license here.
• Skills: In this section, list your hard and soft nursing skills. A nursing graduate might have dozens of skills they could list, but it’s best to choose the ones most suited to the position and nursing specialty. For instance, if you’re applying for a position in an ER, you’ll want to highlight your ability to stay calm under pressure, think well on your feet, triage patients appropriately and perform patient assessments. Patient education, teamwork and leadership are also crucial here.

Student Nursing Core Competencies: Hard Skills

Hard skills are occupation-specific competencies you learned in nursing school. Throughout coursework and during skills labs, you will practice and develop the nursing skills and techniques needed in a professional setting. These nurse competencies include the following:

Patient Assessments

Patient assessments might seem basic, but they are essential to nursing work. Your prospective employer will want to know that you’ve mastered the process of assessing a patient’s symptoms, including recording their medical history, checking vital signs and assessing the severity of their condition.

Patient and Family Education

A patient’s health outcome depends not only on your nursing care but also on their ability to follow their own care plan after discharge. You’ll want to list patient and family caregiver education on your CV, as it’s a vital skill for nurses.

Patient Safety

Healthcare employers prioritize patient safety. Not only is patient safety important for health outcomes, but it also minimizes liability for the healthcare facility. If a patient is exposed to a biohazard while hospitalized or falls and breaks a bone while trying to walk to the toilet by themselves, this can present a legal liability problem for the hospital. You’ll want to highlight your understanding of proper safety protocols and commitment to adhering to them.

Technological Skills

Healthcare is becoming increasingly high-tech, and your prospective employer will want to know you’re technologically proficient. For example, you should know how to update electronic health records (EHRs) or use up-to-date patient care technologies.

IV Placement

Many nursing specialties require nurses to be highly competent at IV placements. Be sure to highlight this and other related nursing student competencies (e.g., medication administration) on your CV.

Student Nurse Competencies: Examples of Soft Skills

Along with hard skills, you’ll also need to demonstrate you’ve mastered multiple soft skills. In a field all about providing care to people in need, the importance of social skills cannot be overstated. The following are some student nurse competencies that you may want to include:

Communication Skills

Hospital recruiters want to know that the nurses they hire are competent communicators. As a nurse, you’ll communicate regularly with patients, family members, doctors, fellow nurses, and other healthcare professionals.

Cultural Competencies

Nurses are tasked with providing excellent care to patients from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds. Your hiring manager will want to know you can approach each patient with a nonjudgmental mindset and treat them with compassion and sensitivity.

Lifelong Learner

Nurses need to be lifelong learners. Another competency you could highlight is your willingness to learn and grow, as well as your receptiveness to feedback. You might also discuss your plans to further your nursing education in the future, if applicable.

Teamwork

Other student nursing core competencies include teamwork and collaboration. You should demonstrate that you can work as part of a team to solve problems, plan care and deliver the best possible care to your patients.

Leadership Skills

Not every nurse is a charge nurse, nurse manager or advanced practice registered nurse (APRN). However, every nurse has the potential to exhibit leadership skills in the workplace, such as by modeling best practices, uplifting and supporting fellow nurses and, in general, being a good role model. Even though you won’t be applying to a designated leadership or supervisory role right after graduation, you can still highlight your leadership skills on your CV.

Communicating Your Nurse Competencies in an Interview

During an interview for a nursing job, the recruiter will want information beyond what’s already covered in your CV and cover letter. They may also want to get a sense of who you are as a person, including what motivates you, what you care about and why you’re passionate about nursing.

In particular, they’ll want to know if you:

• Are willing to learn, grow and develop your clinical competencies
• Are receptive to constructive criticism and adjust your work accordingly
• Work well with others
• Are capable of critical thinking
• Demonstrate leadership tendencies
• Possess the cultural competence and communication skills necessary to care for patients from diverse backgrounds

You should spend plenty of time preparing for the interview. Think of specific examples of times when you demonstrated your nurse competencies. For instance, consider challenges you encountered during your clinical learning experience and share how you overcame them. Discuss your clinical learning experiences and how they shaped your skills.

You might also discuss your plans for the future. For example, instead of discussing only the certifications you’ve already earned, talk about the ones you want to earn. This demonstrates your commitment to professional development.

Pursue Your Future in Nursing at Concordia University

Concordia University, St. Paul looks forward to helping you achieve your dream career in nursing. Our Accelerated BSN program allows you to earn a nursing degree in as few as 16 months. During your time as an ABSN student, you’ll complete a variety of experiential learning components, including clinical learning experiences, which are designed to transform you into a fully capable, confident practitioner.

At Concordia University, we emphasize evidence-based practice and Christian values. You’ll graduate prepared to sit for the NCLEX and tackle modern challenges in nursing. Contact our admissions advisors today to learn how you can take the next steps toward a meaningful career in nursing.