Your CV is the first impression you’ll make with recruiters and potential employers, so it’s important that you take the time to get it right. Below you’ll find some simple tips to help you stand out from your competition.
Prepare Ahead of Time
Nurses must be thorough with a strong eye for detail, and so your CV must be accurate and comprehensive. Prepare your CV well in advance to ensure you have the time to correct spelling mistakes, remove typos, and check all the information provided for inaccuracies.
Have someone else read your CV to help catch any final errors you’ve become accustomed to. Maintain an active CV, updating your skills and qualifications as you gain them so that you’re ready to apply quickly and easily when opportunities arise.
Follow a Structure
Nursing CVs can quickly become crowded due to the amount of information which needs to be communicated. You should make yours easy to read and navigate by keeping it under two pages long, and following a simple, manageable structure.
Start with your contact details. Make sure the first thing a recruiter reads is your name, address, email address, and contact number. Registered nurses should also include their NMC pin number. You can then move on to your nursing history and key skills, then your qualifications, finishing with a couple of references.
Your skills, qualifications, and work history should be presented in reverse chronological order, with the latter including a quick rundown of your duties and responsibilities. You must give the name of the institute at which you studied for your qualifications, as well as the date you qualified.
Write a Strong Personal Statement
Your CV’s personal statement is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you’re a top performer. This is where you can write a little more personably, outlining your accomplishments and goals within nursing, and how the role may help you achieve those goals. Provide examples of times in which you have displayed the appropriate skills to be considered for more advanced roles. Be as specific as possible, and tailor this section to suit each role you apply for.
Stay Professional
Avoid overloading your CV with too many fonts or colours. Use a font that’s common across all systems, such as Arial, and, if your CV is to be submitted electronically, save your work in Word, using a .doc file. This will ensure that it can be read across all devices and platforms.
Keep the design simple, using bullet points and short, concise sentences in order to break up large chunks of text. Avoid including interests unless they are directly applicable to nursing.
Make Use of Keywords
The Nursing profession has a wide variety of duties, experience levels, and specialisations, so you’ll want to include keywords to increase the chance that your CV is found by recruiters, and to make sure that your skills and suitability are evident from a quick scan. You should include keywords related to your specialism, band, and location, and ensure that all additional qualifications and skills are bullet-pointed.
