Your Registered Nurse Resume
Write your Qualifications Summary of Your Nursing Employment Using the Canadian Nursing Competencies

Your registered nurse resume will need a qualifications summary if you are applying for nursing jobs in Canada in the urban areas and you have previous years of nursing employment.

The summary of qualifications is the area of your nursing resume where you should be profiling all the strengths and past experience that will be of benefit to the employer if they hire you.

The summary of qualifications provides one place on your nursing resume where you can list the sum of all your nursing experiences. So instead of listing the same thing in each of your work experience summaries you can include a statement that sums all those experiences up into one statement.

Let's say you have two or three nursing employment experiences where you planned, implemented, and evaluated nursing care for clients who were undergoing surgery. You could sum this up in your qualifications summary with a statement like:

This sentence is much more meaningful to the employer and provides motivation for the reader to keep going with your resume instead of tossing it aside.

You might want to follow up this statement with another that profiles your expertise with chest tubes.

The qualifications summary area of your registered nurse resume is like a personal nursing competency profile.

A personal set of nursing competencies reflects the experience and area of specialization acquired through your nursing employment and continuing education. It is your own specialized skill set that goes beyond the entry level competencies required for entry level practice in nursing jobs in Canada.

Nursing competencies are not the only skills that can be profiled in your qualifications summary. If you are proficient in more than one language this an excellent place to list that.

Registered Nurse Resume Sample Statements for a Qualifications Summary
Based on the Canadian Nursing Competencies

You can create your own qualifications summary for your registered nurse resume by consulting the entry level nursing competencies and matching them to your own competency set.

In the table that follows a nursing competency statement from the entry level competencies tested on the Canadian Registered Nurse Exam is listed and then a corresponding statement that would be suitable for a qualifications summary on a registered nurse resume is given.

Nursing Competencies	Sample Nurse Resume Qualifications Summary
PP-25 collaborates and builds partnerships with nursing colleagues and other members of the health care team to provide health services.	Implemented an education program in the long term care facility to enhance communication skills between nursing team members
PP - 14 integrates continuous quality improvement into nursing practice	Team leader for the quality improvement team for redesigning and improving medication delivery systems
PP-15 uses evidence and critical enquiry to challenge, change, enhance,or support nursing practice	Researched the evidence for the new hospital MRSA screening program.
NCP-14 uses principles/strategies related to teaching and learning, to meet the client's learning needs	Successfully lobbied for a teaching space within the hospital unit that could be used for discharge teaching for clients and families.
PP - 21 implements strategies for continuing competence	Hospital proficiency certificates obtained in telemetry and ventilator care.
CH-47 administers medication (i.e., right person, drug, dose, route and time, documentation, person's rights).	Proficient in the use of Omnicell and Pyxis medication administration systems.

Do not copy any of these statements into your registered nurse resume unless they are true!

Instead take them as an example of how to sum up your nursing practice experience to provide the employer with a good idea of why they might want to hire you.

And all resume words on your registered nurse resume should be absolutely true.

Never and I mean never put anything in your resume that is not true and that you cannot defend or prove to be real.

Every word in your resume should be carefully chosen. Some words are helpful and some are not.

Create the qualifications summary for you registered nurse resume using some of these resume words.

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REMEMBER! The purpose of your nursing resume is to get a job interview. Check out the Job Interview Tips for Nursing Jobs in Canada.

Here is a list of all the pages on this website that contain more specific information to help with writing your nursing resume.

Resume Objectives - Include resume objectives in your nursing resume if you are applying for nursing employement in larger urban hospitals and you have specific career goals. Nursing resume objective examples are offered so you can create your own resume objective statements.

Career Objective Examples for Resumes - If you have previous nursing experience a resume objective statement should be crafted for your nursing resume. Sample resume objectives are offered for pediatrics, long term care, and other nursing settings.

Outline of a Resume - An outline of a resume is presented to help with writing a resume for nursing jobs in Canada.

Write A Good Resume- A step by step process offers help with writing a resume so you can create a nursing resume that informs the employer about your ability to work as a professional nurse.

Resume Words for Your Nursing Resume- Use these resume words when completing the resume objective statement or qualifications summary.

Registered Nurse Resume- Create a registered nurse resume that contains a qualifications summary closely matching the Canadian nursing competencies.

Nursing Resume References- Resume references do not need to be included on your resume when you apply for nursing jobs in Canada. Tips for how to handle employment and character references on your nursing resume.

Free Resume Writing Online- Links to sites where you can make a resume online for free!

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