Roles and Issues in Advance Practice Nursing

Resume and Cover Letters Video Transcript

Kaitlynn Arvidson: Hello, everyone and welcome to Resume Success for Nurse Practitioners. I'm Kaitlynn Arvidson, and I'm the Manager of Graduate Career Planning here at Regis College. And I'm more than happy to be with you here today to discuss resumes and cover letters to start either your preceptorship, or if you're preparing for your first job as an RN, now that you're in that MSN program or perhaps, even your nurse practitioner job. So let's just get started, and I'll share my screen with you which will allow you to see the PowerPoint presentation.

If you ever need to contact me, my information is right there. It's kaitlynn.arvidson@regiscollege.edu. And please be aware that I'm here to help you for any of your career-planning needs whether they be online, on ground, if you want to come in, by phone, whatever works best for you. And, of course, online students, I'm here to help you according to your schedule depending on the time it works best.

So let's get started. The Resume, CV, and Cover Letter. Your resume and CV— your key to unlocking an interview by piquing the employer's interests based on factual information and evidence— qualitative and quantitative data— as support. So this is something that really is your marketing tool to the employer world. It's your ability to talk about your skills, abilities, academics, and also professional experience, and communicate that to an employer so they might have interest in hiring you for either an RN, NP, or preceptorship role.

And your cover letter is a summation of your academic and professional achievements by drawing parallels to the role you're applying combined with the value you bring to the position and employer. So keep in mind, both of these documents are reviewed for probably about 20 seconds each, if that. It's just that employers see such a high volume of cover letters and resumes.

You want to make it as succinct and information full as you can without making it too lengthy. So generally speaking for an MSN resume, it can be anywhere from one to two pages. And at the DSM level, one page is probably significant (Inaudible 2:37). The resume is an art, not a science if something's important to know, which means that your resume can be completely different than someone else's.

There's really no comparison when it comes to resumes. So keep that in mind that if a colleague of yours has a different format or a different way of positioning the information, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're correct and you're not. It just means that it varies based on your experience levels, your background, with that particular industry in general and also, what you prefer to see in terms of a format.

But I'll go over doing formats that are, like, useful to you as well as ways you can go about revising what you currently have. So it's helpful to have multiple versions of your resume if you're applying for more than one type of nurse practitioner role. Always use keywords aligning to the specific job description. This is essential.

So oftentimes, students go ahead and apply to jobs, which is great. Some might be similar to others. Others might be completely different. So make sure you have various versions of your resume depending on the type of preceptorship you're looking for or jobs and even specialty within. Which, I guess, in terms of specialty, it'd be more applicable to a preceptorship depending on the type of preceptorship you looking for at that point in time.

I'm assuming that the MSN level, once you decide on your specialty, the types of jobs you'll be applying to will be more or less pretty similar. But still, you might use a different cover letter or resume based the type of organization. If you're trying to communicate, let's say, your experience for a community health organization versus a hospital versus some sort of proprietary organization. So just keep that in mind.

And there can be many variations to your resume. But there's three rules overall. No typos, make it 100% honest and accurate using facts and only factual information. And ensure that it tells a narrative about your professional career based on facts that support your NP goals.

Components of a resume— name and contact information, summary qualifications— if desired, education, certification/licensure, professional/clinical experience, other work experience, and, of course, community involvement and professional experience. Make sure there's some white space on your resume. And as always, 11-point font is probably the right size.

Now, to the summary of qualifications. You want to make this into a narrative in terms of your goal, in terms of teaming that particular position of preceptorship, the areas of specialty that you have, level of experience, and your personal brand. Examples of your personal brand can be critical thinking, problem solving, attention to detail, calm under pressure, things like that.

Oftentimes, people use a summary of qualifications if they have experience as an RN, and they utilize their experience to help the employer project how they'll be in the NP role. If you don't have experience as an RN or any clinical background, it's fine to leave this portion completely off your resume.

It really is just a personal choice based on the information you have to present. So if you have questions on that, I'm more than happy to answer that. Just contact me, and I can help you think through what's the best format for you.

Example of summary statements are "Nursing professional with clinical experience in pediatrics seeking Nurse Practitioner position in a satellite hospital setting. Known for stellar clinical assessment skills, ability to prioritize and collaborate." And also a "Nursing professional with clinical experience in the Emergency Department seeking a Nurse Practitioner position in a hospital setting. Past professional sales experience demonstrates track record of communication skills, ability to manage multiple priorities, and work calmly under pressure."

So you can see, the person in the second bullet point was able to take their priority experience and integrate it within the whole of nursing. That's not always possible depending on what you've done in the past. But oftentimes, it is because there are transferable skills in all different industries. So, again, I'm happy to help find those parallels you can draw if you need help with that.

As for professional experience, listing the employer, the job title, city and state in which you had the job, dates of employment, month and year, the month and year you ended it, or present, if you're still there. List responsibilities and quantify your results.

So as you can probably see, it's very important to over-quantify everything and make everything very factual-based. So that way, the employer can really evaluate you versus another candidate with actual facts versus information they can't attribute to you— the amount of time you were in a job or how many patients you served on your shift, how many physicians you might have supported, anything of that sort.

Professional experience— were you able to identify patient needs that were unspoken? Were you able to communicate with a patient who didn't understand? Were you're known to ask for help when needed? And did you meet and/or surpass your patients' expectations?

Those are just good ways to think about what you did in your past jobs and even your current position and ways to then articulate your job description on your resume. These are all important topics to consider as an NP. Just an example of professional experience and how it can look.

This particular person lists their companies they worked at, some responsibilities. So the three are listed there as they have experience as a Nurse's Aide, a Rehab Nursing Assistant, and then they also listed their clinical rotations. It's important to list your rotations, especially if that's where your experience lies because you haven't been a nurse yet.

Or if you've been a nurse for a number of years, and your clinical rotations can only help and enhance that experience because they might be in a different specialty than what you're currently practicing, that's important, too. And employers expect to see this on a resume because you're currently in school pursuing a master's degree or certificate, and it's just important to see, OK, where have you had those clinical experiences?

So as time moves on, and you achieve more, feel free to the list the ones most directly related to the type of job you're applying. So again, this might change from resume to resume. Again, it just depends what you're looking for in a job.

Other work experience. So this section's for work experiences that are not directly related to nursing or the health care industry as a whole. So other work experience could be any other industry or type of job. So list all part- and full-time jobs if applicable within the last five to seven years.

That's really a good amount of time. I'd say anything prior to that, you can feel free to leave off your resume at this point. But I know that sometimes, students are compelled to list experience that might have happened 10 to 15 years ago. If they most recently left those types of jobs and then finally pursued something new, that's completely fine.

If you have maybe one of two jobs that you lost 10 years, and you wanted say that on your resume just because that was your only experience. But otherwise, it's probably important to just stay within the five to seven years. No extracurricular activities in this section and no lapses in time. Make sure you account for all the amount of time from the time you started a job to now.

Community involvement— list activities that support your career goals. This is really important, too. If you're interested in other types of community building that is completely unrelated to you, health care, it's fine to list it. I just encourage you to really brainstorm ones that are related. Employers are interested in things like working for the American Red Cross or volunteering in your public health department, in your town, or your seat.

Maybe stay away from things that have to do with, like, family involvement and activities unless they're health-related again. It's very difficult to this section because I think people, things that they value, they might not understand whether or not an employer would or wouldn't value that. So again, if you have questions, I'll be happy to help you with that.

Then keeping everything that's directly related to your nursing, I think, is very helpful. And professional organizations, list whether you're a participant or in leadership role. And if you're not in a professional organization, currently make sure you join one. You can join your local chapter of nurse practitioners and also join the federal-level organization and state level.

And I'll get more into that in our networking section of these modules for career development. Community service, you can list that, as I mentioned, as it relates to the job. And also selected achievements— anything that relates to health and wellness, nursing, or even education. Because a lot of the job that you have as an NP is educating patients and families. So it's important to list those types of goals also.

Your cover letter— the purpose is to introduce yourself to a contact or an organization, respond to job or preceptorship posting, and draw a connection between your resume and also the opportunity at hand, and describe why you're the right person for the job. The first paragraph should state why you're writing, and identify the job you're applying, and the organization, name, and state, and why you're interested.

While the second paragraph should discuss your potential value and provide details surrounding your degree and professional experience. The third paragraph is a basic call to action to reiterate you're interest in the job and the organization and thank the employer for their time and let them know that you're looking forward to meeting them for an interview.

There's a sample cover letter here that gives you somewhat of a sense for what a cover letter looks like. I will have cover letter samples and also resumes available to you in Word documents. They'll be uploaded to MSN Connection. So hopefully, that'll be helpful to you. It's just easier to see than listing them inside of a PowerPoint.

This is a sample cover letter just for you to see right now. And this concludes the training for resume success for nurse practitioners. Again, if you'd like to work on a more individual basis, please feel free to reach out. I'm here to help you throughout your career here at Regis.