A question I get asked a lot:  Ann, what do hospital employers want to see when they review a resume?

At Professional Connections, we see thousands of resumes each year from nurses who are seeking international nursing jobs.  Aside from the great career opportunity, living in another country and experiencing another culture can be a wonderful, life-changing experience.

In this blog post, I want to share my insights to a great resume, which I hope will help you land the international nurse job you want.

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The best nurse interviews are a two way sharing of information, and sharing starts with your providing a great resume.  As the candidate, you want to demonstrate your prior experience in its best light.  Similarly, a recruiter, who likely has many jobs she is working on, is anxious to put her employer or client in its best light.

The rule of thumb is that a resume should not be more than two pages. This is not the case when you are applying for an international nurse job.  The more detail and context you can provide a recruiter, the more we can help you find the exact right job for you.

When you are applying for a post you are probably thinking some of the following things:

• I wonder if the hospital is an academic teaching hospital?
• What are the hospitals specialties?
• How many beds are on the ward I will work in?
• What kind of cases are on the ward? What is the nurse patient ratio? Do they use American software packages?

The hiring manager reviewing your resume has similar questions about your expertise.When you are considering an international nursing job, you can safely assume the recruiter will not not familiar with the hospital you are working in so you need to give as detailed account as possible. 

At Professional Connections we see thousands of resumes each year.  The best resumes for an international nurse job are compiled in the following order:

• Name
  
• Address
  
• Contact phone numbers and email address and LinkedIn URL
  

Nationality - this means the current passport you hold. This enables Professional Connections and your future employer to give you relevant information on any visa or work permit requirements and to give accurate details on how to register/ get a license to practice in the country you are applying to work in.  

Date of Birth - If you require Professional Connections to order a nurse licensing application pack on your behalf, your date of birth is necessary. For nurses who are applying to work in the Middle East, please note that RNs cannot be older than 55 and Senior nurses cannot be more than 60 years old in order to be eligible for a visa. 

Professional Education - This includes your basic nursing education undertaken to become licensed to practice and any additional post graduate courses at Diploma, Degree, Mastres of PhD level. You must be able to provide certificates verifying these courses. We are looking to check that you have a minimum of a three year education so add the month/ year. 

Additional Education - This includes all short courses taken since graduating. For courses that you repeat (example CPR) you only need to list the latest course.  

Work Experience - This should be in reverse chronological order starting with your current post.  All dates must include month and year.  There should be no unexplained gaps. You should describe your hospital in a few lines and provide details about the area you work in.  If working in a ward or unit, tell us the number of beds, main types of cases seen, how many people work per shift, etc. as specifically as you can. If you aren't on a ward, tell us the number of patients you see in a typical day and give us some examples of their medical conditions. You must state the month/ year. 

Finding the right job is a lot like matchmaking with a romantic partner - we want all the details!  The more detail you provide, the more we can help you find the exact right opportunities for you.  In general, the standard job description issued by your hospital / clinic doesn't tell us much.  It is much better to tell us in your own words what you do.  Important points to you should consider sharing include:

A brief overview of your clinical duties such as:

• Do you take charge / Who reports to you?
• Do you mentor juniors or students, or perhaps done some teaching?
• Do you sit on any committees or groups?
• What special procedures have you carried out or assisted in?
• What are some of your major achievements?

10 YEAR CUT OFF - This type of detail is required for all posts held in the last 10 years.Jobs held prior to ten years ago need only have date, name of hospital / clinic / practice, and title of post held. If you worked in the same place twice there is no need to repeat the detail again, you can simply list the dates, hospital / clinic and title of post held and put "same post as held from XX to XX " where you normally describe the hospital ward and duties.

OVERLAP -if you held 2 posts at the same time and your dates overlap, it is important to list how many hours per week you worked in each job to define which was your main job.

OUTLINE ALL POSTS SINCE YOU OBTAINED YOUR NURSING LICENSE: - List all jobs and explain gaps of 3 weeks or more. Remember for jobs held more than 10 years ago, we only need dates, name of the hospital and the title you held.

At Profco, we pride ourselves in helping each candidate we work with, to find the exact right match for them.  It starts with a great resume/cv. I hope you find this information useful!

If you want some examples contact us at jobs@profco.com 

Ann Griffin is founder of Professional Connections, a boutique firm helping nurses find great international nursing jobs.

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