Becoming a nurse in an intensive care unit is no mean feat.
You’ve got your nursing degree, put in the hours with your patients, and then on top of everything, you need to be able to write a competitive resume!
Well, don’t stress. We’re here to help.
We’ve created this handy step-by-step guide, along with an ICU nurse resume example, that will teach you how to create an impressive application.
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ICU Nurse Resume Example
This example ICU Nurse resume gives you a general idea of how to structure your own resume, along with the type of content you need to include.
Sticking with this resume format will help you to get noticed by employers and ensure that they can quickly see the benefit of hiring you.
Now, lets take a look at how to write your own winning resume.
ICU Nurse resume layout and format
The format and layout of your resume can make or break its success.
Sure, it’s great to pack your resume with lots of impressive skills and knowledge, but if the page is not structured clearly, hiring managers will struggle to find the important stuff!
Above all, your resume should be easy-to-read and professional looking.
Follow these formatting tips to get noticed.
Resume formatting tips
- Length: Keep your resume to 2 pages or under. You’ve probably heard that recruiters and hiring managers don’t have lots of time to read every resume, so keep yours brief if you want to ensure that they read all of the important info in yours.
- Font and text: Readability is the name of the game when it comes to your resume. Ensure yours is a dream to read by using a simple clear font, and breaking the text up with plenty of bullet points and short paragraphs.
- Design & structure: Hiring managers should be able to skim through your resume easily and pinpoint the information they want quickly. To help them do this, organize the page into clear sections with bold headings and dividing borders. The design should be clutter-free and professional-looking, with a calm color scheme.
- Photos and images: You are not obliged to add a photo to your resume in the USA, but it can be a nice way of adding some life to the document.
Quick tip: Formatting a resume to look professional can be difficult and time-consuming. If you want to create an attractive resume quickly, try our quick-and-easy Resume Builder and use one of their eye-catching resume templates.
Resume layout
When you write your resume, include the sections below.
- Name and contact details – Pop these at the very top to ensure recruiters know how to contact you.
- Resume summary – An eye-catching paragraph which summarizes your most valuable attributes – placed near the top of your resume
- Skills section – A bullet pointed list of your most in-demand skills, enabling recruiters to see your suitability from a glance.
- Work experience – List some or all of your previous jobs in reverse chronological order – voluntary work and college placements can be included if you have no paid experience.
- Education – A summary of your professional training and academic qualifications.
- Additional info – An optional section for anything that may boost your application, such as relevant hobbies and interests
Now here’s exactly what you should include in each of these sections in your resume.
Resume Contact Details
Add your name and contact details to the very top of your resume, making it easy for recruiters to get in touch
- Name and profession title
- Cell phone number – or another number you can answer quickly
- Location – Add your local area such as San Diego or New York – not your full address as that will take up too much space.
- Email address – Use your name or close variation – no nicknames from high school.
You can add a link to your LinkedIn profile if you have one – you do not need to include personal details like date of birth or marital status.
ICU Nurse Resume Summary
Your resume summary is like an elevator pitch. It’s your chance to sell yourself to employers within a short space of time.
Achieve this by summarizing your skills and expertise, whilst highlighting your abilities that closely match the jobs you are aiming for.
Tips for creating an strong resume summary:
- Keep it brief: Aim for a short punchy paragraph of 4-7 lines. This is just enough info to showcase why you’d make the perfect hire, without going into excessive detail and overwhelming busy recruiters at such an early stage in the resume.
- Tailor it: Ensure your profile makes an impact by matching it closely to the requirements of the job description, copying as many key terms as possible.
- Avoid cliches: You may be a “team player who always give 110%” but generic phrases don’t tell employers much about you in reality – stick to factual information.
Example resume summary for ICU Nurse
What to include in your ICU Nurse Resume summary?
- Summary of professional experience: Summarize the type of work you have done in the past and the benefits you have delivered for the organizations you worked at.
- Relevant skills: Scatter your most in-demand ICU Nurse skills through your summary to ensure they are noticed quickly by hiring managers.
- Essential qualifications: If your job requires any qualifications such as a professional course or a college degree, mention it briefly in your summary.
Quick tip: Choose from hundreds of pre-written summaries across all industries, and add one to your resume with one click in our quick-and-easy Resume Builder. All written by our recruitment experts and easily tailored to suit your unique skillset.
Core skills section
Sitting just underneath your resume summary, your core skills section gives recruiters 4-10 of your most in-demand skills in just a glance.
As ICU Nurse jobs may get hundreds of applications, this is a great way to stand out and quickly grab hiring managers’ attention.
It should be made up of 2-3 columns of bullet points and highlight attributes that are hyper-relevant to the jobs you are aiming for.
Best skills for your ICU Nurse resume
- Critical care and life support – Providing highly skilled, expert care for the most severely ill or injured patients.
- IV administration – Delivering IV medications through a short venous access device or an existing IV line.
- Diagnostic testing – Completing broad and complex tests to assess the development of patient’s illness or injuries, usually at routine intervals.
- Pain management – Managing the pain levels of patients to prevent increased physiological and psychological stress using analgosedation and multimodal analgesia.
- Bedside monitoring – Monitoring physiologic patient parameters on a regular basis to assure the patient’s stability.
Quick tip: Our quick-and-easy Resume Builder contains thousands of in-demand skills for every profession that can be added to your resume in seconds – saving you time and greatly improving your chances of landing job interviews.
Work experience section
Now that you’ve reeled recruiters in with your awesome summary, it’s time to delve into your work experience.
Here you’ll list your previous jobs (starting with your most recent and working backward) and showcase how you apply your skills in the workplace.
Provide lots of detail in recent jobs, and less in older roles.
If you have no relevant paid experience, you can include voluntary work and placements – but if you have lots of experience, you can leave out some of the really old jobs.
Structuring your job descriptions
Resume job descriptions contain lots of information, so its crucial to structure them well.
Use the structure below to ensure hiring managers can consume the information easily.
Job outline
Kick off each role with a high-level overview to summarize the focus of the job, what the organization/department does, and how you fit into the bigger picture.
Key responsibilities
List your notable responsibilities in short sharp bullet points to demonstrate your input and how you contributed to the organization’s success.
Highlight the skills that are most important to the roles you are applying for.
Key achievements
Finish each role by highlighting some impressive achievements you made whilst in the role.
Anything that benefited the employer can be included from making financial savings, to winning new customers.
Quantify your achievements with facts and figures if you can, e.g. “reduced call wait time by 10%”
Example job for ICU Nurse resume
Outline
Working for St Helen’s Hospital, Rochester, responsible for providing high quality care for acute patients with diversified needs in a 48-person ICU department.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide direct medical care to patients needing intensive medical treatment, including those with septic shock, cardiogenic shock, and respiratory failure
- Monitor vital signs and notify physicians of any clinical changes
- Assist with efforts to minimize mortality through hemodynamic monitoring and support
- Perform daily patient assessments and record test results and patient vitals
Quick tip: Create impressive job descriptions easily in our quick-and-easy Resume Builder by adding pre-written job phrases for every industry and career stage.
Education resume section
Towards the bottom of your resume, add your education section.
Here you should list your professional qualifications and academic record, such as high school diplomas or college degrees.
If you have lots of work experience, you can keep this section brief (because recruiters will be more interested in your career. If you have little/no experience then you should bulk this section up with plenty of detail.
Additional info for your resume
Any other info that didn’t fall into any of the previous sections can be added here.
If you have hobbies that are related to your profession or any awards or publications – add them here.
Writing your ICU Nurse resume
Writing a ICU Nurse resume can be challenging but following the steps above will ensure that you land plenty of interviews.
If you want to speed up the process and use an attractive professional template, try out our quick-and-easy Resume Builder.
Good luck with your job search!