10 Nursing Skills for Your Resume (+ How to Show Them)

In the face of India’s expanding population and growing need for a nursing workforce to keep up with its healthcare needs, now is an excellent time to pursue a nursing career. Whether you’re a fresher having finished nursing school and internships or an experienced registered nurse (RN) seeking a change, having a standout resume is essential. 

What job skills are potential employers looking for in a nurse? How can you demonstrate those skills in your resume?

The short answer is that you must consider what a specific hiring manager seeks in a specific nurse job opening. Many types of hospitals and clinics want to hire a nurse who will be the right fit for their needs and culture. Your resume should feature relevant skills even if you don't have a dedicated skills section.

The good news is that, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation, jobs in healthcare will likely double in India and worldwide by 2030, with the hospital market in India expected to grow by 8 per cent from 2024 to 2032 [1]. Additionally, nurses’ projected job growth rate is 17 to 18 per cent by 2027 [2]. These data points suggest you will have ample opportunities, so now it’s time to let your resume shine.

Discover some skills you can add to your resume to land your next nursing job and where to place them to elevate your resume.

10 nursing skills to put on your resume

In nursing, you'll need both technical skills, those you use to perform tasks, and workplace skills, which describe how you approach your tasks. To advance in your nursing career, you’ll want to demonstrate to prospective employers that you have the technical and workplace skills necessary to be a successful nurse.

Technical skills

As a nurse, you’ll provide care for patients in various settings, such as hospitals, doctor’s offices, schools, home healthcare, and more, to support physicians and other medical professionals. It is essential to master these technical skills and integrate them into your resume when you customise it for a specific job.

1. Clinical nursing skills

All RNs must be able to do the basics of clinical care, such as monitoring vital signs, checking symptoms, and more. You should also know the normal blood pressure ranges and heart rate for each type of patient. 

• How to show it: To highlight clinical nursing skills, quantifying or providing specific and measurable achievements is a good rule of thumb. For example, you might describe your duties by stating, “Prepared, monitored, and maintained 10 dialysis machines” or “Performed teammate and patient scheduling whilst managing the training of four clinical teammates and two nursing assistants”.

2. Basic (and urgent) care

Nurses are adept at dressing wounds, drawing blood, inserting catheters, and more. You should mention this on your resume if you are skilled at doing this in specific situations or environments, such as urgent care. The same goes for the number of patients you treat per shift.

• How to show it: Focus on quantifying your professional experience. If you have any internship experiences, you might comment on the number of patients you treated at any given time, such as "Provided basic care for 20 patients on the outpatient floor" or "Got promoted to treating urgent care patients after caring for 200 patients in one year”.

3. Patient safety and well-being

As an RN, you must know how to maintain a patient’s safety. This can include transporting a patient from their bed to the bathroom or providing an alternative for using the bathroom. You’ll be responsible for keeping rooms and supplies sanitary to minimise the risk of infection.

• How to show it: You might want to show this by listing specific training you've received. You can also portray a particular skill set gained by ensuring patient safety, such as "Earned nurse of the month award for most empathy (or best patient care)”.

4. Comfortable with technology

As a nurse, you need to know how to use technology, as you continually access patient records on a computer and monitor vital signs. If you take the initiative to improve technology or processes on your team, mention this in your resume.

• How to show it: Proficiency with tools should be mentioned. If you have experience with portable monitors, automated IV pumps, wearable devices, electronic health records (EHRs), telehealth, and any accompanying apps, mention them in the skills section or a line in your work experience section. You can also include specific software, such as EHR coding programmes.

5. Administering medication

You’ll need to know how to count and identify medications, as well as what symptoms and diseases they treat.

• How to show it: Understanding specific medications can be complex to portray on a resume. However, it could be helpful to note if you have had success streamlining the internal processes for administering medication for efficiency.

Highlighting specialised skills

Some nurses are specialised in fields such as oncology, geriatrics, newborn intensive care unit (NICU), emergency room (ER), and more.

If you want to aim for a particular nursing specialisation—especially if you have received the accreditation—then you should tailor your resume skills and experiences to the job you’re applying for.

Further, if you are certified as a nurse practitioner, be sure to note your knowledge of preventative care strategies and your understanding of chronic disease management.

Workplace skills

In addition to technical skills, every nurse needs to work well with diverse people and environments. Not only are you in charge of caring for patients’ lives and well-being, but you frequently lead or collaborate with teams within a hospital or clinic. As a nurse, these skills are just as necessary on your resume as technical skills.

6. Communication

Nurses must be able to communicate effectively and accurately about patients to doctors and staff. You might also discuss sensitive issues and translate medical jargon for patients and their families. Sometimes a patient may be upset, so you need to understand body language and be able to empathise. 

• How to show it: On your resume, you can detail the types of people you have experience communicating with, from doctors to patients to hospital support staff.

7. Flexibility

Everybody gets sick at some point. Dealing with diverse individuals with changing needs and conditions requires nurses to be ready for anything. 

• How to show it: You can demonstrate this skill on your resume by mentioning something like “Managed frontline operations for an outpatient clinic”, which requires plenty of flexibility.

8. Leadership

Nurses often manage nursing assistants and lead teams of nurses. You must be able to work with others and delegate tasks as needed. 

• How to show it: On your resume, you might describe situations where you displayed strong leadership skills, specifying the number of people you led and the achievements stemming from your leadership. A good example of this is: “Supervised a team of seven registered nurses and two nursing aides in the ER” listed under work experiences.

9. Critical thinking

Nurses make logical, evidence-based decisions for their patients and as leaders of their teams. You need to be resourceful when solving problems in the workplace, so critical thinking skills are necessary.

• How to show it: In your work experience, you can outline in one sentence a situation in which your ability to think critically helped you create a solution immediately and how it influenced the outcome.

10. Time management

You’ll want to demonstrate your ability to work under pressure whilst managing simultaneous (sometimes conflicting) priorities and schedules. RNs working in the ER or ICU must keep calm in stressful situations. Still, all nurses will inevitably find themselves in situations where an injury or illness threatens patients’ lives. 

• How to show it: In your resume, you can mention that you managed training schedules for many nurses or have experience working in a team of six in the ER.

How to list skills on your resume

When considering where to add your skills to a resume, you have several options. Typical sections include work experiences, a skills section, or an optional summary. 

Work experience

One of the best places to put your nursing skills on your resume is under the descriptions of your work experiences. This area gives you ample space to explain your achievements and day-to-day tasks specific to you and your nursing career.

You can combine technical and workplace skills within the same description to demonstrate that you are well-rounded.

For example: 

Registered Nurse at Apollo Hospitals / Mumbai, Maharashtra

December 2015 - February 2020

• Focused on customer service, made connections with over 400 regular blood donors

• Led a team of four, supervising blood drives and drawing blood at multiple locations

• Conducted regular assessments to ensure the blood collected met regulatory requirements for safe transfusions

• Became an ambassador for Apollo Hospitals, attended and presented at five health-related conferences over two years

Skills section

Another good place to put your skills is in the skills section of your resume. These sections are optional and offer a dedicated area to highlight essential skills in a straightforward manner. Including leadership in the skills section of your nursing resume will leave little room for doubt that you are a leader.

For example:

Skills

• Leadership

• Clinical care and judgement

• Clinical documentation

• Dialysis and vital sign monitoring

• NICU and ER care

Summary

The third place you can add skills to your resume is in a summary. Like the skills section, this is also optional but can help you introduce yourself succinctly, especially if you have specific skills or specialisations you really want the recruiter to know about. 

For example:

Passionate and energetic registered nurse with over six years of experience. Specialised in dialysis, NICU, ICU, and ER, including administration of IVs, tracheostomy care, and monitoring neurological activity. Served as Apollo Hospitals ambassador for two years.

Resume tips

• Tailor your resume: Whenever you apply for any job, it is crucial to customise your resume to the job description. You want to speak the recruiters' language, using similar jargon and tone to convey that you are an excellent fit for the team in every way. When they read your resume, they should know you have the right experience for the specific job role you applied for. 

• Use specific keywords: Many employers use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to filter resumes during the hiring process [3]. To avoid getting eliminated by a machine before you even get in front of the recruiter’s eyes, you’ll want to include as many keywords from the original job posting in your resume without being overly excessive. Your resume should still let your achievements shine without stuffing it with keywords.

Build nursing skills to boost your resume with Coursera

Although India’s nursing sector is already strong, it is also rapidly expanding. By tailoring your resume to highlight your skills, you can increase your chances of being noticed by recruiters and getting a nursing job to begin helping others and fulfilling your career objectives.

Learn from world-class institutions with over 5,000 courses, certificates, and degrees on Coursera. You’ll find everything from beginner-friendly options like Clinical Terminology for International and US Students, offered by the University of Pittsburgh, to courses like How to Write a Resume from the State University of New York. Increase your nursing skills or brush up on your job search strategy—you can do it all with the resources on Coursera.