Career Advice: Tips To Improve Your Nursing Job Search

’m very excited to welcome Ryan Bucci as a guest author this month! Ryan Bucci is a Content Strategist with HospitalCareers. HospitalCareers has over 25,000+ hospital jobs, career advice, and career insights for hospital and healthcare job seekers.

Since May is a time of transition for many, I’ve asked Ryan to write about how to go about a nursing job search. So let’s get to the good stuff!

As more qualified candidates continually enter the job marketplace, finding a job becomes harder each year. If you’re a nurse who is struggling to find a job, then rest assured knowing that you’re not the only one. We’ve compiled a helpful list of tips for you to review to improve your nursing job search.

Tip #1. Review Your Resume
The first tip you should consider to improve your nursing job search is to review your resume. As a nurse, one of the important things to feature on your resume is any past or present experience caring for patients.

Improve Your Nursing Job Search with Healthcare Niche Sites
Start Your Nursing Job Search by Reviewing Your Resume
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Healthcare companies and employers are constantly looking for qualified professionals to plug into existing openings without worrying about extra training or certifications that need to be obtained.

If a healthcare employer needs to spend extra time and money making sure you obtain additional classes or certifications, that’s money and time spent not earning money. This means that if you have any prior or present experience working with patients in some capacity, then you need to feature it on your resume.

If you don’t have any professional experience, then you should highlight your educational experience on your resume.

Plenty of nursing programs require mandatory clinical experience as a completion requirement, which means you’re in luck if you had to participate in clinicals throughout your nursing education program.

When reviewing your resume, another key tip is to make sure that the resume is focused on nursing-related jobs. Too often, job seekers will make a generic resume that they will use to apply to a wide variety of jobs.

In one example, they will list professional skills or previous accomplishments that have no relation to the healthcare industry at all. For instance, “Top Sales Leader in September 2016”, as a Cashier when they were in high school.

The healthcare employer or recruiter who is reviewing that accomplishment will think to themselves, “Well that’s great, but what does that have to do with caring for patients in a chaotic environment?”

While it’s great that you have achieved those things in the past, or have those skills – it also sends a message to the employer that you don’t have many healthcare related skills that could be useful in a nursing role – otherwise, you would have mentioned them.

In other words, make sure that you highlight all the skills and professional accomplishments that are directly related to nursing.

For instance, one accomplishment you should highlight on your resume is “Voted Top Nurse – October 2017”.

This accomplishment not only highlights that you were voted as one of the best among your peers by patients, but is also focused on your performance in the healthcare industry.

A tailored resume will make you stand out more than those job seekers who are placing generic skills on their resumes.

Take the time to review your resume to ensure that it’s working for you when you apply to nursing jobs and not against you.

nursing job search
Up the Odds of your Nursing Job Search Success by Searching on Niche Sites. Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

Tip #2. Expand Your Nursing Job Search To Niche Sites
Another key tip for improving your nursing job search is to expand your job search to healthcare-related niche sites and job boards.

There are so many large job sites now like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, and Monster that hospitals and healthcare employers are having a difficult time sorting through the massive amount of candidates that apply using the one-click feature.

As a result of all the random applications or volume of applications that get sent in on these large sites, qualified nursing professionals are getting passed over by accident because there are so many candidates to sift through.

This means that healthcare recruiters and employers are being inundated with applications from candidates who accidentally apply without reviewing the job requirements or aren’t qualified enough to be considered for the position.

This means healthcare employers and recruiters are spending countless hours wasting time sifting through candidates that aren’t even remotely qualified for the position.

With human resource departments looking for more cost-effective measures to find qualified candidates, hospitals and healthcare recruiters are turning to niche industry job sites and job boards to find qualified candidates in the healthcare industry.

nursing job searchOne of these niche healthcare job sites is HospitalCareers. HospitalCareers partners with 23 state hospital associations, and over 1,900 employers to bring over 25,000 hospital jobs, career advice, and career insights to healthcare professionals.

Healthcare recruiters and employers are turning to these niche industry sites because they are so focused on one specific industry. This means that healthcare recruiters and employers can target their vacant positions on platforms where only those qualified candidates are visiting.

In other words, a person who focuses on marketing won’t accidentally apply for a nursing position. This means that the number of qualified candidates rises, and time isn’t being wasted sifting through unqualified candidates.

If you want to avoid getting passed over by accident from being considered a spam application due to the large volume of submitted applications, then you should consider looking into these niche job sites.

You won’t have to worry about getting passed over due to the volume of spam/unqualified applications that get sent in.

Tip #3. Become More Active On LinkedIn
Another great tip for improving your nursing job search is to become more active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great platform for you to showcase your professional background, skills, and connect with industry professionals.

nursing job search
Start your Nursing Job Search by Creating a Profile and Networking on LinkedIn

Becoming more active on LinkedIn is a great way for you to connect with hospital and healthcare recruiters that might have potential openings available.

Simply reaching out to them, letting them know about your professional experience and skill set for nursing related positions is a great way to get your foot in the door.

You can ask if they know of any positions that are currently available, positions that might open up moving forward, or seek recommendations on where you should consider applying.

In addition, when you connect with them you can establish a relationship that other job seekers aren’t pursuing.

This means that you can set yourself apart from those candidates who submit an application and wait to hear back instead of following up with the recruiter or actively seek an interview.

In today’s competitive job marketplace, it can be difficult to separate yourself from the volume of candidates that apply on large job sites. It only takes a few extra steps to ensure that you stand out as one of the most qualified candidates, and receive an interview for an open nursing position. If you follow the tips above, you will undoubtedly improve your nursing job search.
How to Cite this Blogpost in APA*: Bucci, R. (2018, May 1). Career advice: Tips to improve your nursing job search [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://nursingeducationexpert.com/nursing-job-search *Citation should have hanging indent
About The Author
Ryan Bucci is a Content Strategist with HospitalCareers. HospitalCareers has over 25,000+ hospital jobs, career advice, and career insights for hospital and healthcare job seekers.