Correctional Nurse Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Correctional Nurse resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
Correctional nurses work in correctional facilities, hospitals, and mental health facilities. They provide medical care to inmates and detainees, manage their health care plans, and coordinate their treatment with other medical professionals.
Correctional nurses may be required to perform physicals, draw blood, administer medications, conduct mental health evaluations, and much more. They often work long shifts under intense pressure and tight deadlines. And because they work with patients who are often struggling with addiction or mental illness, they must have a strong sense of empathy and patience.
If you’re ready to take on a new role in healthcare or just looking for a new challenge, here are some tips plus an example resume to help you write a correctional nurse resume that will impress hiring managers.
How to Write a Correctional Nurse Resume
Here’s how to write a correctional nurse resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most effective way to showcase your experience and qualifications. But rather than simply listing your responsibilities, you can make your resume more interesting by using bullet points to describe the results of your work.
For example, rather than saying you “provided medical care to inmates,” you could say you “provided medical care to 200 inmates daily, resulting in a 98% satisfaction rate among inmates and a 10% decrease in incidents of violence over the past year.”
The second bullet point paints a much clearer picture of what exactly you did and the impact of your work. And it provides a quantifiable result—a 10% decrease in incidents of violence.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a job, your resume is likely to be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. These programs look for terms related to the position like “inmate care” or “correctional nursing” in order to determine whether your skills and experience are a match for the job. If your resume doesn’t have enough of the right keywords, the ATS might discard your application before a recruiter ever sees it.
To increase your chances of getting noticed, use this list of keywords as a starting point when writing your correctional nurse resume:
- Nursing
- Healthcare
- Basic Life Support (BLS)
- Patient Safety
- Patient Care
- Inpatient Care
- Hospitals
- Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
- Medical-Surgical
- Phlebotomy
- Emergency Nursing
- Nursing Education
- Clinical Research
- Patient Advocacy
- Acute Care
- Correctional Nursing
- Mental Health
- Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
- Medical Records
- Home Health Care
- Nursing Education Designation
- Medication Administration
- Correctional Healthcare
- Patient Care Management
- IV Therapy
- Patient Flow
- Pharmacy
- Urgent Care
- Nursing Management
- Personal Care
Showcase Your Technical Skills
Nurses in the correctional setting are often expected to have experience with electronic health records (EHR) systems. They may also be required to have experience with patient monitoring systems, medical devices, and security systems. So if you have experience with any of these technologies, be sure to list them in your technical skills section. Additionally, correctional nurses need to be familiar with government regulations related to the medical field, as they will often be responsible for ensuring that the organization is in compliance with these regulations.