ICU Travel Nurse Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this ICU Travel Nurse resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
Intensive care units are some of the most highly specialized areas of medicine, requiring highly trained nurses to deliver complex care to patients who are often critically ill. If you’re interested in pursuing a career as an ICU nurse but don’t have years of experience under your belt yet, you might be considering a travel nursing job.
Travel nursing is a great way to gain valuable experience while exploring new cities or countries. It’s also a great way to make money, because travel nursing jobs tend to pay more than standard nursing positions. If you’re ready to take the next step in your nursing career, here are tips for writing a stellar travel nurse resume plus an example for reference.
How to Write an ICU Travel Nurse Resume
Here’s how to write an resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
The best way to make your resume stand out is to use specific examples and numbers. So rather than saying you “provided patient care,” you could say you “provided critical care to five patients in the cardiac care unit, ensuring all patients received timely care and met discharge criteria.”
This level of detail will help recruiters understand not only what you did but also how well you did it. And that can make all the difference when it comes time for a hiring manager to decide between two candidates.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a travel nurse position, your resume is typically scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords related to the job. If your resume doesn’t have enough of the right keywords, your application might not make it past the initial screening process.
The best way to make sure your resume contains the right keywords is to read through the job posting and take note of the terms that are used most frequently. Then, use those same terms when you’re writing your resume. Here are some of the most commonly used keywords for critical care travel nursing:
- Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
- Basic Life Support (BLS)
- Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
- Nursing
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- Inpatient Care
- Healthcare
- Hospitals
- Critical Care Nursing
- Travel Nursing
- Acute Care
- Advanced Life Support (ALS)
- Nursing Education
- IV Therapy
- Interventional Cardiology
- Intensive Care
- Patient Safety
- Critical Care Medicine
- Medical-Surgical
- Healthcare Management
- Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)
- Healthcare Information Technology (HIT)
- Clinical Research
- Electronic Medical Record Implementation
- Patient Advocacy
- Telemetry
- Patient Care
- Family-Centered Care
- Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS)
- Cardiology
Showcase Your Technical Skills
As an ICU travel nurse, you will need to be proficient in a variety of software programs and systems in order to effectively do your job. This might include familiarity with electronic health records (EHR) systems, patient monitoring systems, and medical devices. Additionally, you should be comfortable with using technology to communicate with other members of the healthcare team, such as doctors and nurses.
Some of the programs and systems that ICU travel nurses are typically expected to be proficient in include: EHR software, patient monitoring software, and medical devices.