Rehabilitation Nurse Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Rehabilitation Nurse resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
Rehabilitation nurses are highly skilled healthcare professionals who work with patients who have experienced an injury, illness, or surgery, or who have a chronic condition that requires ongoing care. They’re also called upon to help patients manage pain and other symptoms, aid in their physical and mental rehabilitation, and help them return to their normal, day-to-day lives as quickly as possible.
When it comes time to write your resume, you’ll want to highlight your skills and experience in this field while also showcasing your passion for helping others. Here are some tips and an example resume to help you do just that.
How to Write a Rehabilitation Nurse Resume
Here’s how to write a rehabilitation 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 bullet points much more interesting and compelling by using them to tell a story about your work.
For example, rather than saying you “provided physical therapy services to patients,” you could say you “provided physical therapy services to patients with hip fractures, helping them regain mobility and return to their daily lives in just six weeks.”
The second bullet point paints a much more vivid picture of the work you do as a rehabilitation nurse and the impact you have on patients’ lives.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you submit your resume online, it’s likely that it will go through an applicant tracking system (ATS). This system looks for certain keywords related to the job opening in order to determine whether your skills and experience are a match. If your resume doesn’t include enough of the right keywords, the ATS might filter out your application.
One way to make sure your resume makes it past the ATS is to include relevant keywords throughout all sections of your document. Here are some of the most commonly used keywords for rehabilitation nurse positions:
- Nursing
- Basic Life Support (BLS)
- Patient Safety
- Patient Education
- Healthcare
- Hospitals
- Inpatient Care
- Acute Care
- Nursing Education
- Physical Therapy
- Clinical Research
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- Home Care
- Patient Advocacy
- Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
- Wound Care
- Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
- Acute Care Surgery
- Healthcare Management
- Surgery
- Wound Care Therapy
- Orthopedics
- Medical-Surgical
- Rehabilitation
- Rehabilitation Nursing
- Orthopedic Surgery
- Bone Densitometry
- Trauma Surgery
- Hand Surgery
- Physical Therapy Assessments
Showcase Your Technical Skills
As a rehabilitation nurse, you will be working with patients who have a wide range of disabilities. In order to effectively care for these patients, you will need to be proficient in the use of a variety of rehabilitation equipment and technologies. This might include experience with electrical stimulation devices, therapeutic exercise equipment, and computerized gait analysis systems.
In addition, you will need to be able to use software programs to create individualized care plans for your patients. Experience with electronic health records (EHR) systems is also a plus, as this will allow you to easily document and track your patients’ progress.