Nursing Resume: Templates, Skills & Examples for Australia

No matter how old someone is, they have been cared for by a nurse at some point. 

Your job touches the lives of every single person, whether you assist in the operating room, help deliver babies, or provide inpatient treatment. And if you’re ready for a career move that requires a nursing resume to present you in the best light, we’re here to help.

This guide will show you: 

• A nursing resume example better than 9 out of 10 other resumes.
• How to write a nursing resume that will land you more interviews.
• Tips and examples of how to put skills and achievements on a nursing resume.
• How to describe your experience on a resume for a nurse to get any job you want.

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Nursing Resume Template

Here’s how you write a good nursing resume, step by step:

1. Choose the Right Format for Your Nursing Resume

When you look at a patient’s medical chart, you want to get the idea ASAP. You expect the info to be laid out clearly, for you to be able to scan it when things move extra fast. 

Good news is, the person that’s hiring is probably just as busy. 

To get your nursing resume right, create a simple resume format:

• Set even margins on all sides.
• Choose a professional-looking font (like Helvetica/Arial).
• Allow enough white space with 1.15 line spacing.
• Make good use of bold type/headers for structure. 
• Keep your nursing resume under 4 pages, with the standard font size of 12 pts.
• Start with the most relevant information (reverse-chronological order for jobs/education).
• Download the finished document as a PDF so that it stays coherent on any device.

Include these sections: 

• Header (with your name, desired position, and contact info.)
• Summary/Objective
• Work Experience
• Education
• Skills
• Additional Sections (read on to find out what these are for.)

Once you’re done with the layout, you can start filling your nursing resume template with details. 

Read more: How to Write a Good Resume in Australia

2. Start Your Nurse Resume With a Work Experience Section

Nursing is truly versatile. A career trajectory of a fresh nursing graduate can go in various directions, beginning with an enrolled nurse, moving on to become a registered nurse or a nurse practitioner.

That means that a nursing student resume will differ quite a bit from that of an ICU nurse. 

However, some rules prove to be universal:

• Focusing on the most recent, most relevant experiences.
• Tailoring your nursing resume to the description of the job you’re applying for.
• Highlighting measurable achievements instead of simply listing your responsibilities. 
• Choosing bold action verbs to describe your work (like “reorganized the unit hierarchy”, “integrated time-saving practices”, or “streamlined the examination process”).

The structure of your nursing resume job entry should include:

• Name of your position, company name and location, dates active.
• Up to 6 bullet points + key achievement for each position.

Here’s an example:

Nursing Resume Examples: Work Experience

Both examples are describing a similar experience, but the first one is a lot easier to “digest” visually. It’s also way more impactful due to a different choice of vocabulary, the numbers provided, and the impressive key achievement.

Now, a set of new grad nursing resume samples:

Entry-Level Nurse Resume Examples 

Seems like the wrong example took a sickie and decided not to show up for work. 

Even if you don’t have any striking numbers or metrics to reflect on your nursing student resume yet, you still can show relevant experience. Just provide details, so that the skills you’ve acquired are there for the world to see.

When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.

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When you’re done, Zety’s resume builder will score your resume and tell you exactly how to make it better.

3. Arrange the Education Section of Your Nursing Resume 

Care, compassion, courage, communication, commitment, and competence—these are the pillars of nursing work.

So is education. You cannot access this field without a degree, an apprenticeship, or necessary certifications, so here’s how you describe those on your nursing resume:

• For a professional nursing resume, list your most recent education first. Do add all the additional courses and certifications you’ve acquired that indicate you’re fit to perform the duties the position you’re applying for requires. If you underwent any extra training, you may list it separately (more on that later).

• If yours is an entry-level nursing resume, approach it a bit differently. Besides marking the years of study (with the expected year of graduation), name of the degree, and the institution, you should list all your relevant academic accomplishments. Think astonishing GPAs, receiving the Chancellor's Medal, an internship, etc. 

Compare these nursing resume samples:

Nurse Resume Template: Education

Entry-Level Nursing Resume Examples: Education

Both cover education, but the first one leaves space for professional achievements, while the other one gets additional points to make up for what’s missing experience-wise.

4. List the Right Skills on Your Nursing Resume

According to stats from Health Workforce Australia, the demand for nurses is way larger than the supply. And this situation is not likely to change soon, which makes a lot of sense: the population is ageing, so nursing skills will stay in demand. 

Here are some examples you could use for your nurse resume:

Nursing Resume Skills

Nursing Resume: Hard Skills

• CPR/Emergency response/First aid
• BLS
• EHR proficiency
• Patient care
• Wound care
• POTC
• Catheterization/IV therapy
• Intra-aortic balloon pump
• Tracheotomy
• Blood transfusion

Nursing Resume: Soft Skills

• Time-management
• Multitasking
• Adaptability
• Decision-making
• Problem-solving
• Collaboration/Teamwork
• Leadership
• Compassion
• Communication
• Active listening
• Active learning
• Stress management

The trick is to choose the most relevant skills for your nurse resume. To do that, brainstorm your most impressive skills, then have a look at the job ad. See any matches? Those would be the right things to highlight. 

Nursing Skills Resume Example

This example shows a great mix of soft and hard skills. Make sure to tailor the skills to the position requirements, and the diagnosis for your nursing resume will be “fit as a fiddle’”.

Read more: Resume Skills With Examples

5. Add Other Sections to Your Nursing Resume

Let’s check the vital signs of your nursing resume. Does it look like the saturation’s a bit low? 

Well, that’s where additional sections step in. They are a great place for personal achievements examples that deserve some extra attention from the recruiting side.

They could include licences, important memberships, certifications, training diplomas, volunteering, or even foreign languages:

Nursing Resume Examples for Australia: Other Sections

While potentially relevant, the wrong example may be feeling a little crook. Reason? It’s not clear what those certifications stand for (and what qualifications they signify). Do provide basic explanations of how those extra achievements make sense for the future job, don’t just list anything and everything on your nurse resume.

6. Write a Nursing Resume Objective or Resume Summary

Frazzled? No worries, we’re almost there. It’s just the most important section of your nursing resume that’s left.

A resume summary (experienced), or objective (entry-level) contains the most important message for the employer. It should describe your biggest professional strengths, highlights of your career, and the ways those could bring value to your new place of work.

It’s a short paragraph that goes right below the header of your resume to give the reader an immediate glimpse into the best reasons to hire you. 

To get your nursing resume summary right, use these tips (resume objective tips will follow):

• Look through your resume, reflect on your professional background.
• Find the achievements that are most impressive and relevant to the desired position.
• Condense your strengths into a short paragraph by following this structure:

[Adjective + Job Title & Years of Experience OR Degree + Achievements + Skills + What You Want to Do for the Employer]

Here’s how it might look:

Nursing Resume Sample: Summary for Registered Nurse 

Where’s the catch? One of the examples focuses on results, while the other focuses on duties only. It’s subtle, but it makes all the difference.

Now, let’s talk about resume objective examples. A common challenge for nursing students, according to studies, is a lack of practical experience (as opposed to theoretical knowledge). 

So, your nursing resume objective may focus on:

• Your desire to convert your extensive knowledge into skills, or,
• Your wish to consolidate your skills, if you’ve had an internship already and are looking for your first full-time job.

Here’s an example of nursing student resume objectives:

Nursing Resume Objective: Entry-Level Nursing Resume

The person making a decision whether to hire you is most certainly looking for solutions, not extra problems. If you’re going all “me, myself, and I” on your nurse resume, instead of focusing on the value you can bring, you’re very unlikely to get that call. 

Read more: Simple Resume Templates for Australia

7. Attach a Nursing Cover Letter

Here’s a corker of an idea: why not maximize the impact of your job application if you’ve got a chance to do so?

Seems like an opportunity no one would want to miss. How would you do that? 

Not sure about the best way to write a cover letter? Follow this nursing cover letter protocol:

• Choose a cover letter template that matches your nursing resume.
• Aim for 1 page, 3–4 paragraphs.
• Start your cover letter with a powerful opening statement featuring your most prominent career accomplishments.
• Add anything that’s beyond the capacity of a resume—a personal success story, reasons for why you consider yourself a great nurse, how you selected this path and why it matters to you, etc.
• Focus on the value you’ll bring to the potential employer.
• Close your cover letter with a call to action, making it clear that you’d like to schedule a call and discuss things further.

Don’t forget to attach both files to your email, and you’re good to go! 

Read more: How to Write a Nursing Cover Letter 

Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Key Takeaway

Let’s review the tips on how to write a nursing resume: 

1. Format your nursing resume properly.
2. Nail the work experience section with our universal tips.
3. Show off your education.
4. Mention all the relevant skills.
5. Magnify outstanding accomplishments with additional sections.
6. Top off your nurse resume with a concise summary/objective.
7. Attach a cover letter and get ready for the interviews!

That’s it for now! We’d love to hear your feedback:

• Was that an exhaustive nursing resume guide? 
• Did it include enough nursing resume examples for Australia?
• Do you have enough info to write a nursing student resume if you’re a recent graduate? 

Do tell! And thanks for reading.