39 Nursing skills for resume

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Nursing abilities are a real asset of your resume. Along with your nursing degree and an RN certification, your hard and soft competencies showcase your ability to get the job done.

Like it or not, nursing is a competency-based profession. That's why highlighting the right technical and communication proficiences on your resume can give you an edge against the competition. In today's article, you'll find the exact key capacities to add to your nursing resume plus professional tips on how to describe them effectively.

Topics	Details
1. Clinical Nursing Aptitudes	details...
2. Patient and Family Interaction	details...
3. Technical and Administrative Capacities	details...
4. Leadership Abilities	details...
5. Soft Competencies	details...

How to use this article? The list of nursing resume proficiences is grouped by categories for your convenience. Click on the hard aptitudes or soft acumen you like to learn more about them.

Top 39 Essential Nursing Proficiences

We have put together a list of the most common nursing capacities. These competencies are suitable for every nursing specialization, including Public Health Nurses, Registered Nurses, Nursing Directors, Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Educators, and more.

Clinical Nursing Acumen

All nurses must know the basics of clinical care and have the essential abilities for the nursing practice. These nursing capacities demonstrate your ability to provide safe and effective care while making an impact on patient outcomes. The required proficiences may vary depending on your role. However, such aptitudes as patient assessment, vital sign monitoring, and medication administration are essential for every nurse regardless of their specialization.

Emphasizing your clinical expertise through competencies also demonstrates that you are confident, equipped with the relevant knowledge and skills, and are an asset to any healthcare team.

1. Patient Assessment
2. Checking and Monitoring Vital Signs
3. Administering Medication
4. IV Line Placement and Infusions
5. Emergency and Critical Care Nursing
6. Basic Life Support (BLS)
7. Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS)
8. Ventilator Care
9. Defibrillation
10. Intravenous Therapy
11. Telemetry
12. Intensive Care Unit Nursing Abilities
13. Electronic Health Records
14. Registered Nurse Skills

Patient and Family Interaction

One of the key Nurse Practitioner aptitudes is the ability to provide patient-centered care. This involves ensuring patient safety in the healthcare setting, performing infection control, and providing compassionate support to patients and their families. It is also essential to emphasize strong communication proficiences and your ability to explain medical concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. Empathy and effective communication are the key soft capacities for the nursing profession, so make sure that your resume reflects these traits.

Here are the proficiences essential to foster trust, build rapport, and enhance patient outcomes:

1. Patient and Family Education
2. Compassion and Empathy
3. Infection Control
4. Patient Care
5. Communication Competency

Technical and Administrative Skills

The nursing field requires vast technical knowledge and rapidly evolves. In addition to clinical capacities that relate to your direct duties of patient care, you should emphasize the ability to manage care plans, navigate electronic records, and manage EMR charting. Plus, mention your ability to follow hospital plans and procedures, or set your own if the job entails it. Thus, you will show your ability to perform nursing tasks at the highest level and contribute to the positive patient experience.

Employers value nurses who can integrate technology and administrative tasks into their practice and contribute to the overall clinic's or hospital's efficiency. Here are some valuable technical abilities for your nursing resume:

1. Charting on the Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
2. EHR Proficiency
3. Recruiting and Hiring Nurses
4. Computer Skills
5. Medical Billing and Coding
6. Care Plan Administration
7. Quality Improvement
8. Patient Safety Protocols

Leadership Proficiences

If you displayed strong leadership competency in your previous role, it can give you a competitive edge over other nurses. Leadership is a valuable competency for registered nurses, as it shows the ability to motivate others, work effectively with other medical professionals, and create a productive work environment.

Leadership acumen assume training nursing assistants, leading nursing teams, or replacing the charge nurse when necessary. However, they also mean that you can build strong relationships, manage your time, and offer insights and guidance to others. Make your nursing resume stand out with these leadership competencies:

1. Teamwork and Dependability
2. Leadership Abilities
3. Conflict Resolution
4. Collaboration with Healthcare Professionals
5. Problem Solving

Soft Proficiences

Soft aptitudes describe your workplace competencies and how you approach your tasks. As nurses extensively communicate with patients and physicians and navigate complex situations, having advanced soft proficiences is essential. Your resume should emphasize your ability to connect with others, critical thinking, stress management, and problem-solving while maintaining a high level of professionalism. Be sure to highlight these abilities to show your commitment to providing compassionate and efficient care.

Here are the top nursing aptitudes that signal your ability to work effectively with colleagues and patients and adapt to challenging situations:

1. Interpersonal Competence
2. Critical Thinking Abilities
3. Time Management and Stamina
4. Ethics and Confidentiality
5. Attention to Detail
6. Continuous Learning
7. Stress Management

Have you found the proficiences that best describe your experience? Now, let's see how to display those aptitudes on your resume to make the hiring manager take notice.

Did you know that adding the right talents can increase your employability? Learn how to add skills to your resume and cover letter to boost your chances for an interview.

How to list RN skills on your resume effectively?

Identifying your proficiences and strengths is only half the success. Here's how to effectively add them to your nursing resume.

Research the facility and the position

Before you add any nursing competnce to your resume, learn more about the hospital, clinic, or outpatient setting you'd like to work for. Get to know their values, requirements, and qualities they value in employees. This will help you effectively adjust the resume content.

Align the resume with the job description

Read the job posting to understand what qualifications are required for the role, and emphasize them in the first place. Decide what hard and soft acumen to include based on the job requirements and the organization's values. By adding key proficiences to your resume, you'll pass the applicant tracking system (ATS) and increase your chance for consideration.

Focus on the top 6-14 nursing competencies

Even if you're a senior RN with years of experience, no need to include all your abilities. Focus on the most relevant aptitudes and competencies that make you an asset for the target role. Ask yourself, "What makes me a valuable candidate and distinguishes me from other applicants?". Be sure to focus on the required qualifications first and then add the recommended ones.

Use a mix of hard and soft abilities

Don't include only technical or soft competencies, as you want to create a holistic impression about you as a candidate. Hard proficiences are your clinical nursing proficiences, such as BLS, monitoring vital signs, or IV capacities. Soft competencies refer to your workplace behavior and attitude. Use both types of skills to show that you will thrive in the healthcare environment if hired.

Remove the less important capacities

As you grow professionally and move through the ranks, cut off the obvious aptitudes, such as time management, BLS, communication competence, or computer competencies. These talents are nice to have for nursing students. However, for senior professionals, it is best to focus on narrow nursing competencies or familiarity with specialized equipment.

It is helpful to add relevant profiles to your LinkedIn profile as well to help recruiters find you online and strengthen your professional image. We have a super detailed guide on how to update your LinkedIn profile for a successful job search - read it and make your profile shine!

3 Strategies to describe proficiences on your nursing resume

Now, let's see how exactly to put your nursing competence on a resume:

1. Add the dedicated Skills section

Create a dedicated Skills section and list your nursing competencies as a bulleted list. If you are using a combination resume format, place your abilities right after the career summary.

Here's what the Skills section can look like in a Registered Nurse resume:

• IV and Medication administration
• Patient and family education
• Critical thinking
• Patient safety
• Communication capacities
• Direct patient care
• Care plan development
• Empathy
• EHR proficiency

2. Mention them on your resume summary

To highlight your most important hard or transferable abilities, feature them in your resume summary. Focus on 2-3 proficiences you can prove with examples, and make sure they are highly relevant to the nursing position you have in mind. Here's an example:

Compassionate Registered Nurse with 3+ years of experience providing direct care to pediatric patients in a fast-paced hospital setting. Proven ability to quickly access patients and cooperate with physicians to implement the treatment plan. Capable of building a strong rapport with children and families and providing sensitive education on health conditions.

3. Speak through examples

Adding a nursing ability list helps you quickly capture the recruiter's attention. However, you also want to show where you used those competencies in your daily work and what results you achieved. In other words, you need to present both proficiences and your clinical expertise.

Mention your capacities when describing your healthcare experience. Give numbers and percentages to back up your statements, if possible.

Here's how you can show leadership competence with examples:

• Led a team initiative to streamline medication administration, which reduced the average medication delivery by 5 minutes per patient
• Instructed the nursing team on the new patient care procedures, resulting in a 15% increase in patient satisfaction
• Developed a new patient education resource for patients with asthma, leading to a 45% improvement in patient understanding of their treatment plan.

Writing a competitive RN resume: What else to include

Make sure that your RN proficiences shine through all sections of your resume! Highlight your aptitudes, clinical expertise, and relevant education in every section of your resume:

Career Summary

Your Summary section goes after your name and contact info. In this section, you summarize your strengths and achievements in healthcare to catch the employer's attention. Think of it as a written elevator pitch. The summary should be 2-4 sentences long, and its purpose is to introduce yourself and encourage the recruiter to read your resume completely.

If you're still in a nursing school with not much experience, capitalize on your clinical rotations, voluntary work, and research work in nursing. It will also help to outline your professional goals so that the hospital can see you as a good fit.

Example:

Motivated and compassionate Pediatric Nurse Student with strong clinical abilities, including patient assessment, medication administration, and vital sign monitoring. Can communicate effectively with children and families, creating a safe and comforting environment while implementing treatment plans. Eager to contribute to a team environment and provide high-quality care to patients.

Education

To become a successful nurse, you need extensive educational background. Nurses need at least a Bachelor's degree in Nursing, followed by a complex NCLEX-RN exam to become a Registered Nurse. Next, you need a state licensure to practice nursing. Make sure that your resume reflects all this information.

Here's what else you can add to your Education section:

• Academic achievements - as a recent graduate, you can add a high GPA and other academic honors to impress prospective employers.
• Relevant certifications - continuous learning is always welcomed by employers. If you have an ACLS, PLS, or CENP certification, list them under your degree.

Work experience

This section is to provide highlights of your nursing career. Professional experience is the main asset of your nursing resume, so keep it concise, relevant, and achievement-driven. Here's how to make the most out of your Professional Experience section:

• If you have extensive nursing experience, focus on 3-5 most recent positions and mention the previous ones briefly. For each role, write between 5 and 7 bullets about your responsibilities and achievements. Choose jobs that can demonstrate various nursing experiences in different types of settings.
• Mention any specialized equipment, talents, and software proficiency, as it can increase your chance of an interview.
• Avoid duplicating information. If you've worked as an intensive care nurse in many hospitals, you probably had similar responsibilities. Focus on what made each role unique to get the prospective employer interested.
• If you were promoted, mention this along with your achievements.

Language proficiency

It is beneficial for nurses to know foreign languages. Proficiency in a second or third language fosters clear, effective communication between patients and multicultural nursing teams. If you know German, Spanish, or Chinese, specify it on your resume and mention your level of proficiency.

Have an expert proofread your nursing resume

By adding the above-listed aptitudes, you will communicate your strengths effectively to employers, pass the ATS screening, and position yourself as a good candidate. However, it is always helpful to have a resume expert review your application before sending it. Thus, you will avoid occasional mistakes and ensure that your resume makes the best possible impression.

At ResumePerk, we can edit and proofread your resume in less than 24 hours. A resume writer will fix any shortcomings in your document to help you land more interviews. Chat with us to get your welcome discount!

Recommended reading:

• 7 Resume Aptitudes That Will Increase Your Earnings
• Talentsfor resume: How to use them effectively (+10 Examples)
• 9 Proficiences Essential for Remote Managers

Author: Editorial Team at ResumePerk.com

Reviewed by: Certified Career Expert

Last updated: December 2025