Nursing Résumés and Cover Letters

Résumé writing is part art and part science. A well-written résumé begins with a focus--in your case, a career in nursing--and goes on to tell a story about the knowledge, skills and ability you bring to a potential employer. Think of a résumé as a sales letter for product YOU. It should be brief, but include the key selling points you offer the buyer, also known as the employer.

In this section, we provide assistance with putting together your nursing résumé; give you a tip sheet on what you should, and should not, do, and explain how to write a thank you note. We also address how to develop a plain text résumé, a required version of the résumé for any applicant tracking system. We have included a sample cover letter and sample plain text résumé, too.

For greatest value, begin with the "Writing Your Nursing Résumé" presentation below. It gives you the story behind the different résumé components and helps clarify the examples and tip sheet we've included. (Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat to view most of these files. Visit Adobe.com for a free download)

Sample Documents

• Sample résumé, LPN (.docx)  (.pdf) (.txt)
• Sample cover letter 

• Résumé checklist 
• How to convert your résumé to a plain text document
• About Thank you Notes