Nurse managers decide whether to forward a new grad resume by the top third of page one; if NCLEX status, BLS, and rotation specialties aren't visible there, the file gets passed over for the next one in the stack.
The New Grad RN archetype has clinical hours and an NCLEX date but no paid bedside experience yet. This resume needs to prove safe practice in supervised rotations, name the EHR you charted in, and front-load BLS plus license status.
New graduate RN with 720+ clinical hours across med-surg, ICU, labor & delivery, and community health. NCLEX-RN passed June 2024. BLS and ACLS certified, comfortable with Epic and Cerner. Targeting a med-surg or step-down residency with the goal of moving into charge nurse and eventually CNL within five years.
Your summary should not lead with personality traits. Lead with the numbers a nurse manager uses to gauge readiness.
Name your degree (BSN or ADN), graduation month, NCLEX status, and total clinical rotation hours. Add the two specialties where you logged the most time.
A strong opener reads: BSN graduate, May 2026, NCLEX-RN scheduled for July, with 720 clinical hours across med-surg and step-down. That tells the manager in one line whether you fit the unit.
Most strong new grad resumes turn rotations into countable work. Name patient loads, shift length, and the procedures you performed under supervision.
Bullets without a number tend to read as duties. Write “Cared for a 4-patient med-surg assignment across 12-hour shifts” instead of “Provided patient care.”
Name two or three realistic metrics per rotation: patient ratio, charting volume in Epic, medication passes, or admissions and discharges you supported. Recruiters scan for these first.
Reorganize your clinical section around three to five specialty buckets: med-surg, critical care, maternal-child, mental health, and community.
Under each bucket, list the facility, hours, and two bullets covering the patient population and the skills you used. Foley insertion, IV starts, wound care, and discharge teaching all belong here.
This format lets a pediatric hiring manager find your peds hours in two seconds, which matters more than a chronological semester layout.
Put your credentials block under the contact line, above the summary. Nurse managers and residency directors need to see license status before they read about clinicals.
List your state and “RN license in good standing” or “NCLEX-RN candidate, [test date].” Add BLS through the American Heart Association and any ACLS, PALS, or NRP you hold.
Name the EHR you charted in (Epic, Cerner, Meditech) on a separate line. Charting fluency removes a real training cost from the manager’s onboarding math.
End with your nursing program, graduation date, GPA if 3.5 or higher, and any honors like Sigma Theta Tau or dean’s list.
Add one section that separates you from the cohort. A capstone project, CNA or PCT work hours, Spanish fluency, or a preceptorship on the unit you’re applying to all qualify.
Skip high school, unrelated retail jobs older than three years, and objective statements. Those slots are better spent on a second clinical bullet.
Based on data from our user-built new grad nursing resumes, the skills below are what clear a nurse recruiter’s first scan. Hard skills carry the credential and EHR check; soft skills back up the bullets that prove safe practice on a busy floor.
| Soft Skills | % of resumes with this skill |
|---|---|
| Communication | 67% |
| Teamwork | 52% |
| Compassion | 49% |
| Critical thinking | 35% |
| Time management | 26% |
And here are the top hard skills showing up most often.
| Hard Skills | % of resumes with this skill |
|---|---|
| Patient assessment | 75% |
| Medication administration | 50% |
| Electronic health records | 49% |
| Basic life support | 38% |
| IV insertion | 29% |
Based on data from thousands of new graduate nurses’ resumes built on ResumeTemplates.com, May 2026.
Before a new grad nursing resume gets a closer read, hiring teams check for a short list of essentials.
Nurse recruiters verify license status before reading anything else. Your resume needs to make that verification take three seconds.
List your license status under the contact line, not buried at the bottom. Use the state, the credential, and the words “in good standing” once you pass NCLEX.
If you have not tested yet, write “NCLEX-RN candidate” with the scheduled test month. Update the line the week you pass.
Do not publish your license number on the resume. State boards of nursing recommend providing the number only on application forms when asked.
Most state boards do not require CE during your first license period. Voluntary CE before your first staff job signals direction.
Pick CE that maps to the unit type you want. ECG interpretation hours strengthen a tele application; trauma nursing core course (TNCC) strengthens an ED application.
List the course title, the issuing body, the contact hours, and the year. Skip generic webinars with no contact-hour credit.
Hospitals spend weeks and thousands of dollars training new grads on the EHR. If you charted in their system during clinicals, say so by brand name on page one.
Epic (most US academic medical centers and large health systems)
Cerner (Oracle Health) for community hospitals and VA facilities
Meditech for community and rural hospitals
Allscripts and athenahealth for outpatient and clinic rotations
PointClickCare for long-term care and skilled nursing rotations
Bullets that name a patient, room number, or identifying detail can disqualify you on the spot. Nurse recruiters notice.
Write rotation bullets in aggregate. “Cared for a four-patient med-surg assignment” is safe; “cared for Mr. R in room 412” is not.
Do not paste screenshots of charting, hand-off sheets, or care plans into a portfolio. Even with names redacted, the file metadata can carry PHI.
Nurse managers read this list as a map of where your clinical interests are heading. The certifications below tell them which specialty track (critical care, peds, oncology) you’ve invested in before your first staff role. List the issuing body and the month and year earned.
Basic Life Support (BLS): Required by nearly every hospital before orientation; list the American Heart Association as issuer and the expiration date.
Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS): Signals readiness for ICU, ED, telemetry, and step-down residency tracks; many programs prefer it before you start.
Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS): Earns a second look on peds, PICU, and family-practice clinic resumes; pair it with your peds rotation hours.
Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP): Carries weight on labor-and-delivery, mother-baby, and NICU applications; list completion year and AAP as issuer.
The 90th-percentile registered nurse out-earns the median by a wide margin, which tells you the market rewards specialty, shift differential, and metro concentration more than years of bedside time. New grads who target high-acuity units and high-cost metros move toward that band faster than those who stay generalist. Position your resume around the specialty you want to grow into, not the rotations you happened to be assigned.
Lead with the unit type, EHR fluency, and any certification that maps to that track.
| # | State | Avg. Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | $140,330 |
| 2 | Hawaii | $136,320 |
| 3 | Oregon | $123,990 |
| 4 | Washington | $112,180 |
| 5 | Alaska | $110,690 |
| 6 | New York | $105,600 |
| 7 | District of Columbia | $104,550 |
| 8 | New Jersey | $102,730 |
| 9 | Nevada | $101,990 |
| 10 | Massachusetts | $101,970 |
| # | State | Workers | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 326,720 | $140,330 |
| 2 | Texas | 261,050 | $90,010 |
| 3 | Florida | 218,100 | $82,850 |
| 4 | New York | 204,120 | $105,600 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | 146,840 | $87,610 |
Resume Templates offers HR approved resume templates to help you create a professional resume in minutes. Choose from several template options and even pre-populate a resume from your profile.
Yes. Most hospital new grad residencies open applications six to nine months before cohort start dates.
They expect to hire NCLEX-eligible candidates and onboard once you pass. Write "NCLEX-RN candidate, [test date]" directly under your contact line.
Once you pass, swap that line for "RN, [State], in good standing" within a week. Do not list the license number on the resume itself.
Treat clinical rotations as your experience section. They are the closest proxy a nurse manager has to bedside performance.
Group them by specialty rather than semester. Name the teaching hospital, total hours, patient population, and the procedures or assessments you performed under preceptor supervision.
Add SBAR handoffs, medication passes, and EHR charting as concrete bullets. "Documented assessments and I&Os in Epic for a four-patient assignment" beats "Gained clinical experience."
Leave the GPA off. There is no rule that you must list it, and a 3.2 next to your degree pulls focus from your rotations.
List the degree, school, graduation date, and any honors that stand alone (dean's list, Sigma Theta Tau).
Use the saved line for a capstone, preceptorship on a target unit, or a certification like ACLS that strengthens the application.
Yes. If both your home state and the target state belong to the Nurse Licensure Compact and your license is multistate, you can practice across state lines without a second license.
If the target state is not a compact state, write "Applying for [State] RN licensure by endorsement, expected [month]" on the resume.
Nurse recruiters know endorsement timelines and will not screen you out, but they need to see the plan in writing.
For a new graduate nurse, an ATS-friendly template is the safest pick, because it puts your certifications and experience where a hiring manager scans first. A basic template is a solid alternative. Whichever you choose, keep the formatting clean and easy to parse: clear section headings, a standard font, and no graphics a parser can choke on.
Executive Resume Writer and Career Coach
Andrew Stoner is an executive career coach and resume writer with 17 years of experience as a hiring manager and operations leader at two Fortune 500 Financial Services companies, and as the career services director at two major university business schools.
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