A new-grad resume is not an experienced-nurse resume with an empty work section. Recruiters know you are new. Your job is to make your preparation, clinical direction, reliability, and fit easy to see in one page.
Use this order
- Name, contact information, city/state, and a professional email.
- Education with graduation month, degree, school, and honors if meaningful.
- Licensure status written precisely: RN, graduate nurse, or NCLEX scheduled—never imply a license you do not have.
- Senior practicum or capstone, followed by selected clinical experience.
- Relevant employment: PCT/CNA/EMT, healthcare, leadership, or strong customer-facing work.
- Certifications and concise involvement.
Write bullets that prove behavior
Avoid “provided patient care” and giant skill inventories. Use context, action, and scope without revealing patient information. For example: “Completed a 120-hour senior practicum on a 32-bed cardiac step-down unit, organizing assessments, medications, and interdisciplinary updates for a supervised patient assignment.”
Tailor the top third
If applying to pediatrics, surface pediatric clinical experience, family communication, relevant work, and your capstone first. For the ED, emphasize prioritization, rapid assessment, teamwork, and comfort with changing plans. Tailoring is mostly reordering true evidence—not rewriting your identity for every posting.
Leave these out
- Photos, age, marital status, or other protected personal details.
- References or “references available upon request.”
- A dense list of every clinical skill you ever performed once.
- Unsupported claims such as “expert,” “advanced,” or “critical-care proficient.”
- Patient-identifying details or stories.
Final quality check
Export as a readable PDF unless the employer requests another format. Use consistent dates, plain headings, and normal fonts. Ask one nursing faculty member and one non-nurse to review it: one checks credibility; the other checks whether it makes sense in 20 seconds.