How to Write an Effective Resume

It is very important to know how to write an effective resume since it is a marketing tool of the employee. The final goal of the resume is to impress the prospective employer and be considered for the interview. In today’s economy where the job market has reached the highest downfall the employers receive thousands of resumes on a daily basis. How can you make an impression? Here are some of the tips which can make the resume look unique.

Sample LPN Resume:

Contact Information
The most important information that should be mentioned is our personal data consisting of name, contact information like address, phone number and email. Even if you have a good resume if the prospective employer will not be able to contact you then it is not an effective medium to get you an interview or a job. It is also a good idea to put your name in bold so that it will stand out from the contact information.

Objective
After the contact information we can put our objectives or a personal statement which is an opening line for the resume. It is advisable to put a professional statement only when you have many years of experience in one particular field. In other cases it is better to put an objective stating your employment goal, for example, “A Licensed Practical Nurse Position”. It is also a good idea to include in the objective what you can offer for the new position like “A Licensed Practical Nurse position at the facility that allows me to gain valuable experience in the medical surgical unit”. However, you should avoid objectives that are not concrete, for example “A challenging position that allows me to utilize my knowledge and experience”.

Education
If you already have a license then you should make it as your first entry with the issue date, state issued, and the license number. You can follow that with the nursing program you just completed or about to complete, and any other educational degree/diploma.

Award
You can mention your awards or any honour you have achieved to make you stand out from other job applications.

Clinical Rotations and Experience
In the absence of relative job experience for the position applied it is better to put education first by listing of relevant educational degrees, accomplishments, certificates and courses. The order of the information should be in a descending order starting with the current followed by the older accomplishments. The year of the completion of any school or a degree should be mentioned on the left side of the page since it is more noticeable by the reader. Inclusion of the higher GPA score if it is relevant, or listing of courses with excellent grades related to the position applied can make a good impact on the employer about your knowledge of the material studied.

In the section of experience you have to list only job experiences which are related to your applying position. For example, if you apply for nurse’s job in a healthcare facility, you don’t have to include your experience as a cashier in the supermarket. Your accomplishments give the significance in your job experience. For example, instead of saying that your duty was to take care of the patients, you can get creative and make a set of points that tells the employer about your responsibilities and achievement's at the previous organization. The prospective employer will never come to know about the particulars mentioned on the resume. Since there is liability issues related to your job as healthcare providers, it is a wise decision to avoid performing any procedures which we don't understand, or which challenges your competency even though you mentioned it on the resume. It is wise to use action verbs in pointing your accomplishments, for example, improved, increased, convinced, introduced, invented, achieved, etc.

Certification
Certifications for CPR, IV, EKG, Phlebotomy should be next on your resume which enables the employer to see your additional qualifications.

Skills/Other
In the last part you can introduce all other information that did not fit in the other segment of the resume like volunteer work, and special skills like bilingual, computer literacy, and typing speed. In fact, most of the resumes get screened, and here is the place to put some “buzz” words that will catch attention, for example, punctual, analytical and so on. Nowadays, the employers prefer to hire people who multi-task, and these skills can help you stand out from the crowd.

The resume should convey to the employer that your education, experience, and capabilities would be an asset, and hence enhance the productivity of the company. In conclusion, a resume is an advertisement of who you are, and the more eye-catching it is, the more chances that the employer would pick up the phone and call you for an interview.

Tips for Preparing the NCLEX-PN

My experience showed that to successfully pass the NCLEX-PN exam is to start
preparing for the exam as soon as you finish your practical nursing program. It is not a good decision to postpone taking the NCLEX, as the more you wait the more you forget.
Before preparing for the exam I looked for the best books that money can buy to improve my chances of excelling at the exam. Some of the online or should I say most of the online searches yielded Saunders as one of the highly recommended book for the preparation. Since most of my classmates had bought the book, I also went with the same. I also bought the Kaplan review as it was the second best in the category to have something additional.
Saunder covers all the topics briefly emphasizing on things to remember. It was good for reviewing all the things which I had covered during the program. Also it came with a CD which has about 3700 questions...a good practicing tool which came with rationales and strategies. It helped me in understanding the questions and sharpening my strategies to answer those questions.
Dont expect the questions to come directly from the book....that is not the purpose. I am sure NCLEX knows what is in the market and they would surely will not give questions from these books. I was overwhelmed by the number of pharmacology questions in the CD, and at times thought of postponing the exam due to my inability to answer those questions. After giving it a thought, I decided to concentrate on the drugs which I had dealt with during my clinicals and during my nursing program. Also, I memorized the drug endings like lol, pril, etc to identify its classification, and using the knowledge about the physiology of the human body to answer the questions accordingly.
It took me about a month to prepare for the exam...covering 3-4 chapters everyday and doing the questions. I struggled few days before the exam as I was trying to finish the chapters and the questions... so please try to start early, planning your days before the exam. Dont stress on the last day....thats a no no...you will be too stressed to take the exam and make more errors. Eat well and take breaks once in a while. Taking a nap was the best break for me..it was rejuvenating.
Every exam is different depending on how you answer the questions. Therefore some may get more of one particular topic than the other. I was very fortunate to get a mix of everything....emphasis on the nursing priorities and what a prudent nurse is supposed to do in a particular situation. I will have to say this, the nursing program covered the relevant material which I needed to pass my NCLEX exam. So remember this, you know it, you just need to apply it.