Acute Care Nurse Resume Examples & Templates for 2025

More Acute Care Nurse Resume Examples

Explore our acute care nurse resume examples to showcase your clinical expertise, patient care experience, and teamwork abilities. Use these samples to help you craft a compelling resume that stands out in healthcare roles.

Advice for Writing Your Acute Care Nurse Resume

Crafting a standout resume is essential for an acute care nurse aiming to make a strong impression in the fast-paced healthcare field.

Learn how to write a resume specifically designed for acute care nurses, and discover how to highlight your hands-on experience, quick decision-making skills, and dedication to patient care to present your nursing journey compellingly and confidently.

Write a strong professional summary

A professional summary on a resume serves as an introduction to hiring managers, helping them quickly understand your background and qualifications. It’s important to choose between a summary or a resume objective based on your experience level.

A professional summary is a three to four sentence overview of your experience, skills, and achievements. It’s ideal for experienced applicants because it shows your professional identity and value. A strong summary emphasizes what you’ve accomplished, such as managing patient care effectively or leading medical teams.

On the other hand, focusing on career goals with a resume objective is best for entry-level applicants, career changers, or those with employment gaps. While summaries highlight past achievements, objectives express what you aim to contribute in the future.

Next, we’ll provide examples of both summaries and objectives tailored for various levels of experience to guide you further.

Acute care nurse resume summary examples

Acute care nurse resume objective examples

Include relevant certifications and training

For an acute care nurse, listing certifications and specialized training is very important. These credentials show your skills and readiness to take on demanding roles in healthcare settings.

They help employers see that you have the knowledge needed for patient care, especially in critical situations. Creating a dedicated certifications section makes it easy for hiring managers to find these key qualifications. Attractive certifications for acute nurses include:

• Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS)
• Certified Critical Care Nurse (CCRN)
• Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)
• Trauma Nursing Core Course (TNCC)
• Basic Life Support (BLS)

By including these certifications, you highlight your expertise and commitment to high-quality patient care. This makes you stand out as a well-prepared applicant for acute care nursing roles. It complements your education section by showing your ongoing professional development.

Example of a certifications section

Showcase your work experience

Showing your work experience on a resume is key to landing an acute care nurse position. It lets employers see what you’ve done and how well you did it. When listing your jobs, begin with the most recent one first and go backward in time.

For each job, note your job title, the name of where you worked, the location, and the duration of employment. Use strong action words to describe what you did at each job. This approach helps demonstrate that you’re not merely listing duties but highlighting real achievements.

When describing your roles, use numbers or examples to show how you made a difference. Instead of saying “helped patients,” say “managed care for over 20 patients daily.” This specificity shows exactly what you’ve done rather than general tasks.

Include important skills like patient assessment, medication administration, teamwork with healthcare professionals, and using medical equipment. These skills help paint a picture of what kind of acute care nurse you are.

Being clear and specific in your descriptions makes it easier for employers to see why you’re a good fit for the role. Demonstrating how you’ve contributed in past roles gives them confidence that you’ll excel as part of their team too.

5 acute care nurse work history bullet point examples

• Implemented patient care plans for a 20-bed acute care unit, resulting in a 15% increase in patient satisfaction scores.
• Administered medication and monitored vital signs for up to 10 patients per shift, achieving a 98% accuracy rate in electronic health records.
• Collaborated with an interdisciplinary team to develop discharge protocols, reducing readmission rates by 12%.
• Trained and mentored 5 newly hired nurses, improving their competency levels and reducing orientation time by 25%.
• Led quality improvement initiatives that decreased hospital-acquired infections by 10% over one year.

Match your resume with the job description

Tailoring resumes to job descriptions is essential for standing out to employers and passing through applicant tracking systems (ATS). These systems scan resumes for specific keywords and phrases from job postings, so it’s important to customize your resume accordingly.

An ATS-friendly resume includes language that mirrors the job description. By incorporating keywords and phrases that align with your skills, you boost your chances of getting noticed by hiring managers.

To identify keywords from job postings, focus on skills, qualifications, and duties mentioned repeatedly. For an acute care nurse position, examples might include “patient care,” “clinical assessments,” or “healthcare team collaboration.” Using exact phrases can make a significant difference.

Integrate these terms naturally into your resume content. For instance, rewrite the job duty “Provide high-quality patient care” as “Delivered high-quality patient care to improve overall health outcomes,” ensuring it fits seamlessly into your experience section.

Targeted resumes improve ATS compatibility by aligning your application with the specific requirements of a role like an acute care nurse.