Review your cover letter

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Cover letters introduce you to the hiring manager. Yes? So look at your cover letter. Is it the introduction you want? As you review your cover letter, ask yourself a few of the questions below:

1. Is it the right length? Cover letters should not exceed 1 page. The general format is a heading, an intro paragraph about yourself and your background, 2-3 paragraphs that highlight your skills and achievements with examples, a conclusion paragraph wrapping the letter up, and your signature line. Too long, and the hiring manager may not read key information about you. Too short, and you may not be fully presenting yourself and your assets.

2. It is repetitive of your resume? The cover letter should not regurgitate what is on your resume. It’s a place to showcase skills, competencies, and achievements to supplement your resume. You can include experience from your resume, but be sure it’s highlighted in a way that connects to the  job description and facility.

3. Does it match the position you’re applying for? Hiring managers recognize a generic cover letter from a mile away. A personalized cover letter — tailored to the job description and company that you’re applying for — will set you apart from other candidates. Although it may be time-efficient for applicants to use the same cover letter for multiple jobs applications, it’s worth it to spend the time adapting the letter for the position and facility. Be sure to include something that indicates you did research on the company – such as their recent awards, if the hospital has Magnet status, research breakthroughs, or their mission statement.

4. It is too impersonal? You want the letter to be personal, yet professional. Hiring managers will connect with a letter that comes across as a conversation. It should communicate your personality and interpersonal skills that aren’t readily accessible from reading a resume. Provide examples and stories (HIPAA compliant, of course). Be friendly and engaging, not detached and boring. But remember not to get too personal though! 

5. Is it arrogant? The catch-22 of a cover letter is that you want to describe why you’re perfect for the job but not so perfect that you sound like an egotistical blockhead. Be sure to write about your accomplishments that are relevant to the job description and the facility. Don’t just list out your achievements. Make it clear how you are a fit for the facility. Write about how and why the company can benefit from hiring you rather than how you will benefit from the facility. For example, instead of writing, “I’ve always wanted to work at a Magnet hospital.”, re-frame it as, “I recently completed 20 hours in an interdisciplinary course that connected nursing, medical, and physician assistant students. With this experience, I look forward to contributing to one of the Force of Magnetism, Interdisciplinary Relationships, at Seattle Grace.”

Cover letter links

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Next week we’ll be tackling the topic of cover letters. Here is a roundup of good links for cover letters:

Sample nursing job cover letter from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

5 ways your cover letter lost you the job

Don’t make these real-life cover letter failures!

Perfecting your cover letter – with links to more

Cover letter help from Samuel Merritt University’s Career Services

How to write a strong cover letter from UCSF’s Office of Career and Professional Development (plus 6 cover letter examples!)

Essential websites

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You’re keyed in to all the major job search sites…After College (check). Indeed (check). Health-Care CareerBuilder (check). Nursing Jobs Plus (check). Monster (check). Nurse Path (check).

Q. So what other websites could you add to your toolbox for finding that perfect job?

A. The websites of the top 5 places you’d love to work! If you dream of working at Stanford Hospital, have their employment website as your homepage. You’ll stay up to date on the latest job postings and won’t have to worry that you’ll miss something when it’s posted.

What are the websites you check most often? Which ones do you find most helpful in a job search?

What’s your qualifications summary?

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Ok. Go to your resume and read your qualifications summary. Would it grab a potential employer’s attention and make them read on? Or would they drop it in the pile of all the resumes that say “Have critical thinking abilities”? (which isn’t a bad thing to have, of course — I hope all new nurses have it — but it’s so general and uninteresting.)

You want your qualifications summary to really describe you, your accomplishments, and how they would fit with the organization. Qualification summaries require time for you to really think about yourself. How would other people describe you? What are some common statements you’ve received from clinical instructors or an employer? Make sure to take this time to write down your unique attributes, your prior accomplishments, your transferable skills, and relevant work or clinical experiences.

Once you have a good list of what to include, condense it down to 5-10 lines, which can be formatted in paragraph form or in bullets. It should be strong, specific, and not redundant with the rest of your resume. Use action verbs to make your summary interesting – “Achieved”, “Developed”, “Collaborated”

One last thing to keep in mind — hiring managers are scanning resumes for key words that match the job descriptions. Be sure to use relevant key words for the job you are applying for. This means that you may need to tweak your qualification summary from application to application.

We’d love to help you improve your qualification summary. Write it in the comment section below and we’ll make suggestions.

If you’re currently working, do you think your qualification summary helped in any way to get an interview? If so, spill your secret!

A Guide for Resume Writing

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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Association Colleges of Nursing developed a career central for new nurses. One useful resource is “The Complete Guide to Resume Writing for Nursing Students and Alumni” by Mary Somers from Johns Hopkins University. It’s full of practical tips that can take a good resume to an eye-catching, dazzling winner of one. Below are some excerpts:

  • “The hiring manager has to see how your previous accomplishments are relevant to her needs.”(Make sure your resume clearly states all the great things you’ve done, not just a list of titles you’ve held.)
  • “We recommend that you develop several resumes that are individually targeted to the positions you are seeking.” (This is an excellent tip for making your job search more strategic and thoughtful. Don’t send the same resume for a new grad program at a children’s hospital as you would for a public health nursing position.
  • “Include all experience related to nursing in [Professional Experience] section, such as internships, part time nursing assistantships, research projects.” (Newly graduated nurses often have a lot of healthcare related experiences in and oout of school. Make sure to highlight it in the professional experience section.)
  • “Avoid use of italics, underlined texts, graphics, and shading.” (This is important if a employer uses a scanning program which digitally looks for keywords in the resume. It’s an important reminder that the formatting of your resume is as important as what your resume says.)
  • “Proofreed! Proofread! Proofread! Do not send our your resume if there are any typographical errors.” (You’ve worked too hard to get passed over just because of an embarassing mispelling.)

Welcome!

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Hello and welcome.

This blog is to chronicle the adventures of a new nurse. We want to create a community of new nurses to support each other through job searching and working in your first job. We’ll talk about how to survive your job search and also how to thrive in your first of nursing. We want to help you organize your job hunt and support you when you finally land the job of your dreams. It’s an exciting time to be a nurse and we want to make sure we document all of it!

We have lots of topics we want to write about, but feel free to leave comments on what you’d like to see, questions you may have or requests for advice.

Improving your resume: Since a journey of thousand miles, must begin with a single step (Lao Tzu), your first step is to look at your resume. Whether you’re at the beginning of your job search or in a job right now, go look at your resume.

If you’re applying to jobs, is your resume clear to read? Is it updated with recent certifications, courses, or volunteer experiences? Have you received feedback from other people about it?

It you’re working right now, does your resume accurately reflect your job responsibilities? Are your recent continuing ed classes on there? Any awards, distinctions, or milestones that you can include?

We’ll see you back here next time!