Top 12 Nursing Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, a sharp, credible resume helps nurses stand out fast. Spotlighting the right skills shows clinical judgment, consistency, and heart for patient care—all at once.
Nursing Skills
- Patient Assessment
- Wound Care
- IV Therapy
- Electronic Health Records (EHR)
- Medication Administration
- CPR Certified
- Patient Education
- Infection Control
- Vital Signs Monitoring
- Emergency Response
- Telemetry Monitoring
- Palliative Care
1. Patient Assessment
Patient assessment is the ongoing, structured gathering of health data through observation, interview, and physical exam—then turning that data into a focused plan of care.
Why It's Important
Assessment drives everything that follows. Early pattern recognition, risk spotting, and clear prioritization allow timely interventions and fewer surprises.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Refresh the fundamentals: Head-to-toe exam, focused assessments, and age-specific nuances—practice until it’s second nature.
Sharpen communication: Open-ended questions, therapeutic silence, and culturally sensitive language reveal what vitals can’t.
Look beyond symptoms: Physical, psychological, social, and environmental factors often braid together.
Use clinical tools wisely: Validated scales (pain, delirium, fall risk) add objectivity and consistency.
Peer feedback: Brief debriefs after complex cases surface blind spots and refine judgment.
Close the loop: Reassess after interventions; watch for trends, not just single data points.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
2. Wound Care
Wound care includes assessment, staging, dressing selection, offloading, infection prevention, and documentation to restore skin integrity and comfort.
Why It's Important
Good wound care limits infection, speeds healing, trims costs, and preserves dignity. Poor care does the opposite.
How to Improve Wound Care Skills
Assess precisely: Measure size, depth, undermining, exudate, tissue type, and periwound skin—consistently, the same way each time.
Match dressing to need: Align moisture balance with exudate level; choose advanced dressings thoughtfully.
Protect the edges: Moisture barriers and gentle removal prevent maceration and trauma.
Address pressure and shear: Offload, reposition, and optimize support surfaces to prevent and treat pressure injuries.
Fuel healing: Screen nutrition; escalate protein, vitamins, and hydration when warranted.
Manage pain: Pre-medicate for dressing changes; consider non-pharmacologic options too.
Escalate early: Signs of infection or stalled healing merit culture, imaging, or specialist input.
Document clearly: Photo policies, measurements, and response to treatment tell the story over time.
How to Display Wound Care Skills on Your Resume
3. IV Therapy
IV therapy means delivering fluids, medications, or nutrients straight into the bloodstream for rapid action and precise dosing.
Why It's Important
When minutes count, IV therapy moves quickly—stabilizing hemodynamics, correcting imbalances, and getting medications where they need to go.
How to Improve IV Therapy Skills
Refine insertion technique: Vein selection, site prep, angle control, and catheter choice reduce failed attempts.
Leverage technology: Consider ultrasound or vein visualization for difficult access patients.
Prevent infection: Aseptic technique, hub hygiene, securement, and timely site rotation cut complications.
Know your infusions: Compatibility, osmolality, vesicant risks, and rate limits matter—verify before you spike.
Use smart pumps: Drug libraries and guardrails reduce programming errors.
Assess frequently: Watch for infiltration, phlebitis, extravasation, and fluid overload; act quickly.
Maintain competencies: Regular simulation, return demonstrations, and credential renewals keep skills tight.
How to Display IV Therapy Skills on Your Resume
4. Electronic Health Records (EHR)
EHRs are real-time digital charts capturing histories, meds, allergies, diagnostics, plans, and notes—connecting teams and reducing guesswork.
Why It's Important
Clear, current records support safer decisions, smoother handoffs, and measurable outcomes. Less hunting for information, more time with patients.
How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills
Streamline workflows: Build templates, order sets, smart phrases, and favorites that mirror daily practice.
Document with intent: Accurate, concise, clinically relevant. If it isn’t actionable, trim it.
Boost efficiency: Keyboard shortcuts, voice dictation, and mobile access reduce clicks and delays.
Ensure interoperability: Use standardized data fields and exchange tools to pull in outside records when available.
Protect privacy: Follow least-necessary access, secure logins, and downtime procedures without fail.
Keep learning: New builds and upgrades change the game—refresh training prevents workarounds from becoming bad habits.
How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills on Your Resume
5. Medication Administration
Medication administration covers preparation, verification, delivery, monitoring, and documentation—anchored in safety checks before, during, and after each dose.
Why It's Important
Med errors harm patients. Precision and vigilance safeguard them, improve trajectories, and build trust.
How to Improve Medication Administration Skills
Practice the rights, expanded: Right patient, drug, dose, route, time, indication, and documentation—every time.
Use BCMA and MARs: Bar-code scanning and up-to-date medication records slash mismatches.
Clarify orders: Question unclear abbreviations, odd doses, and interactions before giving.
Time-sensitive meds: Prioritize antibiotics, insulin, anticoagulants, and rate-dependent meds with extra care.
Engage the patient: Explain purpose and side effects; invite questions. Extra eyes catch errors.
Reconcile meticulously: At admission, transfer, and discharge, align lists and close gaps.
Monitor effects: Know onset and peak; reassess and document response.
How to Display Medication Administration Skills on Your Resume
6. CPR Certified
CPR certification confirms competence in chest compressions, rescue breathing, and AED use during cardiopulmonary arrest. For most nurses, current BLS is mandatory; ACLS/PALS may be required by unit.
Why It's Important
Cardiac arrest does not wait. Immediate, high‑quality CPR doubles or triples survival odds.
How to Improve CPR Certified Skills
Keep it current: Renew on schedule (typically every two years) and track expiration dates.
Drill the basics: Compression depth, rate, recoil, minimal interruptions—muscle memory matters.
Level up when needed: Add ACLS or PALS if your patient population demands it.
Use feedback devices: Real-time metrics sharpen technique during practice.
Debrief after codes: What went well, what lagged, what changes stick—capture the lessons quickly.
How to Display CPR Certified Skills on Your Resume
7. Patient Education
Patient education equips individuals and families to understand conditions, treatments, and self‑care—turning confusion into confidence.
Why It's Important
When people know what to do and why it matters, adherence improves, complications dip, and readmissions shrink.
How to Improve Patient Education Skills
Assess readiness: Literacy, language, stress, and priorities shape what will land.
Speak plainly: Short sentences, simple words, visuals where helpful. Skip jargon.
Use teach‑back: Ask patients to explain the plan in their own words; adjust if gaps appear.
Layer the learning: Verbal, written, and digital tools together beat any single method.
Focus on the few: Three to five key actions stick better than a tidal wave of rules.
Follow up: Reinforce at the bedside, on discharge, and in clinic to sustain gains.
How to Display Patient Education Skills on Your Resume
8. Infection Control
Infection control is the disciplined use of precautions, cleaning, and stewardship to stop transmission and protect patients and staff.
Why It's Important
Preventing infections saves lives, preserves resources, and keeps healthcare spaces safe. It’s non‑negotiable.
How to Improve Infection Control Skills
Hand hygiene first: Before and after patient contact, after glove removal, after body fluid exposure—no shortcuts.
Use PPE correctly: Don and doff in the right order; match gear to transmission risks.
Clean environments: High-touch surfaces and equipment need routine, documented disinfection.
Device bundles: Central lines, urinary catheters, and ventilators each require strict insertion and maintenance protocols.
Sharps safety: Safety devices, disposal discipline, and never recapping.
Isolation precautions: Standard plus contact, droplet, or airborne as indicated—post clear signage.
Antimicrobial stewardship: Right drug, dose, duration; limit resistance by avoiding unnecessary antibiotics.
Track and trend: Monitor rates, audit compliance, and close the loop with feedback.
How to Display Infection Control Skills on Your Resume
9. Vital Signs Monitoring
Vital signs monitoring captures temperature, pulse, respirations, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation—often pain and level of consciousness as well.
Why It's Important
Trends whisper before emergencies shout. Early detection enables early action.
How to Improve Vital Signs Monitoring Skills
Standardize technique: Proper cuff sizes, patient positioning, and validated devices reduce noise in the data.
Escalate by protocol: Use early warning scores (e.g., NEWS2/MEWS) and act on thresholds without delay.
Automate where helpful: Continuous or spot monitoring with alerting reduces missed deterioration—manage alarm limits to curb fatigue.
Recheck outliers: Confirm odd values manually to avoid chasing errors.
Context matters: Compare to baseline; consider meds, procedures, and comorbidities.
Document promptly: Real-time entry prevents gaps and supports safer decisions.
How to Display Vital Signs Monitoring Skills on Your Resume
10. Emergency Response
Emergency response is the rapid, coordinated assessment and intervention that stabilizes life-threatening conditions.
Why It's Important
Seconds count. Clear roles, crisp communication, and decisive actions save lives.
How to Improve Emergency Response Skills
Train like it’s real: High‑fidelity simulations, mock codes, and mass‑casualty drills build reflexes.
Clarify roles: Assign leads, recorders, medication nurses, airway managers—no confusion in the moment.
Use standardized tools: SBAR for escalation, checklists for airway and code carts, post‑event debrief templates.
Keep equipment ready: Daily checks of defibrillators, suction, oxygen, and emergency meds.
Communicate out loud: Closed‑loop communication prevents dropped tasks and duplications.
Debrief and improve: Rapid reviews reveal system issues and training needs—act on them.
How to Display Emergency Response Skills on Your Resume
11. Telemetry Monitoring
Telemetry monitoring continuously tracks cardiac rhythms and rate remotely, flagging arrhythmias and changes that need quick action.
Why It's Important
Silent deterioration isn’t so silent with telemetry. Abnormalities surface early; response time drops.
How to Improve Telemetry Monitoring Skills
Master interpretation: Rhythm identification, intervals, ischemic changes, and artifact recognition separate noise from signal.
Right patient, right level: Apply clear criteria for who needs monitoring and when it can stop.
Optimize alarms: Tailor limits to the patient to reduce alarm fatigue without missing danger.
Maintain equipment: Good lead placement, skin prep, and routine checks prevent false alerts.
Communicate quickly: Escalate worrisome changes using SBAR and document actions taken.
Engage patients: Explain purpose and restrictions; improve cooperation and signal quality.
How to Display Telemetry Monitoring Skills on Your Resume
12. Palliative Care
Palliative care centers on relief from symptoms and stress of serious illness—physical, emotional, social, and spiritual—at any stage, alongside curative treatments or alone.
Why It's Important
Comfort rises, burdens ease, goals clarify. Patients and families feel heard, supported, and guided.
How to Improve Palliative Care Skills
Screen early: Identify unmet symptom and support needs sooner, not just near the end of life.
Elevate communication: Explore values, goals of care, and decision‑makers; revisit as conditions evolve.
Manage symptoms methodically: Pain, dyspnea, nausea, anxiety, constipation—treat both causes and distress.
Coordinate the team: Nursing, medicine, social work, chaplaincy, therapy—align efforts around the patient’s goals.
Support caregivers: Teach skills, set realistic plans, and offer respite options.
Plan transitions: Advance directives, POLST forms where applicable, hospice referral when appropriate.
How to Display Palliative Care Skills on Your Resume
