How to Write a Great ER Nurse Resume - with Example

Focusing on your credentials and clinical outcomes could be just what your RN resume needs. Get ideas from this sample resume for a hospital staff nurse.

By Jennifer Verta, Monster Contributor

Looking for tips to create or refresh your ER nurse resume and land a new prestigious job? As an Emergency Room (ER) nurse, your ability to quickly assess a patient's condition is crucial in providing appropriate emergency care. Similarly, you should aim for your resume to impress recruiters with the same effectiveness.

Working in a fast-paced and high-pressure environment is what you do best. Writing an emergency room nurse resume will be a walk in the park in comparison. All you need is a few tips to help you fine-tune your resume.

Sum Up Your Career Right off the Bat

A nursing career summary is the first section of your resume that recruiters and hiring managers come across. Therefore, it must grab their attention straight away. If you’re an experienced candidate, use your career summary to highlight your most relevant experience, areas of expertise and your key achievements in a few simple but effective sentences.

If you’re an entry-level candidate, on the other hand, we suggest you opt for a resume objective instead. In place of extensive work experience, stress your educational background, clinical internships, and relevant skills that make you a great fit for a career in ER nursing.

Showcase Your Achievements the Right Way

When crafting your emergency nurse resume, always present your achievements in a way that resonates with hiring managers and recruiters. The most effective approach to achieve this is to include relevant and measurable metrics. These provide concrete evidence of your impact on your job. Include information such as:

  • your years of experience
  • the number of patients you care for on average per day or week
  • the size of the team you manage
  • the number of people you’ve trained
  • any performance rankings or awards received

Tailor Your ER Nurse Skills Resume Section

Don’t forget to also adapt your ER nurse resume to the job posting you’re applying to. This means scanning the job ad for role-related keywords and including them in your resume. Here are a few examples of sought-after skills for emergency room nurses:

  • interprofessional collaboration
  • leadership
  • compassionate care
  • relationship-based approaches
  • accountability
  • conflict management and resilience
  • good manual dexterity
  • decision making
  • acute care
  • ability to remain calm under pressure
  • ACLS certified

Check out our emergency nurse resume sample below for a practical example of these tips in action.

ER Nurse Resume Example

JANET MEYERS

San Diego, CA 91932 | (555) 555-5555 | name@mail.com | linkedin.com/janet.meyers

BSN | RN | CEN

Experienced Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN) with 7 years of dedicated hospital nursing experience in ER and trauma units. Consistently commended for delivering patient-centered, quality critical care.

Member of multidisciplinary healthcare teams known for:

  • excellent clinical skills
  • ability to remain calm under pressure
  • strengths in making swift, correct decisions in emergency situations

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Medical Center One, San Diego, CA 20XX to Present

RN, Emergency/Trauma

  • Provide nursing care within Level 1 trauma center of a prestigious urban hospital. Handle 40 medical emergencies per day on average resulting from events such as strokes, cardiac arrest, car accidents, stabbings, head injuries, poison ingestion, drug overdoses, sexual assault, and burns.
  • Assess and stabilize patients with accuracy, and accountability.

OUTCOMES:

  • Displayed expert clinical skills in managing the critical care of all categories of Emergency Department patients.
  • Reacted effectively in emergency scenarios, demonstrating sound decision-making that helped save patient lives.
  • Supervised a team of 15 LPNs and CNAs and served as a preceptor/mentor to first-year nursing students.
  • Selected to represent Trauma Center on hospital committees including Medication Safety Committee, Nurse Recruitment Committee and JCAHO Readiness Taskforce.
  • Contributed to strategic plans and initiatives to advance standards of care excellence, improve patient outcomes, and drive continuous improvement.

Medical Center Two, San Diego, CA 20XX to 20XX

RN, Emergency Department

  • Served as a member of interdisciplinary healthcare teams in providing critical care and performing life-saving interventions. Closely monitored ER patients; alerted physicians/charge nurses to changes in patient status; and interacted compassionately with patients and family members often suffering from pain, stress, shock, or grief.

OUTCOMES:

  • Efficiently and knowledgeably provided RN care for all ER patients. Handled intubations, defibrillations, autotransfusions, IV starts, A-line setups, splinting, suturing and more.
  • Leveraged interpersonal communication strengths to establish rapport and build trust with patients and families.

EDUCATION

University One, San Diego, CA 20XX

Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN)

CREDENTIALS

  • Registered Nurse (RN), California
  • Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN)

CERTIFICATIONS

  • Current ACLS(Advanced Cardiac Life Support)
  • PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support)
  • BLS(Basic Life Support)
  • SANE(Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner)
  • CPR(Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation)

AFFILIATIONS

Active member of American Nurses Association and Emergency Nurses Association

ER Nurse Growth Projections

We’ve got good news for you if you’re just starting to put together your ER nurse resume. Nurses will see no decrease in demand in the next ten years. According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the projected growth for nurse roles will stay at 6% over that time with around 203,200 openings added each year.

ER nurses don’t work just in hospitals. Other industries with high levels of employment for ER nurses in the coming years are:

  • general medical and surgical hospitals
  • offices of physicians
  • home health care services
  • outpatient care centers
  • nursing care facilities

How Much You Could Earn

Salary-wise, as an ER nurse you can expect to earn $85,844 per year on average. However, depending on your experience, location, type of contract, and the organization you work for, a great ER nurse resume can make a case for more than that.

For instance, here are the locations with the highest demand for ER nurse jobs and their corresponding annual average salaries.

But how can you track down the average figure in your city? Easy, just check Monster’s Salary Calculator. You’ll also find salaries for similar roles and useful information to help you progress in your career, such as which skills to develop next.

Stabilize Your ER Nurse Resume with Help from Monster

Make your job applications go further and secure the role of your dreams. Get a free resume assessment – stat! Monster’s experts will teach you how to make your emergency room nurse resume stand out from the crowd. Learn how to highlight your unique skills and experiences and how to overcome screening software filters and catch the attention of potential employers.