WRITING PROFESSIONAL SUMMARIES, Exams of Nursing

Download WRITING PROFESSIONAL SUMMARIES and more Exams Nursing in PDF only on Docsity! Revised 2.6.2018 Professional Summary Recent BSN graduate with a strong history of leadership and academic success. Achieved Dean’s List for last six semesters and served as President of Student Nurses Association in 2017. Familiar with hospital and private medical office environments. Experience with IV placement, catheterization, measurement of vital signs, and related patient care skills. Knowledgeable with EHR systems. Seeking a position as a Registered Nurse in an outpatient clinic. WRITING PROFESSIONAL SUMMARIES BY TRAVIS KAHLE, DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON CENTER FOR CAREER DEVELOPMENT The professional summary is probably the toughest part of the resume to write. It needs to be brief, but informative. It needs to stand out because it’s the first thing that an employer will read on your resume or CV. Professional summaries have many names- “Objective,” “Profile,” “Summary,” “Professional Profile,” and of course, “Professional Summary.” Sometimes, individuals choose to replace the generic title with a descriptive title like “Marketing Expert” or “Experienced Physician Assistant.” The title of the section doesn’t really matter. It’s the content of the section that can make your resume pop. Content It may be easiest to explain professional summaries by first explaining what they are not. Do not write generic objective statements like “To obtain employment at a reputable organization where I can utilize my skills.” This is a meaningless statement. Let’s hope you have a desire to work for a reputable employer where you can utilize your skills. Otherwise, why are you applying? Do not start your summary with the word “To.” Any statement that starts with “to” sounds like the answer to an exam question. You want the summary to be interesting, personal, and engaging. Let’s take a look at an example for a sales rep who is applying for a management job: Professional Summary Successful insurance sales representative with over 10 years of experience. Eastern Region Sales Rep of the Month nine times. Significant experience in new rep training and recruiting. Highly skilled with Oracle database systems and Microsoft Excel. Seeking a position as Regional Sales Manager in the financial services industry. Without knowing anything else about this individual, we know that he has a successful insurance practice (as evidenced by his sales rep of the month awards) and he has trained and recruited new representatives. These are two very relevant and important attributes for a Regional Sales Manager Candidate. Now, let’s take a look at the summary of a new graduate who doesn’t have the years of experience as the individual above. This person obtained her bachelor degree in nursing and is applying to her first full-time RN position: Revised 2.6.2018 Experienced System Administrator IT Manager with A+, Network +, and Security + certifications. Knowledgeable with Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems.  Managed team of 10 help desk technicians in a small college environment  Planned and implemented organization-wide database change from IBM DB2 to Microsoft SQL  Led the installation of 45 wireless routers and installed new fiber optic cable in 50,000 ft2 building  Experienced operator of Dell PowerEdge Servers Dynamic Nonprofit Manager  Director of Development for Kanawha Valley United Way for five years  Over 15 years total experience in nonprofit organizations  Organized most successful fundraising campaign in KV United Way’s history in 2016  Highly experienced with various customer relationship management systems  Orchestrated dozens of partnerships with community groups and charities  Member of three nonprofit boards of directors  Comfortable with TV and radio appearances and newspaper interviews Despite this graduate’s lack of professional experience, she has highlighted skills that she learned in her clinical experiences and classes. This is completely acceptable- most employers place approximately the same value on education as professional experience. Job postings often say something like “Four years experience required, or equivalent combination of education and experience.” Format Like all text on resumes and CVs, professional summaries should utilize gapping. Gapping is a writing style that uses concise phrases and incomplete sentences to convey information quickly and clearly (Purdue OWL, 2017). Resumes are not essays. Hiring managers often have dozens of resumes to review, so it is important to create a summary that grabs the manager’s attention quickly. Like the examples above, professional summaries can be in the format of a brief paragraph. They can also take the form of bulleted lists, or a combination of phrases and bullets. See the two examples below: As you can see in the examples above, it isn’t a requirement for professional summaries to state a specific objective. In fact, there may be times when you need to omit any statements about a desired job. For example, if you are distributing resumes at a career fair where there are many different