Is Travel Nursing Experience Good for Your Resume?
By Melissa Mills, RN, BSN, CCM, MHA
Travel nursing is an excellent want to build up your clinical skills and resume. While you may not see it as black and white as that, nurses who go on travel nursing assignments often are exposed to advanced technology practices and procedures that benefit them and their future patients.
Having a balance of both clinical and softer skills is key to taking what you learn while on a travel nursing assignment and staying competitive. When coupled together, a nurse with this balances makes for a well-rounded, hard-working employee. Below are some of the most popular soft skills a recruiter or hiring manager look for when reviewing your travel nursing experiences.
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Top reasons why travel nursing improves your resume
Communication
According to a study on Communication in Nursing Practice, published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health, good communication with your patients improves the quality of care you provide.
Your travel nursing experiences will provide great opportunities to enhance these skills. With each new assignment, you must be able to communicate your clinical skills, level of experience and comfort with various types of patients. Being exposed to different electronic medical records and documentation protocols will also increase your ability to communicate with your team.
Teamwork
From the minute you step in a unit, you will be depending on your new team and vice versa. Collaborating with others effectively is the essence of teamwork.
With every new travel nursing experiences comes a new team composition. Learning to be flexible and attuned to what skills you need to be successful will be very important. And, including teamwork on your resume lets potential employers know that you will be an asset to the overall work environment.
RELATED: Team-based Care: Getting Doctors and Nurses to Work Together
Professionalism
It requires being dependable, reliable, and a hard-worker. Professionalism is the combination of the small things you do every day that communicates who you are in a big way. The nurse manager on each unit will need you to be the missing link to their staffing needs. This skill will be invaluable to your career for many years to come.
Problem Solving
During your travel nursing experiences, you will learn new protocols, state laws, and more -- problem-solving is a much-needed asset. Including problem-solving on your resume allows recruiters and hiring managers to know you have what it takes make quick, accurate decisions in times of crisis.
Flexibility
A nurse who is flexible is dependable, regardless of what is thrown at him or her. Flexible nurses are calm in stressful situations. Every nurse has a certain level of flexibility, but with more travel nursing experience, you will not only possess this skill, but also excel at it.
Flexibility also shows that you have a certain level of creativity. Being able to look at a situation and find two or three “right” answers is important in high-stress nursing units.
Travel nursing experiences provide many skills. You will gain clinical skills and soft skills that will help you achieve the nursing career you desire throughout your professional life.