The healthcare industry is deluged with resumes seeking for positions and hiring healthcare institutions hardly have the time to sort through them. Hence, it is imperative for a healthcare resume to be strong and focused on what the candidate has to offer to the organization or the facility to stand the slightest chance of being considered for an interview. Your resume must display knowledge of the changes in trends and showcase skills, experience and commitment. What exactly does a healthcare resume focus on to warrant a second look by the prospective employer and persuade them to read your resume further? Consider these pointers, if you want your resume to get you shortlisted.

1. Highlight (but not elaborate on) your skills. Resist the urge to lay out a narrative of your skills; elaborating can come later. Give a snapshot of your core clinical, administrative and managerial competencies in the field of your expertise. This set of skills indicates how extensive your knowledge is. With the constant advancement of science and technology, training updates in your chosen field are an advantage. Include technical skills and software expertise, especially those related to healthcare.

2. List all credentials. Healthcare careers are typically training-specific and require rigorous education that goes along with the title. List all the appropriate credentials you’ve earned, starting with the highest degree first, followed by professional certifications in your field of specialization. Training certificates carry a lot of weight and are basically used to assess how qualified you are for the job. Internships, professional affiliations, publications (journals, books, articles, reports, etc.), conferences and speaking engagements and awards or honors are likewise worth mentioning. For added boost, utilize job-specific keywords to establish your qualifications.

3. Illustrate, not just tell, your experiences. Employers are very interested in your previous work and accomplishments. However, a resume full of generalities really doesn’t say much about your character. Cite specific accomplishments and unusual experiences in your previous job that add value to your resume.

4. Show your diversity and versatility. Include experiences other than your field, although not entirely unrelated to your expertise; choose a few that can enhance the impression that you’re not only good at health care; but you also have other skills and abilities besides.

5. Best References. While most institutions don’t just hire on the basis of recommendations, respectable and noted people in the industry can still influence a potential employer’s decision, if only at the interview level. Choose wisely and pick the best names that can vouch for your competence, but only provide them when asked.

There are plenty of career options in the healthcare field. People who enjoy helping and working with other people are best suited to this type of career. If you have an abundance of compassion and sympathy, then you are on the right career track…all the more reason for you to craft a focused healthcare resume that can land you an interview…and better still – a job.

Tags: career change, how to write a resume, Interview, interviews, job, job duties, job history, job history in resume, job hunt, job interview, Job Search, job skills, job tips, new job, Personal Branding, professional, Resume, resume help, resume re-write, resume review, resume tips, resume writing, resumes, top resume tips, write a resume

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Applying for a Job, Career Changes, Job Search Tips, Resume, Resume Do's and Don'ts, Resume Help, how to write a resume. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.