I have had many questions about creating a locum tenens CV. What should be on there? Should we include nursing experience before work as a nurse practitioner? Do we need to have references?
Here are some tips when creating and organizing your locum tenens CV.
- Include at 3-4 references at the end of your CV. These references should be other nurse practitioner co-workers or supervising physicians. Your agency and job assignment will request to have references they can contact prior to your start date. It makes it easier to have these on your CV for them to refer to.
- Do not include work experience as a RN. Most employers will only really care about your work as a nurse practitioner. This will also become tedious when completing applications for hire because you will have to document every work experience that is on your CV (including addresses, contact information, dates etc).
- List languages you are fluent in or can communicate with medically. This is often the first thing employers will look at when selecting a locum tenens nurse practitioner. For instance, we know that a Spanish-speaking provider can be a high commodity.
- Under job description for previous work experiences, be sure to include special skills and procedures done. Employers like to see that you have done plenty of well woman exams, incision and drainages, suturing and splinting, etc. Just stating that you diagnose and treat is redundant and obvious.
- Be sure to list all of your licenses and certifications. These include state licenses, national certifications, and your DEA. When reviewing your CV compared to other traveling nurse practitioners, employers may quickly cast yours aside if it is not clear that you have the necessary state license.
- Other categories include: education, professional memberships, community service, and awards. Keep these sections concise with dates. There is no need to provide a detailed explanation on these topics.
Of course your resume may also vary depending on your situation. For example, you may be looking to work as a locum tenens nurse practitioner in the Emergency Room, but you do not have any nurse practitioner experience working there. In this case, feel free to include your RN work experience if it was in the ER.
Please send me any questions you may have regarding your locum tenens CV!
Hello,
I am just starting out as a traveling psychiatric NP. I graduated in 2017, so still kind of new to the field. In school they told us to include our clinical experience, at what point would I take that stuff out? I’ve only had one full time NP job at this point and a couple of RN jobs that I still have on my CV related to the psychiatric field. Also as a travel NP you start to work at various positions for short or long lengths of time. Do you specify each job on the CV or is it a general listing “Locum Tenens provider”.
Thank you in advance from your time.
Hi once you have your first Np job you take out your clinical experience. I list all of my temp jobs specifically (both site name and agency name) and then for position I wrote Locum tenens nurse practitioner.