Over the coming weeks the team here at Kate Cowhig International Healthcare Recruitment will be working hard to bring you two “Fix it Friday” features on the blog each month.
They will be posted on Friday’s of course, every other week. In these posts we aim to bring you a specific hint or tip to help you really refine and refresh your CV to make it really appeal to healthcare and medial employers! This week’s “fix it Friday” (our very first one) looks at how to really sell your previous work experience to help you secure your ideal healthcare job.
Graduates
First up for you graduates, you must include details of the clinical placements and internships you have participated in. Not all work experience has to be paid work experience to merit inclusion on your CV.
If you don’t include information on your clinical experience you CV will end up looking really blank and employers may start wondering how you’ve been spending your time and if you’re even taking your chosen profession seriously.
Don’t forget, other, non-clinical work experience may also be worth including on your CV as long as you can explain how the skills you gained there may be relevant in a healthcare role.
Experienced Candidates
Second up, for you experience candidates, you need to sell your experience! It’s no secret how oversubscribed healthcare and medical jobs can be so you need to make your CV stand out from the crowd. When listing places you have previously gained work experience include details such as:
- Type of hospital
- Number of beds at the hospital
- Number of beds in your clinical area
- The various conditions of patients you treated or cared for
- Brand names of medical equipment you have used
If you have a lot of previous work experience to list on your CV, then make sure you prioritise these. Put the most relevant experience first so your potential employer can’t miss the most valuable information.
It is also worthwhile linking your skills with your previous work experience, this will help provide ‘proof’ of the skills you say you have. So: if you list patient management as a skill, then this should be noted next to the number of beds in your clinical area at a specific hospital listed in your work experience. E.g.:
“I worked at the Addenbrookes, Cambridge University Hospital (2001-2010), which has approximately 1,180 beds. Working in a hospital of this size ensured I developed good patient management skills…”
If you are struggling to link your skills to your work experience take a look at this blog from Rasmussen. It features charts which relate your number of years’ experience in nursing to the skills you are likely to have acquired.
(Image Source: http://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/nursing/blog/evolution-of-nursing-qualifications-and-skills/)
For more help and advice preparing your CV take a look at our other blog posts and feel free to get in touch with the Kate Cowhig team: info@kcr.ie
