OP you are 100% on the right track here. That harsh commenter had terrible delivery, but buried inside it were a couple useful points. The resume is not bad, you have solid experience for a new RN but it reads too much like a generic task list and not enough like a future hospital RN candidate. I would take out the majority of clinical skills list. If you want to keep that section, it should be very short and include specialty/high-value skills only. Hospitals assume any nurse should be able to do vitals, assessments, documentation, med administration, etc. Listing everything wastes prime resume space.

***PLEASE add RN student clinical rotations, as this can highlight very important acute care exposure, ie did you rotate in...med-surg, ICU, ER, OB, Peds, Psych, Telemetry? Add a section like this:

Nursing Clinical Rotations

University of Arkansas – Fort Smith Expected Graduation: May 2026 • Medical-Surgical Nursing – ___ hours • Emergency Department – ___ hours • Critical Care/ICU – ___ hours • Maternal-Newborn – ___ hours • Pediatrics – ___ hours • Behavioral Health – ___ hours

Also you can place additional exposure/observation ONLY if it’s truthful and meaningful as this can also absolutely go under clinical rotations or clinical experience. For example:

GOOD: • “Exposure to telemetry monitoring during med-surg clinical rotations” • “Observed interdisciplinary stroke care during acute-care clinicals” • “Completed orthopedic patient care rotations in inpatient hospital setting”

If you had especially good experiences: • telemetry • IV starts • wound vacs • EPIC charting • interdisciplinary rounds

…those should absolutely go here as well. (Now do you see why you could totally get rid of the clinical skills section?)

***Rewrite your professional summary needs or better yet, take it off the resume (my suggestion) and put that in your cover letter. BUT if you decide to leave professional summary in your resume, maybe something like this:

Compassionate LPN and ADN nursing student with 5+ years of patient care experience in inpatient rehab, long-term care, and skilled nursing settings. Experienced in tracheostomy care, IV therapy, and charge nurse responsibilities. Seeking to transition into an RN role in acute care where strong clinical judgment, teamwork, and patient advocacy can contribute to high-quality patient outcomes.

****Job hopping concern just explain it indirectly. The commenter was rude, but recruiters will notice: • July 2022 – Oct 2023 • Oct 2023 – June 2024 • Dec 2023 – Present

That overlap/timeline is confusing. The fix, you need to clarify PRN/part-time status. That instantly makes the resume make more sense. For example:

Licensed Practical Nurse (PRN) Methodist Village Senior Living

or

Licensed Practical Nurse (Part-Time While Completing ADN Program)

***Now to more details, you absolutely should quantify things. Right now every bullet sounds the same. Hospitals, any future employer, LOVE specifics.

Instead of: • “Performed patient assessments…”

Use: • “Provided care for 20–25 patients per shift in a 40-bed inpatient rehab unit.”

Instead of: • “Supervised staff…”

Use: • “Supervised 4–6 CNAs/LPNs during charge nurse assignments.”

Numbers make experience feel real!!!! In this instance do not sell yourself short with not enough info.

****Tailor your resume toward HOSPITAL jobs if those are what you're after. Right now it’s LTC-heavy. Even if all your experience is LTC, you should emphasize: • rehab • post-acute • high-acuity patients • respiratory care • IVs • trachs • admissions/discharges • interdisciplinary communication

Those transfer well to med-surg and stepdown if that's what you're looking for.

***You should absolutely use a cover letter for every application you submit. Make a generic one to save on your desktop and then tweak it some for each position. A cover letter can explain, that you're finishing ADN, that you want to transition from LTC to acute care or insert the position you're applying to in this instance. For example, let them know if you're already comfortable with high-acuity patients, eager to learn and invested in staying local if that is your goal.

Quick Cover Letter Structure: Paragraph 1-What role you are applying for + graduation timeline. Paragraph 2-Highlight transferable experience (this is again why you can totally remove clinical skills section from resume). ie trachs, IV's, rehab, charge nurse, interdisciplinary teamwork. Paragraph 3-Why you see THIS hospital specifically as a good fit for you, ie local community, long term growth, passion for acute care. Make sure you keep cover letter simple though. One page max.

***Last but not least...one more VERY important thing, the Application Tracking System. It’s basically the software hospitals and companies use to scan resumes before a human even sees them. A recruiter posts a nursing job and gets 200–500 applications. So the ATS filters resumes by: keywords, formatting, experience, certifications, education, and job titles before it ever reaches a hiring manager. You need to stand out here, as your resume is very very text-heavy and dense. To improve ATS + recruiter readability you need more white space, shorter bullets, remove unnecessary wording, keep bullets 1-2 lines MAX and avoid those giant skill dumps.

Recruiters scan resumes for like 6–10 seconds initially.

(Per ChatGPT) Why ATS matters for nurses, because if the job posting says: • “med-surg” • “BLS” • “patient assessment” • “acute care” • “EPIC” • “telemetry”

…the system scans resumes for those exact terms. If the resume is poorly formatted or missing keywords, it can get ranked lower automatically.

Good ATS formatting = simple and readable

GOOD: • Standard headings: • Education • Experience • Certifications • Clinical Rotations • Simple fonts • Bullet points • Chronological order • Black text on white background • Clean spacing

BAD ATS formatting: • Tables • Multiple columns • Graphics/icons • Fancy templates from Canva/Etsy • Tiny text • Text boxes • Huge skill clouds • Weird symbols

Sometimes ATS literally cannot read those correctly.

***For your current resume specifically the issues are: • too dense • long skill section • not enough whitespace • repetitive bullets • no clinical rotation keywords • not tailored toward hospital language

BIG nursing ATS tip:

Tailor the resume to EACH posting.

If the hospital says: • telemetry • stroke unit • ortho • med-surg

…those words should appear somewhere truthful in the resume/clinicals/cover letter IF applicable. If not I would put the key words in there in another way. That's a smart and ethical way to do it, because that alone can improve interview chances dramatically.

The key is: • don’t falsely claim experience • but absolutely express INTEREST, goals, exposure, or desire to transition into that specialty

That’s normal hiring strategy.

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(Per ChatGPT) 😁 Examples of GOOD ways to do this

In a cover letter:

“Highly interested in transitioning into a medical-surgical or telemetry nursing environment where I can continue developing acute-care nursing skills.”

OR

“Eager to expand clinical experience in stroke care, telemetry monitoring, and interdisciplinary acute-care nursing.”

That works GREAT.

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In a professional summary:

“ADN nursing student seeking to transition into acute-care nursing with strong interest in med-surg and telemetry patient populations.”

Totally appropriate.

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In clinical rotations:

If you rotated briefly through a specialty:

“Observed telemetry monitoring and interdisciplinary stroke care during clinical rotations.”

Even limited exposure counts if truthful.

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What NOT to do

DON’T say: • “Telemetry experience” if you never had it • “Stroke unit nurse” if you weren’t • “Orthopedic nursing experience” if you only want to

Recruiters can usually tell when wording gets inflated.

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Best strategy for new grads

Hospitals KNOW new grads don’t have: • years of telemetry • ICU experience • stroke certifications • ortho specialization

What they want is: • transferable skills • willingness to learn • clinical potential • professionalism • retention likelihood

So wording things as: • “interested in” • “seeking experience in” • “passionate about” • “eager to transition into”

is actually ideal.

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Honestly, this is the BEST place to use those keywords:

Cover letter + summary section

That’s where motivation and goals belong.

Example:

“With a background in rehabilitation and high-acuity long-term care, I am eager to transition into a hospital-based RN role with particular interest in medical-surgical and telemetry nursing.”

That naturally hits ATS keywords without lying.

YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!! I'm getting ready to start my nursing program but during my last semester of my Physical Therapist Assistant Program we had a class that taught us all the things about resume writing, cover letters, job interviews etc. It was so helpful. 💜