Skip to Main Content

Travel Nurse Must-Have Resume Skills and Keywords

Are you interested in improving your job outlook and increasing your salary? How can you demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate for a Travel Nurse position? Of course continuing to gain experience working as a Travel Nurse may be your best qualification, but there are other ways you can also develop your skills, like continuing education or volunteer opportunities. More immediately, however, you can be ready for your next opportunity or promotion by educating yourself about the duties, responsibilities, and required skills of a Travel Nurse and making sure your resume reflects your experience properly.

We designed the ZipRecruiter Career Keyword Mapper to help you solve this problem and hopefully improve your resume. Using machine learning tools paired with industry research, our Marketplace Research Team helped analyze millions of job postings and resumes to identify the most important keywords related to Travel Nurse jobs. Our goal is to help you discover opportunities to improve your resume or to help you understand what skills and qualifications you need to be a Travel Nurse or to advance your career into beyond this role.

Top Skills Mentioned in Job Descriptions

Top
10
Job Skills
Employers require a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of Travel Nurse positions. The top three keywords make up 46.35% of the total set of top terms. Look to the Resume Checklist below to see how Registered Nurse, Basic Life Support, and ICU shares stack up against the share from resumes. ACLS, Clinic and Surgery represent an additionally healthy share of the employer Travel Nurse job postings with their combined total of 26.42%. At 27.24%, Medical-Surgical Nursing, Critical Care, Intensive Care, and Progressive Care Unit appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Travel Nurse skills and requirements according to employers.

Top Skills Mentioned in Resumes

Top
10
Job Skills
Job seeker resumes showcase a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of Travel Nurse positions. The top three keywords represent 41.26% of the total set of top resume listed keywords. Look to the Resume Checklist below to investigate how Hospital, Registered Nurse, and Basic Life Support match up to employer job descriptions. Clinic, Patient Care, and ACLS represent a very decent share of skills found on resumes for Travel Nurse with 31.44% of the total. At 27.3%, Medical-Surgical Nursing, IV, Collaboration, and BSN appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Travel Nurse skills and qualifications found on resumes.

Most Important Skills Required to Be a Travel Nurse as Listed by Employers and Employees

Here is a simple table of the top 10 skills and qualifications as listed by employers in Travel Nurse job postings since January of 2018, followed by the top 10 skills and qualifications most commonly listed by people who held the title of Travel Nurse on their resumes.
Top Travel Nurse Skills
Skills Required by Employers Share
Registered Nurse 24.54%
Basic Life Support 11.63%
ICU 10.18%
ACLS 9.64%
Clinic 9.23%
Surgery 7.55%
Medical-Surgical Nursing 7.49%
Critical Care 6.62%
Intensive Care 6.61%
Progressive Care Unit 6.52%
Skills Listed by Employees Share
Hospital 13.99%
Registered Nurse 13.97%
Basic Life Support 13.30%
Clinic 11.27%
Patient Care 10.30%
ACLS 9.87%
Medical-Surgical Nursing 7.52%
IV 7.13%
Collaboration 6.75%
BSN 5.90%

Travel Nurse Resume Checklist

Our Resume Keyword Checklist is based upon an analysis of the most commonly found terms within both job descriptions and resumes for Travel Nurse roles. Our algorithm helps isolate phrases and patterns to identify the most frequently recurring and reused keywords from each data source, while correcting for uncommon and outlier results. Various heuristic methodologies are then applied to ultimately create two top 20 lists of the most important and significant skills, certificates and requirements found within Travel Nurse job postings and resumes. We then merge the two lists together and use a combination of statistics and rules-based scenarios to create a list that is audited by the Marketplace Research team, and finally turned into the checklist you see below. Our hope is that knowing this information can help you make your best impression with your next potential employer.
Uncommon Keywords on Travel Nurse Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
CCU
Intensive Care
Neonatal
PACU
Employer job listings often list CCU, Intensive Care, Neonatal or PACU as requirements in Travel Nurse job descriptions; however, job seekers mention them far less frequently on their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for a Travel Nurse role may help you stand out more to hiring managers.
Common Keywords on Travel Nurse Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Progressive Care Unit
Emergency Department
ICU
Registered Nurse
Emergency Room
Critical Care
Telemetry
Surgery
Trauma
Pediatrics
Medical-Surgical Nursing
ACLS
Basic Life Support
BSN
Clinic
Both employer job listings and resumes from people who’ve held the role of Travel Nurse tend to always include skills and requirements found in this list. Whether you’ve only got Progressive Care Unit, Emergency Department, ICU, Registered Nurse, Emergency Room, Critical Care, Telemetry, Surgery, Trauma, Pediatrics, Medical-Surgical Nursing, ACLS, Basic Life Support, BSN or Clinic in your background and experience, make sure to highlight the term prominently on your resume. As a job seeker you’ll be competing with many others who are bound to have as many as you (or more!) of these common resume keywords highlighted in their application for a job as a Travel Nurse.
Uncommon Keywords on Travel Nurse Job Descriptions
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Rehabilitation
Employer job listings seldom list Rehabilitation as important skills or qualifications in Travel Nurse job descriptions. Nevertheless, job seekers mention them much more commonly in their resumes. If you possess this experience, including this keyword prominently on your resume when applying for a Travel Nurse role may go unnoticed or even discounted by hiring managers.

FAQs about Travel Nurse Skills and Resume Keywords

What are the most important Travel Nurse job skills to have on my resume?

The most common important skills required by employers are Progressive Care Unit, Emergency Department, ICU, Registered Nurse, Emergency Room, Critical Care and Telemetry. These skills and requirements are just as likely to be mentioned by employers as well as on resumes of people that held a job as a Travel Nurse, suggesting that having these keywords on a resume are important for success as a Travel Nurse. Additionally, employer Travel Nurse job descriptions list CCU as a desirable experience, even though CCU appears 6.58 times less on resumes, suggesting that it's worth considering including this term if you possess the experience.

What are the least important Travel Nurse job skills to have on my resume?

Although you'd probably love to load up your resume with every possible keyword you can, employers tend to look for the things they specify in the job description. Our analysis suggests that highlighting too prominently a term like Rehabilitation which appears 0.21 times less often than in job descriptions for a Travel Nurse role indicates that highlighting this on your resume may not be a great way to stand out.

How do I make sure my resume has all of the right keywords for a Travel Nurse position?

Unless your resume has a good density of the following skills and experience listed, you may not be considered for the role of Travel Nurse. Make sure to include a strong showing for the following keywords on your resume:
  • Progressive Care Unit
  • Emergency Department
  • ICU
  • Registered Nurse
  • Emergency Room
  • Critical Care
  • Telemetry
  • Surgery
  • Trauma
  • Pediatrics
  • Medical-Surgical Nursing
  • ACLS
  • Basic Life Support
  • BSN
  • Clinic
Additionally employers frequently list the following as desirable qualities in a Travel Nurse candidate, but they are far less common on most resumes:
  • CCU
  • Intensive Care
  • Neonatal
  • PACU
Finally people who held the position of a Travel Nurse and list it on their resume are adding these terms that are less likely to be noticed by employers. You may want to consider downplaying these terms on your Travel Nurse application:
  • Rehabilitation

Before applying for a Travel Nurse job

At ZipRecruiter, we understand better than anyone the importance of using the right keywords to describe your experience — it’s crucial to attracting the right employers! We built our business on the ability to effectively match job seekers with employers using AI-technology that understands your resume and how likely you are to be noticed by a potential future employer. Having a ZipRecruiter profile that showcases your most relevant skills and abilities can help you get recruited into a new role as a Travel Nurse. Get started on your journey with a new ZipRecruiter Profile today!