34 // You’ve Got the Degree, So Why Can’t You Land a Nursing Job?

🩺 In this episode, I share a real-life coaching experience with a nurse who had a doctoral degree in education (EdD) but struggled to land a job in education. Despite her impressive credentials, she wasn’t getting any callbacks. The problem? Her resume didn’t reflect the experience she needed for the roles she was applying for.

I break down three key strategies that can help YOU avoid the same pitfalls and start landing interviews for the positions you truly want:

1️⃣ **Tailor Your Resume:** Make sure your resume is aligned with the job description. ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) doesn’t care about your degree if they can’t see the relevant experience.
  
2️⃣ **Highlight the Right Skills:** Don’t forget to include critical skills in your resume that reflect the role you’re pursuing, whether it's education, project management, or quality improvement.

3️⃣ **Network Strategically:** While your resume is essential, networking is often the game-changer. Show up where the right people can see you, and let them know you’re serious about advancing your nursing career.

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Join me for a **1:1 Nurse Career Clarity Coaching Call**—a 1:1 coaching session where we’ll get you unstuck and find clarity to make the next move in your career.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The first question I asked was so what's your goal? Again, you don't have to have an overarching goal, but if you're applying for certain positions, especially if you've gotten a doctoral degree, you have a specific thing in mind. It doesn't necessarily have to be an exact role, but you have a focus, a topic in mind in which you want to get a position to help get you closer towards making an impact. Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment? Do you want to make a change in your nursing career but not sure what to do next? Exhausted, burnt out and maybe even ready for different leadership? Burnt out and maybe even ready for different leadership? I'm Bonnie Meadows, a board-certified clinical nurse, specialist, influential leader, career coach and well-being coach. Being in the nursing and healthcare profession since 2004, I have felt stuck and unsure about what was next for me. I wanted to be fulfilled in my purpose, to have a voice at the table and to be a resource for others. I kept telling myself I wanted more, but didn't have the direction I needed, until I found Clarity and Career Growth Strategies for Experienced Nurses Like Me. In this podcast, you will find simple tactical steps that allow you to gain the clarity you need, solutions for how to grow even without supportive leadership and guidelines for setting boundaries at work, so that you can grow purposefully in your career as a nurse with a graduate degree who makes a huge impact in the profession. So get ready to trade your scrubs for yoga pants, pop in those earbuds and let's chat. So you're stuck in that you want to step out but you don't know where to go, what to do, and you don't want to mistakenly step out into a place that might be worse than where you are. You don't have to stay stuck for long. My friend, my one-on-one nurse career clarity coaching is just what you need to get unstuck and get clear direction on the next steps in your career. You will be sitting with someone me who has walked in your shoes, understands the complexity of leaving your comfort zone within nursing or your job in health care. There's more out there for you. Coaching makes it easy for you to talk through the process, get answers to all those questions swirling around in your head and make the next move with clarity and confidence. Sign up for a one-on-one Nurse Career Clarity coaching session so you can purposefully step out into your next move into a place that is right for you. Go right now to bitly slash nursecareerclarity to sign up Again. It's bitly slash nursecareerclarity to sign up Again. It's bitly slash nursecareerclarity. See you soon.

Speaker 1: 3:12

I was coaching someone with a doctoral degree in education. For those of you who might be thinking, huh, an education, there are some nurses and you will see, sometimes, credentials behind their names. A lot of times you see this in academia or within nursing schools, where you will see a professor who has E big E, little d and dot big D. Instead of getting their doctorate degree in nursing, they decided to get a doctoral degree in education. The EdD is sort of like a DNP to where it is focused more on the practice of education versus the science of education. The doctoral of nursing practice focuses on the clinical and actual practice of nursing versus the science of nursing with your PhD.

Speaker 1: 4:16

This particular nurse went back and got her doctoral degree in education, the EdD. She was looking to get a job in education. So she was working in the hospital, actually not at the bedside, she was in more of a support role. She wasn't in education though. She was doing something like quality or case management or infection prevention. She was trying to get a job in education within the hospital system.

Speaker 1: 4:47

We're always looking for educators. Sometimes there's a drought where people might be settled with where they are. Some people are, like you, all their master's prepared, they're doctorally prepared and they're just waiting on the right opportunity to move. This particular person was looking at jobs out there. She was applying, but she wasn't getting any calls back and she's like I just don't understand. I have this doctoral degree in education. So I started to ask questions and she sent me her resume. She said I want to sit down with you and talk about why I'm not getting these calls. I looked over it. When I looked at her resume, there was nothing on there that said she was currently doing anything in education. There was a little blurb here and a little blurb there. We walked through what she needed to change. There was nothing about teaching, nothing about training, nothing about curriculum, nothing about education, and so in this particular episode, I want to take some of those elements that I talked through with her and just tell you three main points on what you need to focus on if you are not getting calls and interviews for a particular positions, or positions that you've had in mind, that you want to possibly do, or a direction you want to go. You've not been getting calls back for that particular position. I also want to put out a disclaimer.

Speaker 1: 6:23

So last week in the podcast I kept talking about your resume going through API and that was a total blooper, as we said back in the 90s. That was a blooper where I said the wrong word. The tracking system that they put your resume through when you apply for a job is not called API, it is called ATS. I knew in this episode I was going to go a little bit deeper into that tracking system, so the tracking system is called ATS. So my first point so I cleaned that up. My first point is that you want to create resumes based on the type of job or job description that you are looking for. I talked make sure it flows with it. With that being said, you put your resume up against the actual job description and there needs to be some wording in your resume that helps the tracking system pick up on oh, they're looking for this person might be a good match for this job. And so, again, one of the reasons why I said you need to have something in here about training, about curriculum, about da, da, da, da da, because the long gone are the days where people look at your resume and they're like, oh, she has a degree in education. Oh, she might be good at this. When you've been in the in the tracking system, it's like, oh, she hadn't been doing anything in this, she might be using her degree for something totally different. Because the computer can't read your mind to say this is what I want to gain experience in. The computer only says this is what she has to bring to the table. That's it. But this is what he has to bring to the table. That's what they're giving back to HR. Hr sees it and they're like OK, all right, we'll move on.

Speaker 1: 8:28

If you're looking for a job in project management, make sure you have that language in there. If you're looking for a job in quality, then make sure you have something about quality improvement and outcomes in your resume. If you're looking for a job in infection prevention, make sure you have that in your resume. If you're looking for a job as a transplant coordinator, make sure you have in your resume how you cared for transplant patients. All of that needs to be in your resume and, as I said before, be in your resume and, as I said before, have your baseline and then create a new resume. It doesn't have to be starting from scratch. You're just changing some words to meet the job description.

Speaker 1: 9:12

When you are looking for a job, it needs to be in the same arena. So if you're applying to five jobs, you're not creating five different resumes. If you want a job in research, find five jobs that relate to research. That way you can submit that same resume to those five jobs. Now, another caveat to this is if you've had a job in that area and it's on your resume like as long as it's somewhere in your resume, so if you're not currently doing that, but you did that maybe about two or three years ago within your 10 year span, and the application applicant tracking system, ats, can pick up on it, then you don't have to do a whole lot of recreating of the wheel.

Speaker 1: 9:58

But it doesn't have to be an exact match, but it needs to be able to pull in some things. If you want a shortcut to this, try using the website Job Scan to see if your resume matches the job description, and then Job Scan can also give you some ideas on what you should put in your resume. Also in that area it's very good to put on the top of your resume not the very top, but once you start to before your work experience, just put in your objective as to what you're looking for, the tracking system also picks up on that. As to what you're looking for, the tracking system also picks up on that. Just for definition sake, ats stands for Applicant Tracking System. It's a software that scans resumes and helps companies filter candidates. It typically uses keywords from the job description and requirements list.

Speaker 1: 10:53

The closer your resume matches, the better your chances of getting selected, and I do have some links that I will be sending out to the Ambitious Nurse Insider list. There's a website that I typically use when I'm doing my research. There are a few that I use that are reputable to kind of help me to pull this information in. I am an expert at the nursing career looking at your resume, looking at a job description, helping you to prepare for an interview based on all of those things. But there are just some things in the resume intricacy that I don't do. Resume audit I can do well, but there's just some intricacies within resumes that I don't do. But I could definitely find the resources for you. So I am adding that resource and sending that out to the Ambitious Nurse Insider. If you're not on that list, make sure you sign up for my email list. It is at the bottom in the show notes of this podcast.

Speaker 1: 11:58

All right, point two evaluate what activities you have done with that particular specialty that you want to focus on and make sure those elements are included in your resume. So this kind of goes back to point one of just looking at your resume, looking at the job description and making sure that within that specialty, you're pulling out those elements and putting them in your resume to make sure that they are standing out. And then three, please do not rely heavily on your resume and on your degrees. We put a lot of stock in getting more education when you learn the language and the significant topics in that particular area that you're trying to pursue, especially if it's a new specialty. Yeah, your resume matters, but how you show up, where you network, where they see you leading, you show up where you network, where they see you leading, that matters even more. As you're putting that on your resume, they can see how involved you are professionally and that gives them an indication of oh well, they're going to show up, oh, they're pretty engaged, so I know what I'm getting you want them to see you before they actually have to lay eyes on you, and getting involved in networking is one of those ways. All right, that's it.

Speaker 1: 13:44

I think this might be one of my shortest episodes, but that's all I have for you today. If you're not getting job offers, these are the top things you need to look at. This is one of those episodes you can go through and get a quick win. Say, I'm going to apply these principles looking at my resume, making sure that the activities that I've done within a particular specialty, that it's very focused and those elements are within the resume, within the resume. Making sure the resume fits the job descriptions not to the exact, but in a roundabout way, and even possibly using that website job scan to see if your resume matches the job description. And then, of course, lastly, making sure that you're reaching out to people networking saying hello.

Speaker 1: 14:34

You know, sometimes managers, they get 50 million emails, even for a director role. So the more you can put yourself out there to help raise your stock to the top, the better off you are. So they don't have to go through all of those resumes Now. They still have to go the HR route, but you also want it to be that somebody else is helping to speak up for you because you've networked and connected with others and let others know of your intentions. So just keep that in mind. I'll see you next week. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with another nurse who may be unsure of where to go next in their career or maybe need some career clarity? Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple podcast. It brings me so much joy and so much encouragement to know this podcast is helping you. Now go get the career you want and not the one you settle for, and I'll meet you back here next Thursday for another episode. See you soon.