Large health systems — HCA, Ascension, CommonSpirit, Kaiser, most university hospitals — funnel every application through Workday, Taleo or iCIMS before a nurse recruiter sees it. These parsers read top-to-bottom, single-column text; the graphic-heavy nurse templates sold as downloads (skill bars, sidebar columns, icon headers) frequently drop your certifications into unreadable fields or out of order. If the parser can't find "RN" and "BSN," the recruiter's keyword search can't either.

Practical rules: keep "Registered Nurse" and your degree letters (BSN, ADN) in your title line, use standard section headings (Experience, Licenses & Certifications, Education), and never put your license or contact details in a header/footer or text box — Taleo in particular ignores them. This template follows all of these by construction.

Recruiters screening RN applications verify licensure before reading a single bullet, so give licenses their own section directly under your summary. List each credential on its own line with the issuing body and status: state RN license with license number and state (add "Nurse Licensure Compact" if yours is a compact state — it widens where you can be hired), then BLS and ACLS with "American Heart Association" spelled out, since some systems match on the issuer.

New grads: put "NCLEX-RN passed [month year]" here if your license is still processing, or the license itself the day it posts — never leave recruiters guessing. Specialty certifications (PCCN, CCRN, CMSRN, RNC-OB) also live here, and they matter: they're literal keywords in postings for their units. Skip expired certifications entirely; an out-of-date ACLS reads worse than none.

Nurses often object that patient care can't be measured — but the numbers are already in your shift: patient ratios ("4:1 on a 36-bed telemetry unit"), unit type and bed count, patient population, and volumes (medication administrations, admissions/discharges per shift). Add unit-level outcomes when you touched them: falls per 1,000 patient days, CLABSI/CAUTI rates, HCAHPS movement, rapid responses initiated. "Provided compassionate patient care" tells a recruiter nothing; "carried 5-6 post-surgical patients per shift and initiated 9 rapid responses over two years" tells them exactly what you can handle.

Name your EHR explicitly — Epic or Cerner (Oracle Health) — because hospitals filter for it, and switching costs are real to them. Superuser status, go-live support, or training peers on the EHR is a genuine differentiator and belongs in a bullet, not just the skills list. New grads should list clinical rotations like jobs: unit, hospital, hours, and patient population, with preceptorship hours front and center.