Licensed Practical Nurse resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 17 skills, tools and credentials that come up in licensed practical nurse job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 10
- Medication administration (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- Med pass (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- Wound care (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- Vital signs (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- Care plans (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- Change in condition (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- SBAR (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- Long-term care (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- Skilled nursing (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- IV therapy
Tools & software · 2
- PointClickCare (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- eMAR (used in Latoya's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 4
- Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- LPN license (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- NCLEX-PN (used in Latoya's sample resume)
- BLS (used in Latoya's sample resume)
Soft skills · 1
- Family communication (used in Latoya's sample resume)
16 of 17 appear in Latoya's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Medication administration, Skilled nursing, eMAR
Weak: Skills: Medication administration, Skilled nursing, eMAR
Strong: Complete medication administration for 22–26 residents per shift on a 44-bed skilled nursing unit, documenting in the eMAR
Wound care
Weak: Skills: Wound care
Strong: Perform wound care, dressing changes and treatments for 8–10 residents a shift and update the wound care nurse weekly
Change in condition, SBAR
Weak: Skills: Change in condition, SBAR
Strong: Report each change in condition to the RN supervisor and provider using SBAR; the unit's 30-day hospital readmissions fell from 22% to 16% in a year
Care plans
Weak: Skills: Care plans
Strong: Assign and supervise 3–4 CNAs per shift and check that care plans are followed
Strong bullets come from Latoya's sample resume and our licensed practical nurse bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a licensed practical nurse post asks for Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and you've used it, say Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN), in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a licensed practical nurse post says "LPN license", write "LPN license", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Medication administration — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Medication administration. A bullet like the one under Licensed Practical Nurse in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
Which of these does your resume say?
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/ Questions
Licensed Practical Nurse keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a licensed practical nurse resume have?
There's no magic number. Latoya's sample resume uses 16 of the 17 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a licensed practical nurse post says "Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)", write "Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Latoya's sample, Skilled nursing is in the summary and Medication administration shows up in a bullet under Licensed Practical Nurse. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a licensed practical nurse resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in licensed practical nurse posts include PointClickCare and eMAR. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and LPN license on my resume?
Spell them the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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