3. Disregarding definition
Before contacting your next hospital, you need to know how you’re marketing yourself and to whom. Defining yourself as the best possible candidate for a job requires you to learn how your education, skills and experience apply to the expectations of nursing managers. For each application, know to what extent your background can be presented as the “perfect fit,” or at least a good-enough-to-call-for-an-interview fit. If you don’t know, and you’re just sending out resumes with the hope of getting lucky, then you’re playing a lottery. Instead, spend four hours preparing a customized resume and cover letter for one position that you see as a great fit rather than spending four hours sending 40 standard resumes to random positions from a job board.