Tips for Advancing in Your Nursing Career

As a registered nurse, you’ve committed your time and energy to make people feel better.

You have made an impact in your field to treat patients with attentive care and establish positive connections with them.

You have also supported and managed teamwork with your healthcare coworkers as you’ve assisted practitioners and worked on the front lines alongside your fellow nurses.

You’ve invested passion and dedication to your work, and now you want more.

As an RN, you have several career opportunities to work toward, but how can you attain them?

What needs to be done so your employers recognize you over your esteemed colleagues?

To advance your nursing career, you will need to demonstrate your exemplary efforts in your workplace, potentially revisit your education to learn more concepts to broaden your scope of skills and knowledge in your field, and push yourself.

This will be a marathon, not a sprint, as you enhance your skills and industry insights so you can take on more responsibility and continue making an impact in your healthcare setting.

Here are some ways you can make yourself stand out among other candidates who may also be vouching for advanced nursing roles in your field:

Outline Your Goals

First, it helps to envision what advancement you want to earn in your nursing career.

There are several paths available for RNs to follow.

If you simply choose whatever job opening is available in your workplace, you may lack the passion and drive that employers will want.

You may also struggle to hone your skills toward the specific paths, leaving you less qualified than other RNs who have set their eyes on particular advancement paths.

You’ll commonly experience the question: Where do you see yourself in five years?

Ask yourself this question and build a plan for your next steps in your career.

This leaves room for options beyond the short future but will help you focus your goals so you can work toward them and achieve them.

Consider your options for your nursing career advancement beyond registered nursing:

• Advanced Practice Registered Nursing

  • Requires further education, including a Master’s program in nursing,
    or a Doctorate

  • Involves more nursing responsibilities and supervisor duties

  • More direct patient care with committed clientele under your care

• Nurse Practitioner

  • Registered as an APRN, you would be involved with diagnosis and
    planning treatment solutions for patients

  • Able to devote more time to personal patient care and communications
    while also being the medical correspondent to inform their family of
    the patient’s condition, treatment plan, prevention, etc.

• Specialized Nursing Positions (as an APRN)

  • Involves working specifically within specific healthcare departments

  • Specializations include: Clinical Nurse, Nurse Midwife, Certified
    Registered Nurse Anesthesiologist (CRNA)

• Alternative Nurse Careers

  • Outside of hospital settings, following years of hands-on experience
    in the field

  • Alternative options include Travel Nursing, Health Policy Nurse,
    Nursing Informatics, Public Health Nurse, Home Care Nursing, Forensic
    Nurse, Nurse Advocate, Hospice Nurse, Nurse Writer, Clinical Nurse
    Educator, and more.

Conduct your research to learn about various roles and careers in nursing so you can determine what aligns with your skills and what you want to gain from your position.

What environment do you want to work in?

What daily workload do you want to face?

Are you more hands-on or behind the scenes?

Do you want to take on more responsibility or change your scene?

As you invest thought into your options and determine the skills you need to enhance or the education you will need, you can start your path to earning your next nursing career position.

Stand Out to Earn Your Nursing Career Advancement

You now have an idea of where you want to end up in your next professional step, but how will you get hired over your competition?

You’ll need to display your passion for the position and the nursing field in general and prove that you possess the talent that recruiters are seeking.

Here is how you can proceed to earn more career opportunities in your nursing career:

Grow Your Skills

You have some strengths that employers will be looking for in the position you are working toward, but it’s important to ensure they are exceptional.

Some skills that nursing employers will be looking for in candidates include:

• Leadership qualities
• Ethical conduct
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Stress management and emotional balance
• Professionalism
• Interpersonal abilities
• Positivity

With the mix of soft and hard skills, you will make a positive, memorable impression on recruiters who could help you stand out from other nurses.

Develop a Network

Invest yourself in your field and build connections with other healthcare professionals.

You can share stories and experiences as a nurse so far and learn from other professionals and what they’ve gone through in their careers.

From building a network, you can be more inspired to advance and learn about your nursing career options as you connect with people who work in the roles you aspire toward.

Some ways to build your nursing and healthcare network include using LinkedIn and other networking social media sites, participating in conferences or webinars, and more.

You’ll learn more about the field and also make an impression in your healthcare community.

Learn From a Mentor

In your workplace, try finding a mentor who has advanced in their nursing career that can inspire and guide you.

You can consider them as your role model and grasp the next steps' responsibilities in your nursing career.

Your mentor can take you under their wing to educate you, train you in specific procedures, share their personal experiences on the field, so you can develop the skills and have the knowledge you need to get ahead.

Earn Valuable Certifications With ProMed

Many advanced nursing roles will require further education and training.

You can start now without needing to put your current career on pause by enrolling in ProMed online ACLS, PALS, BLS, and CPR training.

ProMed is a convenient way to achieve certification in your field as you can pause your progress and pick up wherever you left off before or after shifts or on your days off.

Having these certifications will demonstrate your dedication to your field and make you an asset to any nursing setting.

With ProMed, you have a 100% money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk in enrolling.

Visit our site to view our courses and start making moves to advance in your career.