Nursing Job Description Templates by Position

Finding the right nursing staff to complete your healthcare team can be challenging — especially given rising nursing shortages. One of the first steps toward productive recruitment is the job listing. Crafting a nursing job description that shines above the rest will help your organization entice a candidate who’s motivated by your mission and fits in with your team.

Developing job descriptions can be trickier than it sounds. It’s a fine line between “too vague to inspire” and “overwhelmingly detailed.” This comprehensive guide will help walk you through the essentials of a well-crafted job listing and offer position-specific templates for your convenience.

What Is a Nursing Job Description?

Attracting top candidates to fulfill your staffing needs requires you to go beyond a simple list of jobs in the nursing field. Potential hires looking to advance their careers will want more information than just location and pay, especially when nursing professionals are in such high demand. They want to know how your position is going to help them meet their long-term goals.

A well-crafted posting should clearly outline the job’s expected duties and responsibilities, while also enticing future hires with benefits and key details that set your facility apart. It’s an elevator pitch, framed as a brief overview, that can usher in your ideal care team.

What Are the Benefits of a Well-Written Job Description?

A quality job posting not only describes the day-to-day expectations and responsibilities, but also creates a foundation for talent acquisition and retention by clarifying what your facility stands for and who it’s looking for to achieve its goals.

Hiring staff who applied because your mission statement aligns with their own goals can streamline their integration into your unit culture. Clarifying your expectations around roles and performance measures can help facilitate a smoother transition and onboarding experience. Additionally, using a template approach to your job descriptions may help you to maintain legal compliance and fair, transparent compensation systems.

Create Your Ideal Nursing Job Description: 5 Tips

For the general approach to nursing healthcare job descriptions, here are five tips to help your facility’s job advertisements stand out and attract the best candidates.

1. Clarify the Role and Duties

A well-written nursing job description should clearly define what the job entails and what a candidate will be responsible for.

Suggestions:

• Include the position title (RN versus LPN, for example) and any associated specialty.
• Clarify the type of work the future hire will be expected to handle.
• List several tasks to give examples of pertinent clinical skills that may be needed.

2. Carefully Curate Requirements

It’s important to be mindful when establishing your requirements. Stick to only the critical certifications and experiences to avoid dissuading the ideal candidate who may simply require some slight additional training.

Suggestions:

• Curate your minimum requirements well ahead of time.
• Include only the necessary skills and qualifications as must-haves.
• Feature bonus qualifications as preferred.

3. Highlight Your Mission

The ideal mission statement clearly defines the organization’s purpose and goals. Including yours within your nursing job description will tell candidates a lot about your facility and the possibility of goals alignment.

Suggestions:

• Feature your mission statement in your introductory overview.
• Link a unit-specific or job-specific goal.
• Advertise the possibilities for further engagement (like shared governance opportunities).

4. Use Inclusive Language

To better support the diversifying population of healthcare professionals in the U.S. and ensure care delivery is culturally competent at your facility, job descriptions must be welcoming and free of bias.

Suggestions:

• Use inclusive language and eliminate ethnic, racial, or other biases.
• Consider different levels of language processing.
• Reference this inclusive job description guide to promote culturally sensitive hiring practices.

5. Boast About Your Team

Here’s the fun part! It’s important to let potential hires know why they want to work with your team, and bragging goes a long way when encouraging professionals to apply for your jobs.

Suggestions:

• Feature your team’s awards and moments of recognition.
• Give examples of how your team provides leadership at your facility.
• Illustrate positive aspects of your team culture and prioritization of teamwork.

Nursing Job Description Templates by Position

Now that we’ve touched on the fundamentals of healthcare job descriptions, here’s a comprehensive list of job description templates for more specific nursing roles and teams. You can utilize these whenever you’re wondering, for instance, What is a job description for a nurse if hiring for the ICU versus urology? or other questions along those lines.

These will not only link you directly to ready-to-use templates and nursing job description samples that are not only helpful but also adaptable to suit your facility’s individual needs and preferences.

General Nursing Positions

If you’re looking to hire a nurse, having a templated job description that is optimized for the preferred licensing level is the first step in finding the professional candidate you need.

Job Description Tip: Be mindful that many applicants may be new graduates. Making your key requirements more generalized rather than specific may encourage new nurses or even more experienced nurse practitioners to apply.

Nursing Specialty Positions

While a general nursing job template may apply to many healthcare postings, a specialty template for your nursing job description can help streamline your hiring process. These specialized job descriptions can help target and ensure that your specialty role candidates are aware of the unique skill sets and knowledge necessary for the job.

Job Description Tip: Many nurses choose to transition into a new specialty due to burnout or revised career goals. Consider focusing on cross-functional skill requirements to account for nurses who may offer applicable experiences from other nursing specialties.

Nursing Support Positions

The care team isn’t limited to nurses. It takes an interdisciplinary team to ensure efficient delivery of safe, quality care. To best assist your nurses and to optimize patient care, you’ll need job description templates that can help you pull in the right support staff.

Job Description Tip: As you draft your nursing support job role and responsibility descriptions, consider focusing on those skills and qualities that would complement your team’s existing strengths and bolster weaknesses.

Nursing and Non-Nursing Healthcare Leadership Positions

Quality leadership can help steer a facility to success. Ensure that your nurse leaders and healthcare executives are motivated to help you reach your goals by identifying common values from the very start through your job description.

Job Description Tip: Attract candidates who will be mission focused as they lead by asking for qualities that align with your mission and future goals. Avoid ageist language that may discourage younger, driven candidates from applying.

Non-Clinical Healthcare Positions

Medical facilities are often host to many complex processes that require skills and knowledge that range across many different professions. If you’re looking to hire additional support for your information privacy department, for example, here are some possible job templates to help your search.

Job Description Tip: Encourage non-clinical healthcare professionals to join your organization by exclaiming the benefits and offering notable instances of how integral their work is to the overall facility mission.

Find the Perfect Fit for Your Healthcare Team

Ready to use the best-fitting nursing job description template to streamline your hiring process? IntelyCare can help you reach your ideal candidates. Post to our job board and connect with millions of qualified healthcare professionals who are actively seeking the next step in their career.