Having a great resume as a travel ultrasound tech, echo tech, radiology tech, lab tech, or respiratory therapist is so important for getting interviewed and hired. After traveling for 6 years, I became a pro at interviewing on the phone every 13 weeks for my next travel assignment. But there was something crucial that had to happen before the phone interview with my potential employer. I had to look good enough (on paper) for the hiring manager to even select me to be interviewed. The resume is the first impression and once you have perfected your travel allied resume, your allied health career will become much easier.
Let’s start with the basics which is a list of what to include inside a travel allied resume. Some of these items may seem basic but sometimes it’s surprising how many people forget the basics. I had to review healthcare professionals’ resumes when I was helping staff a strike once. It was surprising how hard it was for me to even find the name of the traveler’s specialty on their resume.
Travel allied resume checklist
- Specialty. Make it very clear and easy to spot that you are an ultrasound tech, echo tech, radiology tech, lab tech, or respiratory therapist, etc.
- Years of relevant work experience/clinical experience
- Education. The name of the school and the degree you earned.
- State licensure
- Registries
- Certifications and extra training. Examples could be an active BLS cert or any advanced certification/additional certification you’ve taken.
- Work history. List this with a start and end date and name the facility you worked at. You can say in the description that you were a travel ultrasound tech, echo tech, radiology tech, lab tech, or respiratory therapist on a 13-week contract so it makes it very clear why you bounce around so much. Also, state very clearly the type of setting. For example, if the name of the facility was Eisenhower, also state if it is a hospital, clinic, skilled nursing home, or outpatient facility (etc).
- Description. This will explain the general scope of work performed at each healthcare facility. This can be an overlooked place to be able to shine and share your relevant experience. You can say the patient caseload size, any unique job requirements, if it was day or night shift, if you floated or worked on-call, special equipment you used at this facility, typical diagnoses you work with, or specialized treatments used. This is a great place to pack with keywords and additional details. Talk about your skills rather than just copy and paste general descriptions.
- Keywords. Write your resume as if the hiring manager does not know about your specialty (this happens a lot in the hiring process). They might have a list of words and specifications to try to find on your resume to see if you match what their facility needs. Make your resume very easy to scan to find relevant keywords that a hiring manager would be impressed with. If they can easily read and understand your resume in minutes – that’s a big win!
- Summary. This can be two or three sentences that show off your great personality, communication skills, and interpersonal skills. It allows you to highlight the specific strengths you want the hiring manager to see at the top of your resume, whether it’s clinical skills or the compassionate care you give patients. This is about how you can contribute to them, it is not stating your career goals or writing an objective statement.
- Electronic documentation systems. List any of these that you have used. This can help you stand out if you already know a system that the facility uses because you will need a shorter orientation time.
- References right on the resume. As a travel ultrasound tech, echo tech, radiology tech, lab tech, or respiratory therapist, your references are part of your submission and application to facilities. This one saves time for everyone to just have them already listed and it shows that you went the extra mile. A great tip is to ask your allied manager for a written reference while you are on assignment!
Those are the basics components that make up a travel allied resume. Now let’s move to checklist number two, which is a fun one! This is the what not to do checklist.
6 things to avoid when making a travel allied resume
- Cover letters. It is not necessary for travel healthcare.
- Grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes. I can be the queen of this but on a resume, there are no excuses. Your travel allied resume is usually one or two pages long and it’s your first impression of getting (or not getting) an amazing travel allied job. Proofread. Then have your mama proofread. Read it out loud (for real). Then put it into Grammarly. Grammarly is a free website that is great at catching any potential spelling or grammar error in your writing.
- Having only one resume. It is a great idea to have two or three versions of your resume that highlight different skills and keywords depending on what travel allied job setting you are applying for. As a travel ultrasound tech, echo tech, radiology tech, lab tech, or respiratory therapist, you have such a cool life. You can work one travel assignment in a hospital and then the very next could be an outpatient clinic. With that style of career, you end up with a lot of skills. You can decide which ones to highlight and talk more about depending on the setting you are applying for. This will also help your application process to go a bit more smoothly. To keep this simple, the resumes can be almost the same but the summary at the top can change!
- Including unrelated details. Your travel alllied resume should be all about your previous experience in allied healthcare jobs and your clinical skills. The hiring manager doesn’t care if you used to work at Starbucks or that you used to have a real estate job. So keep your resume specific to your past allied health experiences and relevant career skills.
- Being too cute on your resume. Use simple fonts and keep formatting very clean. The goal is for the resume to be very scannable. You want it to be easy to find the details and skills you have quickly. Hiring managers could just skip you altogether if it’s hard to quickly scan and find what they need. PS: Don’t underline anything! Many resumes are sent through a computer system to find keywords and an underline can mess it up from finding what it needs to on your resume. Avoid images, colors, and design elements. Simple is best for our industry!
- Not listing all your clinical experience. Don’t list less experiences just to keep the resume to one page. You don’t have to have a one-page resume in this industry. List all your travel jobs!
With these two travel allied resume checklists, you are on your way to landing your dream travel allied job! You can even start browsing open travel allied jobs right now. If you see one you like, I will connect you to the staffing agency that has the job. And now you can send them your awesome new resume.
Cheers to having the best resume ever!
