The world of travel healthcare is an exciting one: It blends a passion for travel with both career and personal growth. As a traveling surgical tech, the opportunities to learn and grow are endless. In fact, you’ll gain new experiences and insights into key components of your role across diverse teams and locations.
If you’re eager to learn how to become a surgical technologist on the road but are unsure how to stand out to prospective employers, start with your resume. This guide will detail expert tips on how to optimize your surgical technologist resume, including how to highlight your skills, tailor your resume for travel, and avoid common mistakes.
Key Components of a Strong Surgical Tech Resume
Showcasing your skills as a surgical technologist is all about being thorough—you worked hard to get where you are today, and that should show on your surgical tech resume. The details are important for hiring managers, too. As they search to fill staffing shortages, they’re likely looking for key components that reflect your journey as a surgical tech.
To that end, here are some resume must-haves:
- Education – Most employers require surgical technologists to complete formal education—this can look like an associate degree or certificate. List the name of your degree or certificate and where you received it, like a technical institution or university.
- Certification – Hiring managers will be on the lookout for certification to perform your duties as a surgical tech, so don’t forget to list them, as well as the certifying agency. Not all certifications are required, but they can be preferred in some care settings. Common certifications include Certified Surgical Technologist (CST) or Tech in Surgery-Certified (TS-C).
- Experience and training – Detail the depth of staff experience you have and the extent of training you’ve received in the operating room. Don’t forget to include any core duties of a surgical tech while also highlighting your unique achievements.
Highlighting Your Surgical Tech Experience
Demand for travel surgical technologists can fluctuate based on the location you wish to work, so certain hospitals and healthcare settings can be competitive in terms of applicants, too. For that reason, it’s important to craft a resume that effectively highlights your experience and makes you stand out.
Here’s how to do it:
- Use concise language – While you want to make sure not to miss any details on your resume, it’s important to be concise when communicating your skills. Hiring managers likely review multiple applications at a time—a clean, relevant resume is easier to read and can push you forward in the hiring process.
- Quantify with metrics – Quantifying your experience can offer keener insight into your accomplishments and suggest the kind of impact you might make in your new role. For example, get specific on how many surgeries you’ve assisted, as well as any measurable contributions you made to your hospital, your team, or patient experience.
- Include hard (and soft) skills – In addition to any hard skills you’ve acquired in your training, soft skills reflect essential characteristics of a great travel surg tech (more on this later) and provide a holistic picture of the proficiencies you’ll bring to the role.
- Share your specialties – Listing your specialties showcases your finer skills and can help you stand out in a large pool of applicants. To that end, be sure to include skills and surgical specialties you’re proficient in such as ENT or gynecology. Include the types of cases you have experience with too, like open heart cases, and any specialty tech equipment you’re accustomed to operating, like robotics or DaVinci.
Let’s talk a little more about emphasizing your skills for a surgical tech resume.
Emphasizing Skills That Travel Healthcare Employers Seek
Whether you’re a recent graduate or a seasoned surgical technologist, you’re likely familiar with the importance and expectation of your role. As a travel surgical tech you’ll perform similar duties, but you’ll do it all in shifting care environments and with changing teams.
To that end, it’s important to emphasize the skills travel healthcare professionals are looking for when filling roles. And it’s not just hard skills that can help you stand out—soft skills are essential in the world of travel healthcare as they reflect the personal characteristics that can help you thrive in the field.
A few skills in particular can make surgical technologist ideal for travel positions, such as:
- Strong communication
- Openness to feedback
- Stress management
- Adaptability
- Attention to detail
- Problem-solving
But what about other techniques you can use to tailor your resume for travel positions?
Tailoring Your Resume for Travel Positions
Your resume might already reflect your qualifications and achievements for a surgical technologist position, but tailoring your resume to reflect the travel positions you’re applying for can help move you forward during the application process.
List Relevant Job Skills
As you’re sifting through applications for travel surgical tech positions, take a closer look at the qualifications prospective employers are asking for, and the keywords they’re using to communicate staffing needs. If you have relevant job skills that make you a great match, list them!
For example, perhaps you find a job posting that’s looking for a travel surgical tech with experience scrubbing on-call cases in the OR, and they want the ideal candidate to possess excellent time management skills and problem-solving capabilities. In this case, you’d want to make sure your resume notes that you can manage your time effectively, even amidst changing priorities, and can adapt to surgeries that don’t always go according to plan.
Customize Your Work History
Keep in mind you don’t have to list every facility you’ve worked at or position you’ve held. Instead, customize your work history to reflect your recent work experience and most applicable roles.
Include Your Travel and Per Diem Experience
Traveling is a core component of any travel healthcare profession, so including any travel experience you have showcases that you’re accustomed to the stressors of travel.
Maybe you took a temporary position at a clinic in a neighboring town or city to fill a staffing shortage. Even if you didn’t go very far, your experience traveling to other hospitals and working with different teams is the exposure hiring managers might be looking for to fill a travel role.
Writing a Compelling Professional Summary
A professional summary is often the first thing facility managers and surgeons will see on your resume. Not only does it showcase your top qualifications quickly, but it also allows you to express your interest in the role using your own voice.
If you’re unsure where to start, imagine how you might respond to a surgical tech interview question. The ideal response should convey conviction with effective language. Here are some tips to get started:
- Exude confidence – Writing clearly and confidently is key to a compelling professional summary. This is where you’ll highlight your top qualifications for a travel role, so it’s important to speak with self-assurance.
- Use strong words – Using strong language can set you apart from other candidates, and cuts right to the point of why you’re perfect for the role you’re applying for. Opt for action verbs like “managed” and avoid passive phrases like “was responsible for.”
- Keep it brief – An effective professional summary will include the attributes above in a concise format. Aim to convey your top skills and why you might differ from other candidates in about 2 to 5 sentences.
- Edit for each application – Keep your professional summary fresh and relevant by editing it to reflect each role you’re applying for. Update skills and keywords as needed to reflect the different qualities prospective employers are seeking.
Showcasing Certifications and Continuing Education
Travel healthcare is constantly evolving with new techniques and technologies to meet industry standards and address patient needs. As such, hiring managers might be looking for travel surgical technologists who have up-to-date certifications and a commitment to continuing education.
Consider showcasing any certifications that are relevant to a role in travel healthcare and include any additional education you might be pursuing.
Tips for Formatting Your Surgical Tech Resume
The content of your resume is important, but a well-formatted resume might make facility managers take a second glance. To get started, here are a few helpful tips to keep in mind:
- Use a template with a simple, easy-to-read font
- List experience in reverse chronological order, with recent experience first
- Ensure you use the present tense throughout
- Apply bullet points to blocks of information
A well-formatted resume organizes information for optimal readability and creates a professional first impression right off the page. That said, there are common mistakes applicants make that can decrease their chances of moving forward.
Common Mistakes To Avoid on Your Surgical Tech Resume
Before you submit your resume, review it for common mistakes, like:
- Writing a resume objective instead of a professional summary
- Including unrelated work experience
- Using the same resume for all applications
- Providing few details
- Including only job duties without achievements or impacts
- Poor grammar and lack of structure
Kickstart Your Travel Surgical Technologist Career With Host Healthcare
If you’re looking to start a career in travel healthcare, partner with Host Healthcare. Our responsive, passionate recruiters work with you every step of the way to help you land high-quality jobs in ideal locations that align with lifestyle and career goals.
Because we know how fast-paced the life of surgical techs can be, we make sure your travel experience is as simple and stress-free as possible. We handle logistics and administrative tasks, assist with interview preparation, help you find housing that fits your needs, provide day-1 healthcare benefits, and much more.
Focus on growing in your travel allied career, and we’ll take care of the rest. Explore opportunities today to get started.
Sources:
Indeed Editorial Team. “Surgical Technician Resume Examples and Template for 2024.” Indeed, February 12th, 2024, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resume-samples/surgical-technician. July 29th, 2024.
“What Certifications are Available for Surgical Technologists?” ECPI University, https://www.ecpi.edu/blog/what-certifications-are-available-for-surgical-technologists. July 29th, 2024.
“Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2023, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes292055.htm. July 29th, 2024.
Shaw, Suzanne. “11 Skills You’ll Need for a Career in Surgical Technology.” Health Tech Academy, August 4th, 2023,
https://www.healthtechacademy.org/surgical-technologist/surgical-technologist-skills/. July 29th, 2024.
Indeed Editorial Team. “How To Write a Surgical Technologist Resume Objective in 6 Steps.” Indeed, March 15th, 2024, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/surgical-technologist-resume-objective. July 29th, 2024.
Indeed Editorial Team. “16 Resume Mistakes and How To Avoid Them (With Helpful Tips).” Indeed, July 30th, 2024, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/15-resume-mistakes-to-avoid. July 31st, 2024.
