The skills of a nurse include clinical and soft skills. You’ll learn clinical nursing skills during experiential learning labs and clinical rotations in nursing school. Top clinical skills include medication administration, patient assessment, and wound care. Some important soft skills include communication, empathy, multitasking, and patience.
Nursing skills are the foundation of expertise and competence that nurses must draw upon to do their work well. A nurse’s skillset comprises both hard skills, also known as clinical skills, and soft skills. While clinical skills are specific to the healthcare field, soft skills are broadly transferable to many other fields and professions. Collectively, hard and soft skills for nurses enable them to do everything from drawing blood samples to working with difficult patients.
You can develop the essential skills of a nurse faster at Northeastern University. Our Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program enables you to leverage your prior non-nursing education to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) in as few as 16 months.
Before starting your nursing path, learn why nursing skills are critical for both patients and nurses. Discover some of the top clinical and soft skills essential in the profession and learn some tips for skill development.
Why Nursing Skills Matter for Patient Care and Career Success
Your skills as a registered nurse (RN) can be the difference between a patient recovering and getting worse. Competence in clinical tasks promotes patient safety. In turn, improved patient safety supports better patient outcomes.
The skills of a nurse are also critical to career success. Healthcare employers want to hire nurses with strong clinical and soft skills to foster a collaborative, positive work culture. A diverse skillset supports nurses as they work with colleagues, solve problems, and pursue career advancement.
What can you do with the skills developed in a BSN program? Explore some popular nursing specialties.
Essential Clinical Nursing Skills Every Nurse Needs
The specific clinical skills you’ll use most often depend on your chosen nursing specialty. Some common skills essential for most nurses, however, include the following:
Patient Assessments
Nurses learn to use observation skills, perform exams and check vital signs to assess their patients. They also use a soft skill, communication, when interviewing patients to learn their medical history and symptoms.
Wound Care and Management
Nurses need to know how to properly clean wounds and dress them to prevent infection and other complications.
Medication Administration
Nurses may administer oral, injected, or intravenous medications. They must calculate dosages precisely, administer the drugs properly, record dosages, and monitor patients for signs of adverse reactions.
Emergency Response
All nurses must be prepared to handle medical emergencies at any time, not just emergency room nurses. Some key skills involved with emergency response can include airway management, trauma assessment, rapid stabilization, and basic and advanced life support.
Key Soft Skills of a Nurse That Set You Apart
Soft skills aren’t specific to the nursing field, but they are vital for doing your job well. Top soft skills for nurses include:
Communication Skills
Communication skills are a top asset for nurses. Nurses must use active listening skills when working with patients and others. Expressive communication skills are also critical, such as when delivering patient education.
Compassion
A nurse must exhibit a sincere concern for the patient. Although this may be difficult in stressful emergency situations, a compassionate nurse can make a difference in the patient experience.
Critical Thinking Skills
Nurses rely heavily on their critical thinking skills, such as when performing patient assessments and identifying appropriate nursing interventions. Sometimes, nurses must quickly apply critical thinking skills, such as when a patient’s health status suddenly deteriorates.
Organizational Skills
Nurses must often juggle multiple patients. It’s important for nurses to adapt well to their hospital's workflow system and be prepared to handle any problems that arise. Faulty organizational skills can lead to medical mistakes.
Patience
Not all patients can maintain a pleasant disposition while hospitalized. It’s important for a nurse to remain calm and understanding when dealing with patients.
Professional Ethics
Nurses must always adhere to professional ethics. Above all, they must prioritize the patient’s best interests and their informed choices. This might seem simple at first, but nurses often face highly complex clinical situations. It’s essential to approach each situation with professionalism and a commitment to ethical decision-making.
Multitasking
Nurses are some of the busiest professionals in a typical healthcare ecosystem. They must often care for many different patients on any given shift, especially in fast-paced environments, such as urgent care clinics or the emergency departments. The ability to multitask while still paying attention to every detail is among the most important skills for nurses.
Discover why Northeastern’s ABSN program is a top choice for building the skills of a nurse.
How to Build and Strengthen Your Nursing Skills
You’ll start building your nursing skills during nursing school. In Northeastern’s ABSN program, the online coursework sets the foundation for your nursing education, focusing on the nursing theories behind the profession’s skills. After learning about a nursing concept in classes, you’ll then practice the applied skills during nursing skills and simulation labs.
You’ll work on key clinical skills, such as the application of the nursing process, patient assessments, and nursing interventions. You’ll also have opportunities to work on soft skills, such as teamwork, critical thinking, and communication. At the end of the lab, you’ll receive feedback and get advice for improving your skills in future simulations.
To strengthen your nursing skills, it’s important to fully absorb that feedback and incorporate it into your work moving forward. It’s also a good idea to pay close attention to how other groups of students work through simulations and their feedback. You can learn just as much from feedback intended for someone else as you can from feedback directed at yourself.
Clinical rotations at local healthcare facilities also offer opportunities to strengthen the skills of a nurse. You’ll practice interacting with professional nurses and patients, and begin providing direct patient care. Some tips for strengthening your skills during clinicals include:
- Ask questions if something is unclear. Write down questions to ask later if you cannot ask them right away.
- Be highly receptive to feedback. If feedback isn’t offered, solicit it and work on integrating it into your work moving forward.
- Keep a list of topics that arise during the shift that you haven’t mastered yet. After your shift, review your notes and coursework on those topics.
- Observe how experienced nurses handle specific tasks. Try to emulate them.
How to Showcase Your Nursing Skills in Applications and Interviews
The first step to showcasing your skills is to read the job description carefully. Tailor your CV and cover letter to suit the job description by including a dedicated skills section and featuring clinical and soft skills. You might also integrate skills into your work history. For example, you might say that you applied cultural competence to improve patient satisfaction rates.
Ahead of interviews, prepare an example experience that highlights how you used the skills listed on your CV. If you’re a nursing student, think about how you applied your skills during nursing simulation labs and clinical rotations.
Get Started Today at Northeastern
You can begin building your skillset as a nursing student at Northeastern University’s ABSN program. Available at three locations throughout the country, with three start dates per year and no waitlist, our ABSN program can help you earn a BSN fast. During your time here, you’ll receive personalized support from our nursing instructors and faculty.
Request more information and connected with an admissions counselor today.