Nurse Certification: Credentials & Renewal

Displayed in a Hospital Family Area

What can you do?  What do you know? Healthcare is in the public view on many fronts today. Nurses know that better than most. They are constantly being challenged to show evidence of growth within their profession, seek continuing education for new protocols, or pursue more advanced degrees.

You might be enrolled in the first semester of your nursing program or working toward an R.N. or Doctor of Nursing degree as you read this. One task you are each aware of is the need for showing what you can do and demonstrating what you know for external certification boards as well as to meet internal requirements of your college or workplace.

Prototype of a myeFolio site for the Professional Nurse

The portfolio approach, long practiced in the healthcare profession, has made the shift from paper binders to electronic systems. Some systems have a short shelf life (used only to submit your evidence for evaluation) while others provide an easily accessible place to keep current records, documentation and evidence.

In today's Spotlight, the focus is on the content a nurse would include in their myeFolio site and how to best organize it. When getting started, you might be stressed but as you plan your pages and routinely add  postings, your portfolio can become an organized presentation of your career data.

Page Listing from Professional Section

Page Listing from Education Section

A detailed page chart is provided at the Prototype Site. When the site displays, click the "Prototype Page Chart" link from the text overlay to reveal content considerations and suggestions for pages or sections such as:

Home / Welcome  Professional Section Education Section Resume Critical Reflections

Each site is unique as you'll see in the "featured sites" posted on our showcase page. Feel free to visit each of these professional nurse's sites by clicking an image thumbnail below.
Remember that your myeFolio site will not be viewable if you set its status to private or disabled. Likewise, you can configure specific pages to remain hidden from view. When you change the site display status setting to "public," it is technically possible for anyone to view your site online. Unless you list your myeFolio URL with one of the major search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo) or link your site to a Website that is indexed by a major search engine, it would be difficult to find your site without knowing its URL. For these reasons, your content is unlikely to be seen by anyone who does not know your URL or has not received a visitor invitation from you.

Note: Additional "certification by portfolio" guidelines can be found online by searching your professional journals and association publications.

Job Search? It's Time to Promote Your Site!

Now, as summer arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, recent graduates or students on summer break are looking for employment! Whether you are looking for that first "big break" in the career you prepared for or simply need work so you can pay for tuition and pizza when you return to campus in August, we have some suggestions to help you get noticed. It should be no surprise that we encourage using your eFolio site as a major strategy in your search.

Assumption 1: Your myeFolio site is ready to share.
   (If not, our recent Jumpstart Series would help you through the process.)

Assumption 2: Your site presents a positive reflection of you.

Assumption 3: Your site is work appropriate and aligned to your employment goals.

In our media rich digital lives, it's no longer true that if you build it, they will come.  However, if you built it, you should be sharing it. Using eFolio sites for the job search has become commonplace -- you need to do this!

Question to ponder: How do you get people to find or look at your eFolio site?

Answer that relates to myeFolio: Use hyperlinks, image links, QR codes or simple "show & tell" anywhere you can to point viewers to your site.

Where should you focus your energy in promoting your site?

Share the URL for your site in every inquiry you send out (by social media, job boards, texts, email, or paper mail). Point people back to your site in the follow-up correspondence you send to hiring staff.

Add your site URL to printed Resume or CV copies. How about printing some personal networking cards with significant bullet points from your elevator pitch on one side and contact info on the flip? Add a QR code that opens to your site when scanned! Discover where the QR Scan directs you!

Connect to your site from your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. Post your site URL to your professional online profiles. One tactic is to post the link to your Resume (as a page of your site) so while viewing it, people encounter other page links to learn more about you.

Answer face-to-face questions with ease by "Show & Tell" during interviews, networking at Career Fairs or while visiting with your contacts. It is so natural -- use your mobile device to reveal key evidence from your site as you talk about your experience.

Use your eFolio site to share other places where you can be "found" on the Web -- any significant online presence such as LinkedIn or other postings of your work (Prezi, SlideShare, image  collections, animations, YouTube video recordings, or Blogs and professional sites) can be helpful.

Your eFolio site is like a multimedia billboard about you...be sure it gets noticed. If you are the best candidate for the position, your eFolio should be useful in promoting that to employers.

To share experiences you've discovered in using myeFolio in your job search process, use the "Comments" link below! Positive or not, we want to hear from you.