If healthcare is your name and helping patients is your game, then you might consider a career as a staff nurse. Typically, you'll work in a healthcare facility of some sort, whether that be a hospital or a nursing home.
As a staff nurse, you'll be working closely with doctors and other nurses to ensure patients receive the utmost care and treatment for their health conditions. Usually, this line of work seals the deal with crazy hours. But staff nurses tend to be a little different.
It can vary, but you usually won't work over 40 hours a week. In fact, some weeks you may only work 35 hours. This great schedule does come with a price tag - student debt, to be exact. In order to become a staff nurse, you'll need to earn a bachelor's degree. I mean, you have to know what you're doing in this job so that much makes sense.
How to Become a Staff Nurse
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a staff nurse. For example, did you know that they make an average of $32.08 an hour? That's $66,734 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 12% and produce 371,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Staff Nurse Do
There are certain skills that many staff nurses have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, compassion and detail oriented.
How To Become a Staff Nurse
If you're interested in becoming a staff nurse, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 44.0% of staff nurses have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 5.4% of staff nurses have master's degrees. Even though some staff nurses have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a staff nurse. When we researched the most common majors for a staff nurse, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on staff nurse resumes include diploma degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a staff nurse. In fact, many staff nurse jobs require experience in a role such as registered nurse. Meanwhile, many staff nurses also have previous career experience in roles such as licensed practical nurse or nurse.
Staff Nurse Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a staff nurse can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as registered nurse supervisor, progress to a title such as nurse manager and then eventually end up with the title nurse manager.
Average Salary for a Staff Nurse
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Staff Nurses
1. Duke University
Durham, NC • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. Yale University
New Haven, CT • Private
4. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI • Private
5. Georgetown University
Washington, DC • Private
6. University of California - Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA • Private
7. University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA • Private
8. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC • Private
9. Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY • Private
10. Chamberlain College of Nursing - Arlington
Arlington, VA • Private
Top Skills For a Staff Nurse
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 14.9% of staff nurses listed patient care on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and compassion are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Staff Nurse Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Staff Nurse templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Staff Nurse resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Staff Nurse Demographics
Staff Nurse Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among staff nurses, 87.7% of them are women, while 12.3% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among staff nurses is White, which makes up 70.1% of all staff nurses.
- The most common foreign language among staff nurses is Spanish at 59.7%.
Online Courses For Staff Nurse That You May Like
The Vohra Wound Care Certification program was developed by Vohra Wound Physicians. Vohra is the largest group of wound physicians in the United States, with more than 20 years of clinical experience providing wound care services to more than 3000 skilled nursing facilities in 30 states, with thousands of patients treated every month. We believe every patient, family, nurse, and caregiver can be empowered through education. Hundreds of thousands of people have already benefited from this course...
Vohra’s expert physicians developed this advanced wound care program to help you deliver excellent healthcare: Understand the latest, most innovative wound care techniques and treatment options Identify the different types of wounds and recommended treatment plan for non-healing wounds Review the primary wound dressing options and wound care products Treat wound patients confidently, leading to improved medical outcomes Benefit from an enhanced knowledge share from Vohra´s healthcare...
This course starts you on your journey of integrating primary palliative care into your daily lives. You will learn what palliative care is, how to communicate with patients, show empathy, and practice difficult conversations. You will learn how to screen for distress and provide psychosocial support. You will learn about goals of care and advance care planning and how to improve your success with having these conversations with patients. Finally, you will explore important cultural consideratio...
Best States For a Staff Nurse
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a staff nurse. The best states for people in this position are California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. Staff nurses make the most in California with an average salary of $112,382. Whereas in Hawaii and Oregon, they would average $103,596 and $94,670, respectively. While staff nurses would only make an average of $90,044 in Washington, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Alaska
$84,375
Avg. Salary
2. Washington
$90,044
Avg. Salary
3. Oregon
$94,670
Avg. Salary
How Do Staff Nurse Rate Their Jobs?
Top Staff Nurse Employers
Most Common Employers For Staff Nurse
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Good Samaritan | $87,553 | $42.09 | 564 |
| 2 | St Joseph's Hospital | $86,472 | $41.57 | 940 |
| 3 | St. Luke's Hospital | $86,374 | $41.53 | 519 |
| 4 | St. Vincent's Medical Center | $84,578 | $40.66 | 296 |
| 5 | University Hospitals | $81,148 | $39.01 | 541 |
| 6 | GradyHealth | $74,856 | $35.99 | 294 |
| 7 | Cleveland Clinic | $74,417 | $35.78 | 280 |
| 8 | Boston Children's Hospital | $70,920 | $34.10 | 375 |
| 9 | Memorial Hospital | $66,733 | $32.08 | 397 |
| 10 | UPMC | $65,434 | $31.46 | 452 |
Staff Nurse Videos
Becoming a Staff Nurse FAQs
How long does it take to become a Staff Nurse?
It takes 4 years of professional experience to become a staff nurse. That is the time it takes to learn specific staff nurse skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education. If you include the normal education requirements to complete a college degree, then it takes 7 to 9 years years to become a staff nurse.