Six Healthcare Business Analyst Resumé Tips for Success

By Shana Tachikawa

In the healthcare IT consulting world, your resumé is the first impression for recruiters or hiring managers. Since hiring firms and health systems look at piles of resumés each day, the first impression is vital. To stand out, check out six tips for healthcare IT analyst resumés.

1. Put your certifications first. Don't bury them by putting them after your work experience or with your education information at the end of the document. This is especially important when verified vendor certification is a specific employment requirement.
   
   
2. Highlight the skills most relevant to the position you are applying for within the professional summary. Customize this section each time you submit your resumé for consideration. Focus on your skills, qualifications and past achievements in similar positions. This section also gives you an opportunity to bring any relevant experience that may be buried further down (and possibly missed) in your resumé to the front page. For example, perhaps you are Epic certified in multiple modules and are applying for an Epic Grand Central analyst position. With certifications in Cadence and Prelude, as well as Grand Central, your last engagement was as an Epic Cadence analyst. Use your professional summary to highlight the Grand Central experience, so the recruiter (or hiring manager) does not need to get halfway through the second page before they see the applicable information.
   
   
3. Stay consistent with formatting and verb tense throughout past roles details. While it is okay to use the present tense for bulleted statements under your current employer and then switch to past tense for the rest, that is the only time there should be a difference. Also, it is up to you to end bullet statements with a period or not. Whatever you decide, stick with it throughout the document. Consistency conveys an overall cohesive document to positively reflect your contributions.
   
   
4. Start your support statements with action. The most effective bullet statements start with a verb– managed, designed or built. Avoid the phrase "responsible for" and get straight to the action. Instead of "Responsible for collecting, analyzing and documenting business operations and workflows," try, "Collected, analyzed and documented business operations and workflows."
   
   
5. Check spelling with each resumé version change. Be especially attentive to the acronym "EHR," since Microsoft Word automatically changes it into "HER." Double check the spelling of various applications and programs you work with, since Word's dictionary may not have those saved. When you run a spell check and the program stops on an unknown word, take the time to look it over.
   
   
6. Capitalize the first word in a sentence or proper nouns. Avoid using capitalization for anything else. Don't be fooled by job titles or department names, like project manager, business analyst, director or operating room. Generally, these are not considered proper nouns. Keeping capital letters to a minimum to ease readability. Notice how much more difficult it is to read the first version compared to the second in the example below:
   
   
   • Met with Process Owners, Directors, Department Administrator and Access Managers to prep their facility for implementation and Go-Live
   • Met with process owners, directors, department administrators and access managers to prep their facility for implementation and go-live
   
   

Apply these six tips and avoid fluff that falsely plumps up resumés. Doing so saves recruiters and hiring managers time, while increasing the likelihood of interviews and potential placement.

Stay tuned for additional HIT consulting tips, and check out Stoltenberg's current job openings.