Do you want to pivot into a nursing career? That’s great! There is a reason that healthcare is among the most popular secondary career options. People choose it because they want to spend the rest of their professional lives doing something that makes a true difference in the world.

Now, as the world continues to struggle beneath the weight of considerable nursing shortages, is a particularly good time to give a nursing career a try.

If you are going to go in, you should consider developing several key skills that will help you succeed in your new career. In this article, we will look at what those skills are and how to get them.

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are often described as abilities you are born with. Things that often influence the way other people experience you. Many people equate them with social skills, though that’s just one slice of the pie.

Soft skills can include almost anything that isn’t taught in a textbook. Time management. Communication. Empathy.

Nurses have all of these qualities in abundance. Do you need to develop your soft skills before you enrol in a nursing program?

Chances are that you will probably improve naturally through your coursework. That said, below, we have spotlighted a few things you can do to get ready for what is ahead.

Empathy

No, you don’t need to be a bleeding heart. In fact, it’s probably better that you are not. Healthcare workers need to have a degree of professional distance between themselves and their patients. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to focus enough to do their job.

Still, it helps to keep in mind that people who wind up in a hospital are often living through one of the worst experiences of their lives. Being able to meet them at a human level is an important part of being a good nurse.

It’s hard to develop empathy, but you can start by imagining what the other person is going through. Try to put yourself in their shoes.

Time Management

Time management is probably the easiest soft skill to learn. You can develop it simply by making a point of doing things in a sensible, time-sensitive manner. Make sure you arrive at things on time. Also, make a point of thinking carefully about task prioritization. What is the most important thing you can be doing at any given moment?

Having an intuitive understanding of this concept is a life-saving skill in the world of healthcare.

Collaboration

Nurses work in tandem with many other healthcare professionals. They are also constantly dealing with the patient’s concerns and the concerns of their family—a thorny consideration that many experienced healthcare professionals struggle to navigate.

On the one hand, patients and the people who love them are being impacted the most by the doctors’ and nurses’ choices. On the other hand, they have the least understanding of the situation.

In a nursing career, you need to be able to manage all of those relationships effectively—often during high-pressure situations.

Strong collaboration skills involve a combination of traits that we have/will discuss in this article. It can be tricky, though, to get better at teamwork; this is something you can work on in your current work responsibilities or even during training. Always think: How can I do my job in a way that makes it easier for other people to do theirs? How can I advocate for my opinions when they really count and support others when they do not?

Communication

Communication is easy to learn but difficult to master. Start by developing your active listening skills. Listen closely to what the other person is saying, and try to focus only on their words and their verbal cues.

You can also work on explaining things in basic terms. It’s been said that if you can’t explain something to a child, you don’t really understand it yourself. True? Who really cares? The point is that in hospitals, people often find themselves in situations where they don’t understand what is going on in their own bodies. Being able to explain complicated things to people in difficult situations is an important skill to have.

Do I need to Be a Good Student to Succeed as a Nurse?

That’s a tricky question. Nurses are very intelligent. They also need to have the capacity to remember a large set of facts—often quickly and under tense circumstances. It is not an easy profession, nor is it solely for the class valedictorians of the world.

If you are a reasonably competent student with the ability to work hard, you should be able to pass a nursing program and work successfully as an RN.

Most college-educated people reading this article will probably have an approximate idea of what it takes to work as a nurse. Different though a program geared toward learning business skills may be, the level of difficulty is in the same ballpark.

That doesn’t mean you won’t have to work for it. Go in expecting to study hard and give each day your all once you finally become a nurse.

Do I Need to Get an Entirely New Degree?

No, you will not need to get an entirely new degree. If you already have a bachelor’s you will have two options:

  • Accelerated program– These courses combine four years of nursing education into an eighteen-month package. This is a good option for people who want to become a nurse as quickly as possible, but be warned—it will require your full-time attention.
  • Certification only– Similar in scope but different in speed, certification-only programs allow you to take nursing classes at a timeline that works for you. You don’t need to worry about gen-eds, but you may find that the program takes a few years to complete.

If you don’t have a college degree, you can always start right at the beginning, enrolling as a freshman. It’s not easy, but it will get you where you are going eventually.

Conclusion

How much do you need to worry about your current skillset if you are interested in a nursing career? While some people may have more work ahead of them than others, try not to worry too much about where you are at right now.

A nursing career is hard, yes, but it is because of that difficulty that the training is so extensive. Should you develop your communication and time management skills if they aren’t up to par? Sure. However, for the most part, you can trust that whatever nursing school you choose will do a good job of getting you ready for the work ahead.