Pass hospital screening with your licence and specialty intact
Upload your CV and see what a hospital system actually pulls out of it: registration details, specialty keywords, shift patterns, unit type, formatting.
What a hospital screening system actually sees
Before a ward manager reads a word, your CV goes through a parser that strips it into fields: name, contact, job titles, dates, skills. Anything sitting in a header, a footer, a text box or a second column can quietly disappear at that step. Clinical CVs get hit hardest, because the templates that look tidiest on screen are usually the ones built out of tables.
Your registration is the first thing a healthcare recruiter checks, and it is the detail most often lost. Put the registering body, the number, the registration date and any expiry in the body of the CV, near the top, as plain text on their own lines. If that information only lives in the letterhead you designed, assume the system never read it.
The second gap is vocabulary. On shift you say resus, obs, bank, step-down. The posting says resuscitation, patient observation, flexible shifts, high dependency. Matching runs on the employer's words, not yours, so write both: the formal term first, the shorthand in brackets. Do the same for unit type, caseload size, patient acuity and the charting systems you work in daily.
The free HRLens analysis reads your file the same way a hospital system does. It extracts the text first, then scores what survived: the fields a parser recovered, the clinical terms missing against how roles are usually worded, and a fix list ordered by what is costing you interviews rather than what is easiest to change.
Three checks a generic tool never runs
Your registration line
Body, licence number, registration date, expiry. Flagged when it is missing, undated or stranded in a header.
Specialty wording
Your clinical terms compared with how postings word them, so a keyword match finds you.
Shifts and unit type
Nights, rotating rotas, bank work, ward or unit, bed count and acuity. Named, not left implied.
Where clinical CVs break
The problems we see again and again
A rota grid built as a table
Cells often come out interleaved, so your dates and units end up scrambled mid-sentence.
Contact details in the header
Headers and footers are frequently skipped. Your phone number goes with them.
Abbreviations only colleagues understand
Local unit codes and internal shorthand match nothing in the posting and read as noise.
Duties instead of numbers
"Provided patient care" tells a recruiter nothing. Bed count, ratio, caseload and acuity do.
A design template exported flat
Icons, skill bars and two-column layouts look sharp and carry no readable text at all.
A general CV checker against a clinical one
| What gets checked | A typical ATS checker | HRLens clinical check |
|---|---|---|
| Registration and licence details | Not a field it looks for | Flagged when missing, undated or hidden in a header |
| Specialty wording | Generic keyword count | Clinical terms matched to how postings are worded |
| Shift patterns and unit type | Ignored | Prompted wherever a rota, ward or bed count is implied |
| Tables, columns and text boxes | Sometimes a warning | Shown as the parser reads them, with a plain-text fix |
| Spelling, grammar and tone | Strong, often the best part of it | Covered, though the clinical detail moves the needle more |
| Cost of a full report | Usually limited until you upgrade | Free, no card |
See what survives the parser
Upload your CV and get a section-by-section report, your missing specialty terms and an ordered fix list.
Questions clinicians ask us
Where should my registration or licence number go on a nursing CV?
In the body of the CV, in the top third, on its own lines: registering body, number, registration date and expiry if there is one. Keep it as plain text rather than inside a header, footer or table. Recruiters check it before anything else, and a parser that skips headers will otherwise report your CV as having no registration at all.
Do hospital systems really struggle with tables?
It depends on the system, which is exactly why you should not gamble. A parser reads a table cell by cell, so a rotation grid can come out with dates detached from the ward they belong to. Simple bullet lines carry the same information and cannot be reordered. If you want to see the risk on your own file, run the free analysis and read the extracted text.
Should I write ICU or intensive care unit?
Both, in that order of formality: intensive care unit (ICU). Postings vary between the full term and the abbreviation, and matching is literal, so covering both is free insurance. Do the same for ED, HDU, theatre and any specialty you list. Drop internal codes that only your last employer used, since nobody outside that trust or hospital will recognise them.
How do I show shift patterns and unit type properly?
Name them in the role line or the first bullet of each job: unit type, bed count, typical staffing ratio, patient acuity and your shift pattern. "Rotating days and nights, 24-bed surgical ward, 1:6 ratio" tells a hiring manager more in one line than a paragraph of duties. Vague CVs get passed over because the reader cannot picture your day.
Does this work for allied health, midwifery and doctors?
Yes. The same checks apply across clinical roles: registration details, specialty vocabulary matched to the posting, unit or caseload specifics, and formatting a parser can read. Physiotherapists, radiographers, midwives, paramedics and doctors all hit the same problems, usually with even more registrations, rotations and courses to fit onto two pages without breaking the layout.