With the United States rapidly expanding its contact-tracing workforce to help fight the coronavirus, here are three resume tips that can help you get a contact-tracing job.

Right now, hiring is rapidly occurring for healthcare professionals all over the United States to help fight the coronavirus by acting as contact tracers.

Contract tracers are like public health detectives. As it applies to the coronavirus epidemic, these invaluable workers will help identify people at risk for spreading the coronavirus after coming in contact with an infected person. 

Time explains the profession thusly: 

Contact tracing is a little like detective work: Trained staff interview people who have been diagnosed with a contagious disease to figure out who they may have recently been in contact with. Then, they go tell those people they may have been exposed, sometimes encouraging them to quarantine themselves to prevent spreading the disease any further. Think of it as part public health work and part investigation.

Contact tracers are essential to keeping the virus at bay until a viable vaccine for the disease is created. Some experts have suggested that we will need a workforce of 180,000 people nationwide to successfully execute contact tracing. 

If this is a job you're interested in — and you have the necessary healthcare background — we've got three tips for you to ensure your resume is ready to take advantage of this unique opportunity and lend your healthcare skills to help society overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. 

1. Make sure your healthcare resume is up-to-date

Before applying for any position, you should review your resume to ensure that it's in line with modern standards. It should present a compelling case for your candidacy to a hiring manager so it can beat the six seconds or less resume test.

Our article “7 Powerful Changes to Make to Your Healthcare Resume” lists a few easy steps you can take to make sure your resume is impactful, compelling, and easy to read. 

2. Tailor your resume to address a contact-tracing job description

Once you've made sure your resume is up to date, you'll want to tailor it to the specific job description you're looking at. We provide all the details you need to understand how to best do this in our article “How to Target a Specific Job Description With Your Resume.” 

Using this contact-tracing position with the city of New York as an example, you can see that one of the needs the job description places an emphasis on is the ability to complete case interviews over the telephone and communicate with cases and contacts in a professional and empathetic manner. 

As such, in your professional summary and when describing your current and former roles, you should play up any aspects that involve these skills, such as: 

  • Communication: “Excellent communicator and strong patient advocate” 

  • Fluency in other languages 

  • Experience contacting patients and family members and managing cases over the phone 

3. If applying by email, make sure your email is professional

Finally, many of the positions for government contact-tracing roles are filled by email, and it's important to make sure that your email application is just as thoughtful as your resume. We have all the tips needed to successfully send any type of business email in “Best Practices for Professional Email Etiquette in Every Situation.” 

You'll want to: 

  • Keep it short and sweet — don't add in unnecessary details.

  • Proofread your email carefully and use a professional sign-off to close your message. Also, stay away from abbreviations or slang that you use on social media or when texting friends like “OMG” or “LOL.” 

Summary

We're in the middle of a public health emergency — and it will require hundreds, if not thousands, of healthcare professionals to step up to help solve it. If you're willing to lend your skills to these critical support services, we want to help you be successful. We're all in this together. 

Still unsure if your healthcare resume is ready for recruiters' eyes? We offer a free and confidential resume review service that can help. 

Recommended Reading:

Related Articles: