Whether you’re just starting out or looking for a new direction, Elite Learning is here to partner with you on your professional nursing journey. Here’s a brief summary of four popular career paths for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses from the recent Elite Career Compass guide, including an overview of the Nurse Manager role.
Download the complete Nursing Career Compass here.
What does a Nurse Manager do?
Nurse Managers oversee the daily operations of their unit or department, including staffing, scheduling, budgeting, and quality improvement initiatives. They provide leadership and support to nursing staff, address patient care issues, collaborate with interdisciplinary teams, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards.
What’s behind a healthcare budget? Dive in with Elite’s in-depth nurse leadership podcast series: Making Sense of Dollars and Cents: Budgeting Best Practices and Staffing Skills for Nurse Leaders.
What does it take to become a Nurse Manager?
To become a Nurse Manager, individuals must have a bachelor’s degree in nursing (BSN) or a master’s degree in nursing, leadership, and/or administration. Many employers prefer candidates with leadership experience, additional healthcare management, or administration education.
Many Nurse Manager positions may require certification in nursing administration. However, some organizations will hire nurses with associate degrees who have shown leadership capabilities.
Average Salary
Mean U.S. hourly salary: $50.48
Mean U.S. annual salary: $117,687
Career opportunities for Nurse Managers
Nurse Managers oversee the daily operations of their unit or department, including staffing, scheduling, budgeting, and quality improvement initiatives. They provide leadership and support to nursing staff, address patient care issues, collaborate with interdisciplinary teams, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards.
| Explore the intersection of healthcare and business. Get an inside look at the ups and downs of day-to-day healthcare operations from an NP’s perspective with the Elite Nurse Practitioner podcast.
How to display your nursing credentials
Nurses often joke about the alphabet soup of credentials that can follow a nurse or advance practice nurse’s name. With all the different licenses, degrees, and certifications available, the growing list of letters can take on a life of its own.
To standardize across the profession, the ANCC lists the preferred order of credentials as follows:
- Highest earned degree
- Licensure
- State designations or requirements
- National certification
- Awards and honors
- Other recognitions
The recommended order starts with the degree, which is a permanent credential and, barring extreme circumstances, cannot be taken away. Following a nurse’s degrees are the license and state designations, as these are required to practice.
Professional certifications are sometimes voluntary, as are awards and honors. Additionally, professional certifications could lapse. These are more easily separated from the individual than their license, which is why they follow degrees and licensure.