Free Nurse Job Description Templates (RN, LPN, NP)
Free nurse job description templates for small clinics and practices: RN, LPN, charge nurse, NP, and CNA versions. Copy or download as DOCX.
Nurse Job Description Templates
6 free templates by role. Download as DOCX or copy-paste.
For a small clinic, dental office, or home health agency, hiring a nurse is one of the most consequential decisions you make. This guide gives you six free templates for the role, plus the license, scope, and pay guidance to adapt them. The job description is where I would tell any founder to slow down.
The nurse is often the main clinical presence on site, assessing patients, carrying out treatments, and holding the day together. The role is also licensed and regulated, which makes the job description more than a list of tasks. It has to specify the right credential, frame duties within the nurse's scope of practice, and screen for the experience and license your role actually requires.
At FirstHR, we build for small practices and businesses that handle hiring lean, where the owner or office manager writes the posting between patients. The templates cover the most common versions of the role: general, registered nurse, licensed practical or vocational nurse (LPN/LVN), charge nurse, nurse practitioner, and certified nursing assistant (CNA). Fill in the bracketed fields, adjust to match your setting and state rules, and post.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template that matches the role and license you are hiring for. The core structure is the same across all six, but each one emphasizes the responsibilities, credential, and scope that fit a specific kind of nurse. Use this guide to choose.
6 Free Nurse Job Description Templates
Download all six at once as separate Word files in one ZIP, or copy individual templates. Each one covers the job summary, key responsibilities, qualifications, compensation, and how to apply, with a work environment section or a scope-of-practice note where the role needs one. Fill in the brackets and confirm duties against your state scope of practice before you post.
Template 1: General Nurse
The universal, customizable version for any practice. Covers assessment, care plans, treatments within license, and documentation. Use this when the role is general or when you want a base you can adapt to a specific license.
Template 2: Registered Nurse (RN)
The flagship version. Full RN scope: assessment, care planning, medication administration, and supervising LPNs and CNAs. Requires an active RN license and NCLEX-RN. Use this for the most common licensed nursing hire.
Template 3: Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN/LVN)
For basic nursing care under RN or physician supervision. A narrower, state-defined scope, requiring an LPN/LVN license and NCLEX-PN. Includes a scope-of-practice note so the duties stay within your state limits.
Template 4: Charge Nurse
For shift leadership. Covers assigning staff, delegating, handling escalations, and mentoring, plus hands-on care. For an experienced RN ready to lead a shift in a small unit or facility.
Template 5: Nurse Practitioner (NP)
For advanced practice. Covers diagnosing, treating, and prescribing within state scope. Requires an APRN license and MSN or DNP. Includes a state scope-of-practice note for collaboration and prescriptive authority rules.
Template 6: Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)
For basic, hands-on care under nurse supervision. Covers daily living activities, vitals, and patient comfort. Requires CNA certification. Common in assisted living and nursing home settings.
What Is a Nurse Job Description?
A nurse job description is a short document that explains the role's purpose, responsibilities, required license, and compensation so you can post a job and attract the right candidates. It typically covers a job summary, key responsibilities, required and preferred qualifications, the work environment, the salary range, and how to apply. A good nursing job description also has to reflect scope of practice, meaning the duties a license allows under state law.
For a nursing role specifically, the document does double duty. It attracts applicants, and once someone is hired it becomes the reference point for their responsibilities and license-bound scope. Because the word nurse can mean anything from a CNA to a nurse practitioner, the most important job of the description is to make the role, license, and scope unmistakable.
Nurse Duties and Responsibilities
Nurse duties fall into four broad areas. A good job description picks the specific duties from each area that apply to your role and license rather than listing every possible task. These are the responsibilities most often expected, scaled to the role you are hiring.
Exactly which duties belong in a given posting depends on the license and your state scope of practice, so the next step is getting clear on how the nursing roles differ.
RN vs LPN vs CNA vs NP
Nursing roles differ by license, scope, and education. Getting the distinction right ensures you attract the correct candidates, require the right credential, and set accurate pay. This table compares the four most common roles.
| Factor | CNA | LPN/LVN | RN | NP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Credential | State certification | LPN license | RN license | APRN license |
| Exam | State competency | NCLEX-PN | NCLEX-RN | National NP cert |
| Education | Aide program | Practical program | ADN, BSN, or diploma | MSN or DNP |
| Scope | Basic care, ADLs | Basic nursing care | Full nursing scope | Diagnose, prescribe |
| Supervision | Under a nurse | Under an RN or physician | Independent in scope | Varies by state |
In a small practice, you may hire across these levels or have one role cover a broad range. Match the template and required license to the actual work, and never label a role with a credential it does not require, since that attracts the wrong candidates and sets incorrect pay expectations.
ER and Med-Surg Nurse Job Descriptions
An ER nurse job description and a med-surg nurse job description are both RN postings. Start from the Registered Nurse template above and change three things: the job summary, four or five duties specific to the unit, and the certifications you require. Everything else, including the license requirement and the rest of the qualifications block, stays as written.
Specialty does not change the credential. It changes the pace of the work, the patient mix, and the certification alphabet, and those are the parts an experienced nurse reads first to decide whether the posting is for them. A generic RN posting gets generic applicants.
| Version | How the summary changes | Duties to add | Certifications to name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emergency (ER) | The nurse triages and stabilizes patients who arrive without an appointment, at a pace set by whoever walks through the door | Triage by acuity on arrival, start IVs and draw labs under standing orders, assist with procedures such as wound closure and airway management, hand off to admitting units or transfer services | BLS and ACLS as required; PALS where children are seen; TNCC or CEN as preferred rather than required |
| Medical-surgical | The nurse carries a multi-patient assignment for the full shift, covering post-operative recovery and adults being treated for acute medical conditions | Manage a full patient assignment across the shift, post-operative care including drains, wound care and mobility, scheduled and PRN medication administration, discharge teaching and coordination | BLS as required, ACLS where the unit expects it, CMSRN as preferred |
Put the certifications you will actually turn someone away for in the required list and everything else in preferred. Nursing postings routinely stack five or six credentials into required, which quietly rules out capable applicants who would have earned the missing one in their first six months.
One small-practice note on the ER version: most small employers posting for an emergency nurse are not running an emergency department. They are running urgent care, an occupational health clinic, or a practice that sees walk-ins, so say that plainly in the summary.
An ER nurse reading a posting wants to know the acuity they are walking into. Telling them it is urgent care rather than a trauma bay filters the applicant pool in the right direction.
Two other specialties have their own template here rather than an adaptation. For the operating room, use the operating room nurse job description instead of reworking the RN version. For critical care, the ICU nurse template already carries the right duties and certifications.
Hospice, labor and delivery, pediatric, and travel nursing have their own versions too, all in the hiring template library. Adapting the RN template is the right move only where no dedicated version exists, which is the case for emergency and medical-surgical roles.
License and Scope of Practice
Nursing is licensed and regulated at the state level, which makes scope of practice the single most important thing to get right in a nurse job description. Each role has a defined scope under your state nurse practice act, the law that sets what each nursing license allows, and listing a duty outside that scope creates compliance and liability risk.
Practically, this means writing the responsibilities to match the license and framing supervised roles accordingly: an LPN works under an RN or physician, and a CNA works under a nurse. The LPN and NP templates above both include a scope-of-practice note for this reason. When in doubt, write the duty conditionally and confirm specifics against your state rules and your providers.
What to Include in a Nurse Job Description
Every strong nurse job description includes the same core sections, the ones the templates above are built around: a summary of the role, the duties, the license and other qualifications, the setting and schedule, the pay range, and how to apply. The duties need the most care, so here is vague wording next to specific, license-appropriate wording.
| Weak bullet | Strong bullet |
|---|---|
| Provide patient care | Assess patients and develop, implement, and evaluate care plans |
| Give medications | Administer medications and treatments per provider orders within RN scope |
| Help with charting | Document all care accurately in the EHR within each shift |
| Supervise staff | Delegate to and supervise LPNs and CNAs during the shift |
| Must be licensed | Active RN license in [state] and current BLS/CPR certification required |
Specific, license-bound duties attract candidates who can actually do the work and signal a serious employer. Keep the language neutral and inclusive, and lead with the license requirement so unqualified applicants self-select out before they apply.
Nurse Salary by Role
Set your salary range using government data as a baseline, then adjust for role, experience, and location. Pay differs sharply across the nursing roles, so anchor your range to the specific role you are hiring.
Within each role, experience and certifications push pay toward the upper end. For detail by role, the BLS profiles for licensed practical and vocational nurses, nurse practitioners, and nursing assistants break down wage ranges and outlook.
Always publish a salary range in the posting. Pay transparency laws in a growing number of states make it mandatory: California and Washington, for example, require a pay scale or salary range in job postings at employers with 15 or more employees. A clear range also attracts more qualified applicants.
How to Write a Nurse Job Description
A strong nurse job description is quick to write if you follow a clear structure. Here is the process the templates are built around.
Hiring a Nurse for a Small Practice
Hospital templates assume specialized units, large teams, and layers of support staff. A small clinic, dental office, or home health agency has none of that. The nurse is often the main clinical staff member, reports straight to the provider or owner, and covers a broad range of work. Here is how to write the posting for that reality.
From Hiring to Onboarding
The job description is step one. Once a candidate accepts, the same document becomes the foundation for the offer letter and the onboarding plan. A nurse needs careful onboarding because they handle patient care, protected health information, and clinical systems from day one, and they quickly become central to how the practice runs.
Good onboarding is what turns a new nurse into a confident team member and keeps them past the first year. When you are ready to make an offer, the offer letter template handles the next step, and an onboarding template gives the nurse a structured start.
FirstHR connects the offer, paperwork, and onboarding workflow in one place so a small practice can manage the full process from one system.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a nurse do?
A nurse provides and coordinates patient care. Core duties include assessing patients, recording vital signs and symptoms, carrying out care plans, administering medications and treatments within their license, educating patients and families, and documenting care in the electronic health record. The exact scope depends on the type of nurse. A registered nurse has a broad scope and can develop care plans and supervise other staff, an LPN gives basic care while supervised by an RN or physician, a nurse practitioner can diagnose and prescribe within state limits, and a CNA helps with daily living activities under a nurse's supervision. In a small practice, one nurse often covers a wide range of these responsibilities.
What should a nurse job description include?
A nurse job description should cover a short summary of the role, the main duties, the required qualifications with the exact license named, the skills the work calls for, where and when the nurse will work, the salary range, and instructions for applying. Nursing is licensed and regulated state by state, so name the credential the role needs (an RN, LPN/LVN, or APRN license, or CNA certification) and keep every clinical duty inside what that credential allows. Write each duty as a specific action, for example “Develop and manage patient care plans,” instead of a loose phrase. Keep the must-haves, like an active license and a passed NCLEX, apart from the nice-to-haves, like a BSN or experience in your specialty. In a small practice, also describe the full range of work the nurse will really do.
What is the difference between an RN, an LPN, and a CNA?
The difference is the credential each one holds and how much clinical work that credential allows. A registered nurse (RN) has passed the NCLEX-RN, holds an RN license, and has the broadest scope of the three: assessing patients, planning care, giving medications, and overseeing other staff. A licensed practical or vocational nurse (LPN/LVN) has passed the NCLEX-PN, holds an LPN license, and gives basic nursing care within a narrower scope that each state sets, supervised by an RN or a provider. A certified nursing assistant (CNA) holds a state certification rather than a nursing license and helps with hands-on basics such as vital signs and daily living activities, working under a nurse. Choose the template and the required credential that fit the real role and your state's rules.
What license does a nurse need?
It depends on the role. A registered nurse needs an active RN license in your state, earned by completing an approved nursing program (a BSN, an ADN, or a diploma) and passing the NCLEX-RN. An LPN/LVN needs an LPN license after a practical nursing program and the NCLEX-PN. A nurse practitioner needs an APRN license plus a graduate degree (MSN or DNP) and national certification. A CNA needs a state certification after a state-approved nurse aide program, which is a certification rather than a nursing license. All of these are state-issued, so require the active credential the role calls for in your state and verify it before the nurse's first shift.
Can a nurse practitioner work independently?
It depends on the state. A nurse practitioner's scope of practice, including the authority to prescribe, differs widely from state to state. Some states grant full practice authority, allowing NPs to assess, diagnose, treat, and prescribe independently. Others make some or all of that work depend on an agreement with a collaborating or supervising physician. Before you write an NP job description or finalize the role, confirm your state's APRN rules, including any collaboration requirement and any Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) registration the nurse needs to prescribe. The Nurse Practitioner template in this article includes a scope-of-practice note so you set the role up correctly for your state.
What salary range should I list for a nurse?
Base the range on federal wage data for the specific role, then adjust it for experience and your local market. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2025), the median annual wage was $97,550 among registered nurses, $64,400 among LPNs and LVNs, $132,300 among nurse practitioners, and $42,260 among nursing assistants. Nurses with more experience or extra certifications usually earn toward the top of their role's band. Put the range in the posting itself. Many states now require pay transparency, and because nurses are in high demand, a clear, competitive number draws more qualified applicants and helps a small practice compete with larger employers.
How do I write a nurse job description for a small practice?
Write it for the job as it really runs in your practice, where the nurse tends to be the main or only clinical staff member and handles assessment, treatment, documentation, and coordination. Describe the setting, schedule, and scope honestly instead of borrowing a hospital posting. Name the exact license the role requires and keep every clinical duty inside that license and your state's scope of practice. Point out what makes a small practice appealing, such as predictable hours or a close team, and keep the requirements realistic. The General and role-specific templates in this article are written for small clinics, dental offices, and home health agencies.
What happens after I hire a nurse?
After the nurse accepts, you send the offer letter and start onboarding, and the job description feeds both. Onboarding deserves real structure for a nurse, who is trusted with patients, their protected health information, and your clinical systems from the first day. Verify the active license and certifications, gather the signed paperwork, set up access to the electronic health record (EHR), and review your own protocols and the limits of the role's scope. A clear first week, followed by a 30-60-90 day plan, helps the new hire settle in and gain confidence quickly. FirstHR handles the offer letter, document storage, and onboarding workflow in one place, so a small practice can move a new nurse from hire to fully effective with minimal overhead.