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resume picAs I continue my job search, I’ve recognized the importance of writing and keeping up with a good resume. Almost every job that you apply for will request a copy of your resume or curriculum vitae, and a resume gives your prospective employer a small window into your life. You do not want them to look into a broken window or to make the window so ornate that they don’t want to look at it, so knowing how to write a good, strong professional resume counts for a lot. I decided to change-up my resume for this reason and wanted to share my resume tips for teachers to help you find success in getting your foot in the door for interviews.

10 Resume Tips for Teachers

1.  If you build it, they will come. Don’t expect to get many jobs these days without a professional resume. If you’re happy where you’re at, that’s great, but don’t overlook the importance of keeping up with your work experiences. Write your resume now so that you can continually update it. All those important dates on the resume will help you fill out job applications later if the need arises.

2.  Put it in Reverse (order). Chronologically speaking, your resume needs to go in reverse order, starting with your most recent job experiences.

3.  Keep it Brief. Keep your resume to one page as a rule of thumb. Most employers won’t look past the first page, so just list job experiences relevant to the position you apply for. If you cannot limit it to one page, take a close look at your resume and see what you can eliminate that doesn’t relate to the position you want. Very few resumes should go beyond one page.

4.  Keep it professional. You need to make sure your resume looks professional. No pictures or crazy fonts are allowed here! Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier are good choices for resumes. Keep the font size between 10 and 12 points.

5.  Make room for white space. For a resume to look professional and pleasing to the eye, you need an appropriate amount of white space. Keep the margins between 0.8 and 1.5 as a standard practice. Do not try to squeeze in more content by getting rid of valuable white space.

6.  Highlight any experiences that enhance teaching related skills. If you’ve worked as a coach, a tutor, a nanny, or any other job that gave you skills related to teaching, put them in this area.

7.  Action! (Verbs). When providing an accomplishment statement, begin with action verbs rather than “I” or “My” to appeal to your audience. Wake Forest University has a good list of action verbs to get you started. To write an accomplishment statement, start with an action verb, followed by an example, and finished with the result. Example: Developed an IEP tracking system in order to keep track of IEP due dates for a team of teachers so that we could successfully complete Child Count. 

8.  Educational experiences. You’ll want to write out the full name of the college or institution that you went to as well as your major concentration and any minors you studied. If your GPA is 3.0 or higher, list that as well. You may also include study abroad experiences, relevant coursework, any academic awards or honors.

9.  Include your certifications. Make sure you list your certifications as well as expected certifications with the dates you expect to receive them. Your employer will want to know how they can use you most efficiently as their school, so listing your certifications becomes and important part of your resume when seeking a teaching position.

10. Edit for Accuracy. You want to make sure that your resume does not have any errors. One of the quickest way to lose a prospective employer’s attention is to provide a resume with grammar and spelling errors. If you need help proofreading your resume, enlist the help of friend with good writing skills. Another good way to catch errors? Walk away from your resume for a while and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes. Just make sure that resume is 100% tightened up.

Writing a good resume is an important skill for achieving your professional goals. These resume tips for teachers contain the most important things to consider when writing your resume. If you need sample resumes to look at and have the most recent version of Word, when you click on “New” in Microsoft Word, type “teaching resume” in the search box for templates. You’ll find some good templates there to work with. Just make sure you follow the tips above to perfect the content of your teaching resume.

Teresa Cooper is a 30-something divorced mom and teacher from North Carolina. She has a Masters of...

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