First Year Teacher Resume—Sample and 25+ Writing Tips

You’re the first year teacher. You have an incredible ability to separate two fighting kids with your left hand, carry a crying one in the right arm, and put away toys with your feet. You’re the first person that’s going to teach these kids something. 

Math, Reading. Social skills, confidence, problem solving. Some students will not remember you at all. For others, it will be the first time someone’s been kind to them. The first time someone listened.

So how do you start changing kids' lives? With this guide.

In this guide:

• A first year teacher resume sample better than most.
• How to write an A+ resume for first year teacher jobs.
• A first year teacher job description walk through.

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Are you writing resumes for other positions? See our other dedicated guides:

• Teacher Resume
• Academic Resume
• Special Education Teacher Resume
• Education Resume
• Preschool Teacher Resume
• Math Teacher Resume
• School Counselor Resume
• Substitute Teacher Resume
• Babysitter Resume
• Librarian Resume
• High School Teacher Resume
• Research Assistant Resume
• Teaching Assistant Resume
• Camp Counselor Resume
• Elementary Teacher Resume
• Nanny Resume
• Tutor Resume
• Art Teacher Resume
• Supervisor Resume
• Good Resume Examples for All Jobs

First, see this first year teacher resume template:

First Year Teacher Resume Sample You Can Copy and Use

This is how we write a first year teacher resume that aces any exam:

1. Adapt a Professional Resume Format

Your resume format gets a grade for attendance. If you get it right, nothing particularly special will happen. However, if you get it wrong, it’s a big problem. It’s less about getting it right, and more about preventing software from playing a trick on you or someone’s device.

Laying out your resume correctly is key:

First Year Teacher Resume Format

• Choose a common resume font like a 10–12pt Garamond or Didot.
• Outline your resume like this: Heading, Objective, Work History, Education and Skills.
• List past jobs in reverse-chronological resume sequence. That’s a resume style recruiters are most familiar with.
• Use 1-inch margins and a little white space.
• PDF resumes protect the formatting on all devices.
• In terms of resume length, 1-page is enough. Avoid two-pages resumes when you’re writing an entry-level resume.
• Use a simple resume template. Visual templates might not be ATS-friendly.

That’s the theory. Check your formatting again after you finish writing your resume. Now, up to the board you go.

2. Write a First Year Teacher Resume Objective

Every resume starts off with a resume profile. It’s a short summary of who you are and most impressive achievements. Here’s how to write a captivating career objective, simply answer the following questions with one or two lines.

1. Who are you, what’s your experience?
2. What’s your most impressive achievement?
3. What’s your most unique achievement?
4. What are you hoping to be able to achieve in this job? (Think more for the school than for yourself).

Have a look yourself. See how numbers crop up to illustrate the points.

First Year Teacher Resume Objective—Example

Expert Hint: The Bureau for Labor Statistics reports there are over 1.5 million Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers in the US, but predicts there will only be 3%, or 53 thousand more jobs in 10 years’ time. Start your resume with a bang, and you will be in that group.

3. Boost The Scores Of Your Job Description and Skills Section

Delivering classes, creating lesson plans, offering support to students. Sounds as generic as the job requirements in the ad? I just picked this from a low-quality first year teacher resume. Yes, the majority of candidates in all jobs have no idea how to write a glowing job description.

Instead of counting out the boring laundry list of responsibilities, you should communicate the work experience on your resume by giving perspective: class sizes, attainment, funding, etc. How well have you done?

The first of these first year teacher resume samples aces it:

First Year Teacher Job Description for Resume [Sample]

The second example? There’s nothing worse than a generic description of job duties. Instead, write a targeted resume personalized to the job description and the company. Make sure to use keywords from the job ad. Why does this matter?

Well, resumes often have to go through a computer program known as an ATS (Applicant Tracking System). An ATS-friendly resume has to contain important keywords from the job ad—otherwise, the system might reject it as irrelevant.

Remember to add skills to put on a resume to your first year teacher resume. Mix 5-10 hard and soft skills. Don’t forget to list your computer skills, too.

Use this list for reference:

First Year Teacher Resume Skills

Soft Skills

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Dependability
• Flexible
• Interpersonal Skills
• Leadership
• Love of Learning
• Passion
• Positive Attitude
• Role Modeling
• Time Management

Hard Skills

• Child First Aid & CPR
• Classroom Management
• Computer Skills
• Counseling
• Creating Exams
• Extracurricular Activities
• Hardware
• Learner Assessment
• Lesson Planning
• Math
• SMART Board Interactive Displays
• Software (e.g., Haiku Learning, Edmodo)
• Standardized Testing
• Subject Knowledge
• Teaching Strategies
• Training

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4. Don’t Miss Your Education Section

If you want to educate people, it follows that you must be educated yourself. Once you have a few years of professional experience, your education section can be reduced to simply the name of the school and degree. 

If you graduated within the last 2-4 years, it’s your call whether to include the GPA. If you don’t have much to write home about in terms of work experience, beef up your first year teacher resume with a relevant coursework or achievements section.

This first year teacher’s resume example aces the exam:

First Year Teacher Resume Template—Education

Expert Hint: If you are really scant for experience and achievements, you can opt to bolster your package with some additional certifications on your resume.

5. Show You Can Go the Extra Mile

Being able to focus on all and every kid at all times can be exhausting. The amount of multitasking involved in being a first year teacher can not be rivaled by most jobs. 

There are other factors that can advance your application, and instead of recording them in an ‘Other Info’ section, list those extra resume sections under these clear headings:

• Association memberships (NEA)
• Certifications (First Aid, ALICE)
• Conferences
• Languages
• Groups
• Volunteer work
• Interests, activities, personal interests
• Publications

This first year teacher resume examples shows how:

First Year Teacher Resume With No Experience—Extra Sections

Expert Hint: Write a cover letter. About 40% of hiring managers ignore resumes without teacher cover letters.

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Key Points

This is how we ensure your first year teacher resume gets the top marks:

• Check your resume format before & after—margins, fonts, 1 page, reverse chronological.
• Focus on numbers, impact and achievements, instead of just listing responsibilities. 
• Limit the length of the education section as you become more experienced. Expand other sections such as certificates, publications, volunteering.
• Write a first year teacher cover letter.

Did we help you get your resume for first year teacher jobs right? Leave a comment. Did you find our first year teacher resume examples helpful? We’ll be happy to reply.