First-Year Elementary Teacher Resume Examples, Template

What to highlight in a first-time teacher resume

If you are nearing graduation or have recently graduated with your teaching degree, you will be looking for a first-year teacher position. You’re looking forward to learning about your students, the school’s processes and becoming familiar with others you will be working with, including other teachers, administrators and parents. Plus you want to create lesson plans and learn about classroom management.

Starting to shape the minds of tomorrow starts by creating a great resume that impresses a hiring manager or recruiter. To do this, you’ll need to create a resume that highlights:

• Teaching hard and soft skills (e.g., classroom management) 
• Knowledge of early childhood education 
• Your teaching experience 

How to write a first-time teacher resume

Your resume structure will be determined by the resume format you choose. There are three resume formats:

A chronological resume format is made for people with more than 10 years of experience because it focuses on your work history.

A combination resume format showcases your work history and your skills.

As a first-year teacher, you will probably choose a functional resume format as it is structured to focus on transferable skills and education.  Once you have selected your resume format, you can proceed with adding your information to the following resume sections: 
 

Header

 
You’ll need to include your contact information to ensure that the hiring manager can contact you with updates on your application. You should include your full name and phone number, with your email address. You can also include professional portfolio links that summarize your student teaching experience. This is a great way of providing the hiring manager with more information about your key accomplishments and skills.   
 

Resume objective

 
As a first-year teacher, you’re likely to not have many years of experience. However, you can still showcase your teaching knowledge by using a resume objective. A resume objective is a 2-3 sentence paragraph that summarizes your career intentions. With this, you can explain your career goals and why you’re the ideal candidate for a teaching role.   
 
You can introduce your experience, such as teacher training and what groups you specialize in teaching. For example, specify what learning environments you are qualified to teach in, such as early childhood education, elementary education, middle school, high school or special education. In your resume objective, you should explain why your knowledge of creating positive learning environments compensates for a lack of experience. Looking for inspiration? Don’t miss our Objective Examples for Resume page.   
 

Skills  

When writing your first-year teacher resume, you will want to focus on your skills section. But, you must focus on the right combination of hard and soft skills to impress the hiring manager. Hard skills are teaching-specific and are gained through training (e.g., creating lesson plans). Soft skills are interpersonal skills, such as communication skills, that are transferable to any job.   Carefully read the job description and highlight the skills the recruiter is looking for. Then include those skills in your skills section and other sections of your resume to help them stand out. Here are some bullet points with resume skills examples that are often found in a first-year teacher’s resume:

• Monitoring student performance and documenting student progress
• Time management 
• Problem-solving 
• Critical thinking 
• Microsoft (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
• Teaching small groups and large groups 
• Facilitating positive student-teacher relationships
• Working collaboratively with teacher assistants
• Strong social studies knowledge 
• Catering to different types of learners

Work history

 
As a first-year teacher, you probably have little to no teaching experience. However, you can provide details from your teacher training or any professional experience that can contribute to your skills. For example, you can include the experience you gained as part of your college coursework, substitute teacher experience, student teaching experience or even volunteer teaching experience. Always list your experience in reverse-chronological order, starting from the most recent job. 
 
In your work experience section, you should provide each job title with a list of 3-5 bullet points that outline your key duties. You should also provide the employer’s details, such as the company name and the dates you started and finished.  
 

Education 

 
To become a teacher, you’ll need to complete a bachelor’s degree while studying in a state-approved teaching program. You can do this by majoring in a chosen subject, such as English, language arts or social studies and minoring in education. Alternatively, you can gain a master’s degree in education. You’ll then need to pass a general teaching certification or licensing exam to qualify, depending on your school district. Be sure to list all your education and certifications in the education section of your resume in reverse-chronological order.