Teacher Aide Resume Examples, Job Description, & Guide

What to highlight in a teacher’s aide resume

Teaching assistant jobs require specific skills, and a tailored resume is the best way to show you meet the school’s requirements. This job usually involves good number and literacy skills, patience, and the ability to manage students’ behavior positively.

Structure of a teacher’s aide resume

Resumes usually have headings, subheadings, professional fonts, and distinct sections with short, bullet-point descriptions. Avoid personal pronouns and start your sentences with action verbs instead (e.g., “Taught classroom of 15 students”).

For more tips on resume writing, use a resume builder or view our teacher’s aide resume samples. There are three main resume formats: chronological, functional, and combination. The chronological resume format emphasizes your work experience, and the functional resume format highlights your skills, whereas the combination resume format covers both. Each resume format has sections for your contact information, resume summary or objective, skills, work history, and education.

Here are some tips on what to include in each section of your teacher’s aide resume:

Contact information

Your header displays your contact details, including your name, telephone number, and email address. Writing your mailing address is optional and not a strict requirement. Employers are most likely to contact you by phone or email.

Resume summary or objective

Your most outstanding achievements should catch the recruiter’s eye in this section. If you have an extensive work history relevant to a teacher’s aide position, write a resume summary. Include your most significant achievements and skills in early childhood education, working with special needs students, or students with disabilities. However, if you are a recent graduate or have little work experience, you will want to write a resume objective to state your career goals.

Resume skills

The skills section demonstrates your abilities and shows the hiring manager you would be a perfect fit. Tell the school what they want to hear using bullet-point lists. Here are some examples:

• Excellent communication skills
• Outstanding interpersonal & rapport building ability
• Ability to motivate students and make learning a fun process
• Creative approaches to engaging learners

As well as skills, demonstrate your knowledge in areas such as familiarity with early childhood education practices or knowledge of the elementary education curriculum.

Work history

Start with details from your most recent place of employment, going backward for no more than 10 years. Include job titles, company names, locations, and the dates you were employed. Create a few bullet points about your greatest accomplishments in each position. Don’t worry if your background is not from working in schools. Focus on the parts of your career where you can demonstrate skills the job requires. For example, a customer service role may have allowed you to use your tremendous interpersonal skills and ability to build rapport. Working in a childcare center could have given you insight into the best ways to manage students’ behavior. If you have experience assisting the lead teacher, you should detail the best aspects of that role. If you helped to teach children with special education needs or have experience in a special needs school/home, you should refer to that in your work history section.  Here are some other examples you could use:

• Assisted the teacher with lesson planning
• Developed the children’s daily activities with a focus on math and English
• Created educational and fun classroom activities as lesson starters
• Designed interactive and themed learning environments for the children to explore

Education

List your educational certifications in the education section. Don’t worry if you don’t have a bachelor’s degree or an associate’s degree, as this is not essential for the role, but if you do have one, you will want to include it. If you don’t have post-secondary education, list your high school diploma, as well as specialized areas of competence like mathematics and English. Mention any First Aid courses you have undertaken, as these will strengthen your position.

Do’s and don’ts for a teacher's aide resume

Below are some tips to keep in mind when writing your teacher’s aide resume:

Do:

• Highlight instances in which your previous work experience is relevant to the role.
• Choose keywords from the job description that spell out the primary skills and requirements of the role, and address them in your resume summary, skills and work experience sections.
• List any relevant courses you have studied, for example, courses in autism, study skills, or behavior management. Even short courses would show your passion for this role and demonstrate your love for lifelong learning.

Don’t:

• Forget to proofread. Basic math and literacy skills are necessary for this role and a resume with typos and grammatical errors could make you look as though you lack the required competency.
• Use flamboyant graphics or text effects. You want your resume to be easy to read.
• Neglect the importance of soft skills in this role: for example, interpersonal skills, compassion, and patience.