RESUME FORMAT
Most teacher resumes follow a standard format. To help you reach the broadest audience, we have pulled together hiring officials from small, medium, and large school districts in both urban and rural communities in Texas to review what each perceives to be the best resume format. The result is a hybrid resume format that is easy to read and quickly communicates your experiences.
At the top of the resume is the heading. There is where you name and any contact information is placed. Along with your address and phone, you will also want to include your e-mail address.
Following the heading, we recommend an objective statement or your educational philosophy statement. To give your employer a good idea of your goals or beliefs, give a brief explanation about your objective or educational philosophy. This can be one or two sentences long. Typically, if you have teaching experience, such as substitute experience, paraprofessional experience, or other teaching experiences, you would use a educational philosophy statement. If you have no or limited teaching experience, you would use an objective statement. The objective or educational philosophy, as well as other parts of your resume, should not have personal information that discloses ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status, age, living situations, or any other personal information that is not directly related to your career.
Immediately following your educational philosophy statement or objective statement, you will need to list your certification or education. The order makes no difference.
When listing your certification, you need to be very clear and accurate. Include the certification and the grade levels you are eligible to teach. Do not simply put “History”. You need to specify, “History (8-12). If you have multiple certifications, list each certification on a new line. Your certification is whatever is listed on your Highly Qualified letter issued by Texas Teachers.
Assuming you listed your certification first, the next section will contain information about your education. Your education section should be concise. The name of the University (University of Texas), the location of the University (Austin, Texas), and the degree earned (Major: Marketing). The year you graduated from the university and the grade point average (GPA) are optional. If your GPA is good, consider listing it.
The body of your resume follows your education. Use this section to attract the employers attention, but don't go overboard in trying to be creative. Stay professional and remember your audience – educators. You are no applying for a marketing job, or a engineering position. Within the body of your resume, there are typically two or three sections depending on how much experience you have that is educationally related.
The first section details your employment history. If you have education related experience, you will want to divide this part into two sections, Education Related Employment, and Other Work History. If you do not have education related experiences, simply use Work History. Your experience listing in each section should include information on your past work experience, starting with your current or last job, and listing previous positions in chronological order. Include the dates employed, the name of your past employers, and the city and state where the place of employment took place (full address of employment is not necessary). List your title and your main responsibilities, with emphasis on duties that principals or other hiring officials may find important. If the employment company is well known, you may skip the name of the city and state.
Following your work history, include a section that details volunteer work or other past experiences can be mentioned as long as they pertain to education. It is also acceptable to include a section detailing specific skills that would be beneficial for a principal to know. Always remember who your audience is! Your audience is a principal, a teacher, or a district level recruiter of human resource representative.
If an employer request references, you should list them; best practices suggest not to list generic statements about references being available upon request as this is understood.
Remember, your resume represents you to potential employers. It serves as your tool to attract attention, get the interview and get a job. A great resume will set you apart form the crowd and display your talents. Think of your resume as your business card. Do some research and invest some time in developing a powerful resume. You will want to make sure that your resume is error free. Double check your grammar and spelling. Make sure that your resume has a good format to it. Stick to well known fonts that are easy to read (Arial, Times New Roman, Century and Helvetica). Keep the font size and color standard. Do not use large fonts or colored fonts in your resume. Do not go overboard with bold, italicized, or large-cap text. Keep the format consistent and make sure that the resume looks great when viewed online as well as when printed out. Finally, most school districts in Texas allow for multiple page resumes, but, it is advisable to check the district web-site prior to submitting. Several districts do mandate single page resumes.