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Use this guide to help you craft the perfect athlete resume to succeed in your job search and secure job interviews.
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Starting a career as a professional athlete takes determination, strength and passion. However, there is much more to this role than meets the eye and your job application must reflect those requirements. To secure an interview and stand out to hiring managers, you must create a resume highlighting your skills, experience and education that make you a great fit for the role. Job seekers should study the job description of the role they are applying for and consider the keywords and requirements that individual employers are looking for. Then, highlight these sought-after skills and qualifications within your professional athlete resume.
There are three resume formats that you can choose from when creating your resume and you can make your decision by considering the level of work experience you have. Here are the resume formats you can choose from:
The header section of your resume is vital to provide your contact information to the recruiter. The following details should be included in this section:
A resume summary briefly describes your professional profile to the hiring manager, giving them an overview of your skills, achievements and goals. Your summary should only be two to three sentences long yet still relevant to the application and interesting to the recruiter. Here is an example: “Goal-oriented football player with three years of experience playing in the NCAA division as team captain while completing an athletic scholarship, in which I achieved a 3.0 GPA.”
Regardless of which resume structure you choose, you will need to include a skills section in your resume. A student-athlete resume should focus more on skills as you won’t yet have extensive experience, so include as many relevant skills as possible. Here are some examples to use as an athlete:
You may be worried about your work experience section if you haven’t yet worked as a professional athlete. However, it is good to still include a brief rundown of the work experience you do have and there will likely be transferable skills from any past jobs you’ve had. For example, teamwork is a transferable skill that many employers will look out for on athletic resumes. So, if you have previously worked as a team in a professional environment, t here is no reason not to include this in your resume.
The majority of professional athletes will have taken part in some level of education to help them achieve their physical goals. So, whether you studied for a Bachelor of Arts in Sports Management or maybe you were a member of your high school athletic department or college athletics, these are all valuable experiences that you can incorporate into your education section.
Build my resumeNow that you have seen a general overview of how a resume should be structured and what it should include, we have set out some do’s and don’ts to help you when it comes to writing your athlete resume:
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Including a cover letter for any job application is a must and will allow you to go into further detail on the skills you have mentioned in your resume. In addition, you can use cover letter templates to help you craft a professional letter that reflects your skills in the best way possible.
If your professional athletic experience is lacking, you will still be able to write a good resume. Instead of focusing on your work experience, focus on your education and skills that make you a good fit for the job. Using a functional resume structure would be the best way to go about this.
To customize your resume for different job roles, you should pay attention to the keywords in the job description. Once you highlight these requirements, see which ones you have and then add them to your skills section to ensure you show the hiring manager that you have the skills they desire.
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