Substitute Teacher Resume: Examples, Template, and Resume Tips

Virtually everyone can remember going to school one day and seeing that the class is held by a substitute teacher and almost everyone I know remembers that, at the time, the kids were giving a hard time to the substitute teacher.

Maybe it was because then we as kids felt more in control or because the teacher didn’t know how to impose proper authority.

On the contrary, everyone remembers having that one cool substitute teacher that was “better” than your regular one, so you didn’t want him or her to go, but there was nothing you could do.

Anyways, being a substitute teacher, as do most jobs, has its ups and downs but what’s important is that you can make a living out of that profession and it is a great way to start your teaching career and slowly work your way up to become a full-time teacher or professor.

Believe it or not, substitute teachers are always in demand mainly because no one can predict if the regular teacher will get sick, quit their job, have a family emergency or even get maternity leave, so someone has to take their place in the time of their absence.

Today we are going to give you two examples of how to write a substitute teacher resume, and after that, we will go through each section step by step giving you a complete guide on how your resume should look like.

So let’s not waste any more time and jump straight into it!

Substitute Teacher Resume Example

Substitute Teacher Resume Sample

Okay, now that we’ve shown you how your resume should look like, we can go ahead and walk you through every section step by step and give you more insight on how to write it and what you should avoid at all costs.

Also, after that, we are going to give you some basic tips and tricks you can use which will make your resume look even more professional so that you don’t have any difficulties in getting the job you’re applying for.

And, if you still have some questions on how to write your resume, then we recommend you try out our resume builder which will give you all the tools you need for your resume to work out just perfect, but we will talk about that later.

Let’s begin our guide!

GUIDE ON WRITING THE PERSONAL INFO SECTION

It’s very obvious that you need to provide some personal information when you are applying for a new job position and you shouldn’t assume that your employer will use the information to try and spy on you, but rather just for the usual background check-up as you will very likely be working with children.

That being said, you should look at the Personal Info section as your business card and the usual information which is displayed on a business card is:

• your full name
• home or office address
• phone number
• e-mail
• social media

Rarely will an employer ask you for your photograph and he should specify that it is required before you send your resume, so you don’t have to worry about it too much.

Also, your address sometimes isn’t necessary, but you should write it anyway.

When it comes to your full name, you should always provide your birth name or, in case you’ve changed it, the name on your ID card and you should stay clear of nicknames because your employer, colleagues, and students are going to you as Mr. or Mrs. X (X meaning your last name).

Next, you should create a new E-Mail account which you will be using just for work, and it’s a good idea to do that for social media as well because it’s easy to mix-up your private life and your work life so keeping those two things separate makes it a lot less difficult to handle.

Also, your LinkedIn profile is very important, if you don’t have one then you should create it because it will serve as a secondary resume and you can add everything you’ve accomplished throughout your whole carrier so that your employer knows what other important information he needs to know about you skills you may have that aren’t listed on your resume.

Keep your E-Mail addresses clean and professional and use your full name or initials, and the same applies for social media:

With all of this being said, even though you are working with children, and it’s a relaxed environment, you still need to be a professional.

GUIDE ON WRITING THE SUMMARY SECTION

Writing a great summary is one of the most important segments of your resume because in this section you are briefly explaining to your employer what he should expect from you and what do you feel like should be emphasized as being your most important skills and accomplishments.

On the contrary, you shouldn’t set high expectations, but rather just two, max three sentences which describe your past experiences and your work ethics so the employer knows if he should continue reading your resume or not.

You want to stay clear of writing boring information about yourself which don’t explain what your accomplishments were at your past job positions and should focus more on literally nitpicking some of the most important highlights of your career.

GUIDE ON WRITING THE EXPERIENCE SECTION

Your experience is very important when you are applying for a new job because every employer wants someone who already has some experience in that line of work so that you don’t need someone to teach you how to do your job.

When listing your past work experience, you should write in which period you’ve been an employee at your past workplace, which company, or in this case in which school or academy have you’ve worked for and what was your job title.

Also, you should add two or three sentences about your accomplishments at your job or a quick description of your responsibilities but don’t write things which fit your job title and which are obvious such as:

Two important notes:

1. If you have been teaching 4^th graders and lower grade-level, you can write that you’ve managed the classroom’s behavior because at that age it is very important for a student’s well-being that he or she learns discipline.
2. You should list the full name of the school you’ve worked at and the city it’s located in so that your employer can check to see if it is an accredited school.

GUIDE ON WRITING THE EDUCATION SECTION

If you are going to teach a group of students something you need to know the subject you are teaching very well, so a high-school diploma won’t cut it.

Most schools require a bachelor’s degree, and that’s a bare minimum because they want to ensure that the students get the best education available and that their staff is professional.

So if you were a hardworking student back in your college days, now is the time to flaunt with your academic accomplishment, and in your list, you should include:

• The college you’ve graduated from
• Your GPA score if it is high
• Seminars you’ve attended and projects you’ve been a part of
• Student organizations you’ve joined

It’s also important to list where did you get your educator’s license and if you’ve completed any other courses or obtained other certificates.

A great idea would be to list your education counter-chronological so that you write your most recent academic successes first.

Also, you don’t have to list the high-school you’ve graduated from because it’s quite obvious that you’ve finished it since you’ve graduated from college as well.

GUIDE ON WRITING THE SKILLS SECTION

Last but not least, we need to dwell a little deep into the Skills section because there are some skills which you should have to be a great, professional substitute teacher and fill in the role of the regular teacher, without changing of the overall flow of the curriculum.

Pedagogy is a must-have skill, meaning that you must know how to approach a student with the required learning material and how to make the class interesting for everyone individually but also the whole classroom.

You shouldn’t be too strict but also have some authority in the classroom and have great communication skills because you need to remember that the students are there to learn from you and you need to transfer your knowledge in the best way possible so that they can advance academically to the next stage of their education.

Also, you should list here which subjects you teach your students and also if you speak another language because that can be very helpful in multicultural environments which schools often are.

When listing your skillset, you should avoid writing trivial things such as:

As you can see you should specify at which grade level do you feel most comfortable working with because not all grade levels have the same needs, so you need to know how to approach your students with the subjects that they need to learn.

TIPS & TRICKS

• Resume length – Ideally, your resume should be just one page long, two pages maximum, but even that can be too much because sometimes you can even fit the whole resume on half a page and it is important to remember that employers don’t really spend that much time on reading resumes so you should keep it short as possible.
• Highlighting – Because your resume should be short, you should use highlights to emphasize things such as your past work experience, education, and skills so you get the employer’s attention but don’t highlight unimportant things because you will seem unprofessional.
• Bulleting – With highlighting, you should also use bullet points as they are much easier to scan and skim read than blocks of text, and the whole resume just looks clearer and nicely organized.
• Grammar – You should send your resume to a proofreader so that you eliminate any possible grammatical errors. It’s no big deal if you have some grammatical errors when you’re writing your CV, but not correcting them will surely damage your reputation, so be careful.
• Reviewing your resume – Apart from proofreading your resume, you should also get it checked by a professional or someone who has seen hundreds of resumes before because they can tell you what you need to add or remove so that your resume seems more professional.
• Tailoring your resume – You should always write a new resume for a specific job position because rarely will you find two job positions which require the same skillset and experience. Also, it’s a bit lazy to just use the same resume over and over again any as you are minimizing your chances of getting the job you’re applying for.
• Resume builder – If you still have some doubts about how to write your resume, feel free to try out our resume template builder as it will help you quickly add or delete the sections which you need so that you can tailor your resume for that specific job position.
• Formatting – Always have a physical copy of your resume and take it with you when you have a job interview because maybe your employer didn’t print one out and you should be prepared at any time. Also, make sure to have your resume in both PDF and TXT formats as those are the most standard formats being used in every company.
• Font – Never use handwritten font because it just seems unprofessional and isn’t very clear to read. Instead, you should just go with the universal fonts such as Cambria, Calibri, Times New Roman or Arial and be sure to keep your resume all in one font because writing in multiple fonts just seems tacky.
• Updating – You should be updating your resume regularly so that you are always prepared when a perfect job opportunity comes knocking on your door. Be sure to update your social media as well.
• Check your E-Mail – Check your E-Mail at least twice a day because that way you won’t miss out on potential replies from your employer because you can never be sure that they will call you on the phone number you’ve provided them. Check your spam folders as well because some E-Mails get filtered out, unfortunately.
• Political views – Stay clear of expressing your political, religious or other views, especially when you’re applying for a job which involves teaching students because no one wants to turn the plot of that German movie “The Wave” a reality.

CONCLUSION

That’s about it when it comes to writing a substitute teacher resume. We’ve learned today roughly how your resume should look like and gave you some great examples, and we’ve also gone through all of the sections explaining how to write your resume in the best way possible.

Try to remember which sections you should pay attention to the most, what to avoid writing in your resume and how to make your resume look more professional even by just glancing at it.

We hope that we’ve answered all of your questions you might had, but if we missed some of them, then you should try our resume builder as it will quickly show you how to properly write a resume using any template that you think fits your next job position the best.

Good luck on your job interview as we know you are going to get an E-Mail saying you are hired!