Teacher Resume: Format, Sample, & Writing Guide

What’s a good teaching job? It’s not only about the salary. But you deserve to be paid well for your work. You also deserve a good working environment. One that supports the teachers and the students. One that doesn’t care only about getting money from the parents.

Drop the mediocre schools and their politics. Write a professional teacher resume and get a teaching position at one of the top educational institutions. Not sure what’s the best school teacher resume format at the moment? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

This guide will show you: 

• A teacher resume format sample better than 9 out of 10 other resumes.
• How to write a resume for teacher jobs that will land you more interviews.
• Tips for picking the best skills for a teacher resume.
• How to describe your experience on a resume for teacher jobs in Indian format.

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Teacher Resume Sample

Now, follow this guide to create the best school teacher resume format:

1. Use the Best Resume Format for Teacher Jobs

When you plan your lessons, you follow a certain structure. Warm-up activities, presentation of material, time for students to practice. You wouldn’t suddenly switch the order without an explanation—it would confuse your students.

It’s the same way with resumes. They need to follow a certain format.

First, let’s focus on making your teacher resume look professional. Follow these steps for the perfect teacher resume format:

• Use the reverse-chronological order to make your most recent achievements shine.
• Select professional resume fonts such as Calibri, Times New Roman, Georgia.
• Set line spacing to 1 or 1.15 to ensure high readability.
• Keep font size as 11–12 for the contents and 13–14 for headings.
• Set the resume margins to 1 inch on all sides.
• Organize the information in neat paragraphs.
• Limit your teacher's resume to one page.
• Save it in a PDF file format (unless the job ad specifies otherwise.)

As you can see, this is not rocket science—but using the best resume format for teacher jobs will help you get ahead of the competition and make your skills shine.

Now, let’s talk about the contents of your resume. Here are the resume sections you must include:

• Contact Information: Your full name, job title, phone number, email address, LinkedIn profile, date of birth, marital status, and nationality are a must for teaching jobs in India.
• Resume Summary or Objective: Here, you add a short description of your career and goals.
• Work Experience: Describe your teaching accomplishments and responsibilities.
• Education: List your highest degree and educational credentials.
• Skills: Combine teaching skills with soft skills and technical knowledge.
• Extra Sections: Here, list certifications, memberships, conferences, hobbies, languages, and more.

You might think it’s easier said than done, but if you keep on reading, you’ll see that it’s really not that difficult to write a great teacher resume. Definitely easier than keeping order in a classroom with 30+ seven-year-olds.

2. Highlight Your Work Experience in a Teacher Resume

No matter if you teach mathematics, science, English, or other subjects—this is the most important section of your resume. That’s why it’s worth putting extra effort into it. Remember that with over 9 million teachers in India, your competition for great teaching positions is massive.

Follow these steps to describe your work experience on a resume for teacher jobs in schools:

• Start with your most recent position.
• List the name of the school or organization as well as work start and end dates.
• Add a description of your responsibilities in 4–6 bullet points.
• Mention achievements with the Problem-Action-Result formula.

Have a look at the example below to see how it’s done:

School Teacher Resume Format: Work Experience

It’s easy to imagine parents begging such a teacher to take care of their kids! This person is creative, hard-working, and dedicated. They also have quantifiable achievements to brag about.

School principals won’t be impressed by that. It’s too vague. Nothing about the real achievements of this person.

Now, what about teachers with no experience?

Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about them!

Teachers with little professional experience must take a different approach while writing their teacher resume. Don’t leave the work experience section blank. Instead, add experiences that involved working with others, taking care of someone, or elements of teaching.

Maybe you did some freelance tutoring during secondary school? Helped neighbours to babysit their kids? Created instructional YouTube videos with craft tutorials? 

All of these are valuable. There’s a pretty good chance, too, that you’ve done teaching practise or worked as a teaching assistant during college.

Check the examples below to see examples of junior candidates:

School Teacher Resume Sample: Work Experience

While this candidate has only freelance tutoring experience, they already know how to work with children and support their development.

This might be a delightful person, but they haven’t learned much from their own experiences.

When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.

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3. List Your Education in a Resume for a Teacher

To become a teacher in India, you need proper credentials. The minimum educational qualifications established by NCTE require most teachers to complete a two-year diploma in elementary education or a four-year Bachelor of Elementary Education degree. This means that listing your education is a must in the teacher’s resume.

This is what you must include in the education section of your resume for school teacher jobs:

• Your most recent degree or certification
• The college or organization
• Years of study
• Your CGPA

See this sample teacher resume below:

Sample Resume for a Teacher: Education Section

Short and to the point!

It’s better not to use cryptic abbreviations in your resume. Recruiters don’t have time to guess what they mean.

Candidates who are newly qualified can also mention relevant coursework, academic achievements, and extracurricular activities. These can support you if you don’t have much work experience yet.

Check an example for a teacher with limited work experience:

Education in a Resume for Teacher Job

See? It’s possible to shine even if you only have academic experience.

Would you like more tips for inexperienced candidates? See here: Best Resume Format for Freshers

4. Choose Great Skills for a Teacher Resume

Teachers must be prepared for everything. If the coursebook includes a song, they need to sing it. If the syllabus mentions field trips, they must organize them. And if little Sahil trips over during P.E., the teacher must be ready to put a plaster on his knee.

This requires some serious skills. And the skill section of a resume is the place where you prove you can do pretty much everything.

Hard Skills for Teacher Resumes

• Classroom management
• Creating syllabus and coursework
• Adapting real-life materials
• Preparing teaching aids
• Teaching methodologies
• Lesson planning
• Grading and evaluating performance
• Motivating and giving feedback
• Using interactive whiteboards
• Parent-teacher communication
• Online teaching

Soft Skills for Teacher Resumes

• Decision-making
• Problem-solving
• Effective written and verbal communication
• Collaboration
• Teamwork
• Organization
• Time management
• Creativity
• Cultural sensitivity
• Emotional intelligence

Wow, that’s really impressive!

But wait—don’t just copy and paste the above list into your teacher resume. Instead, curate your own skill list. Here’s how to do it:

1. Read the job posting you’re interested in and underline the requirements.
2. Think of your own skills that match what this job needs.
3. Add a few valuable hard skills and soft skills.
4. Cut the list down to 6–10 bullets that you can include in your resume.

That’s the recipe for success.

Check the skill section example below:

Teacher Resume Sample: Skills

This can really impress school recruiters.

Modern-day teachers need digital skills. Not sure what are those? Learn here: List of Computer Skills for a Resume

5. Include Additional Sections in Your Teacher Resume

You’re on the right track with your teacher resume, so don’t stop! Now, with the most important sections ready, it’s time to add something extra to stand out from other candidates. Additional sections make your teacher's resume format unique. They can prove you’re not only a professional teacher but also overall a great person to work with.

Here are categories you can choose from:

• Certifications: Many private schools in India use English as the language of instruction, so having an English language certification definitely helps. Organizations from all over the world offer certifications in specific methodologies, such as Montessori, or in various subjects, such as STEM.
• Volunteer work: It’s a great chance to get some teaching experience even before graduating. Many charities need teachers and tutors to work with learners of all ages. Apart from teaching, you can also help with outreach activities, fundraising events, and a whole variety of other programs.
• Languages: The Indian constitution recognizes 22 major languages in India. This means that stating the languages you speak is a must. Many schools provide instruction in Hindi and local mother tongues. While speaking English is also a great advantage, being able to teach other world languages is even better!
• Memberships and associations: Teachers of all subjects can join associations dedicated to their field. Being a member is a great way to connect and collaborate with other teachers. It also helps to learn about new developments in teaching methodologies.
• Conferences: Attending events related to your field shows you are truly interested in your career. However, being a speaker is even better! It takes courage, but it’s worth it.
• Interests: Maybe this sounds a bit silly. Who cares about your free time, right? But maybe you actually do something great with your free time. Do you run a YouTube channel about little-known historical facts? Or share your lesson plans on a blog for other teachers? Such interests show that your work is also your passion.

Enough talking.

Let’s see this sample resume for a teacher:

Resume for a Teacher: Other Sections

Clear and informative.

It’s not like they’re bad interests. It’s just that they don’t help the candidate in any way.

Just noticed the job ad asks for a CV instead of resume? See here: Best CV Format for India

6. Write a Career Summary or Objective for a Teacher Resume

Congratulations! You’re on your way to the dream teaching position. There is one section left to add to your resume.

That’s right. It’s your career summary or objective. Though it appears at the top of your resume, it’s best to write it last. Why? Because you can simply combine the best bits of your teacher resume to create it!

This is the job-winning formula to write it:

1. Begin with a strong adjective, like motivated, enthusiastic, etc.
2. Add your profession.
3. Add the years of experience.
4. Specify what you want to achieve for the school or organization as well as the students.
5. Describe your biggest accomplishment from previous work.
6. Use the third-person narrative at all times.

It’s quite simple, right?

But wait—how do you know if you should write a career objective or resume summary?

• Go for a resume summary if you are an experienced educator—at least 2 years are best. You should have enough work experience to pick achievements to brag about.
• Write a career objective if you’re a fresher. Mention academic accomplishments and show that you already have a general idea of what it’s like to be a teacher.

Now, let’s check some examples:

Summary for Teacher Resumes: Examples

It’s easy to see that this person is knowledgeable, experienced, and creative. A great teacher indeed.

This candidate just sounds like thousands of other teachers. Remember—you need to show your best advantages to get the best teaching positions available.

Now, let’s see examples of a career objective for a teacher's resume:

Sample Objective for a Teacher Resume (Fresher)

Pretty impressive for a newly-qualified teacher, right?

This won’t do. Why? Because it doesn’t stand out from other fresh-faced candidates.

Maybe you’d like to see other examples of objectives? Check here: Freshers’ Resume with Sample Objective

7. Write a Cover Letter to Match Your Teacher Resume Format

Give yourself a high five—your teacher resume is now ready!

However, before you apply to the top 10 schools in India, there’s one last thing to do.

Write your cover letter.

Yes, it’s a must. While some recruiters don’t care about cover letters, other recruiters do. Especially the ones working in the education sector. So don’t put your candidature at risk, and get to writing!

Follow these steps to write a great teacher cover letter:

1. Use a cover letter format that matches your resume.
2. Greet the hiring manager by name—avoid “To Whom It May Concern” at all costs, since it sounds impersonal and outdated.
3. Start with a great opening for your cover letter to catch the recruiter’s attention.
4. Show your understanding of the job in the second paragraph.
5. Describe the skills you’ve got that make you a good fit for the position.
6. Finish your cover letter with a Call To Action and a tempting offer.

Once you’re done with all steps, your application is ready!

Read more: How to Write a Cover Letter in India: Guide & Sample

A great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

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See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Key Takeaway

To sum up, here’s how to write a teacher resume:

• Use the reverse-chronological order for a correct teacher resume format.
• Describe your work experience or academic accomplishments.
• Show your teaching credentials in the education section.
• Make a list of your teaching skills combined with soft skills.
• Add a few extra resume sections to stand out from the rest.
• Write a matching teaching cover letter for self-promotion.

And that’s all!

Now, we’d love to know:

- What’s your favourite thing about teaching?

- How often do you revamp your teacher resume?

- Which part of the teacher resume format is most difficult to write?

Let me know in the comments below!

About Zety’s Editorial Process

Our editorial team has reviewed this article in depth to make sure it follows Zety’s editorial guidelines. We’re committed to sharing our expertise and providing actionable career advice that brings real value. Each year, the high quality of our content draws 40 million readers to our site. But that’s not all—we conduct original research to obtain an exhaustive understanding of the labour market and pride ourselves in being cited by top universities and leading media outlets worldwide.