How to write a Skilled Trades CV

Called a resume in the US and a CV almost everywhere else — the same document, and these are the rules it gets judged by.

The conventions below are the ones this field actually uses. They are what the builder applies when you pick Skilled Trades / Technician, and what the rating checks a finished CV against.

What it must contain

Leave any of these out and the CV reads as incomplete to someone who hires in this field:

Work experience — Equipment worked on, standards followed, safety record and job volume.
Trade Skills

The order to put them in

Order is not cosmetic. What sits at the top is what gets read before someone decides whether to keep reading.

Professional summary
Trade Skills
Tickets & Licences
Work experience
Certifications
Education
Achievements
Languages

Section by section

Tickets & Licences — Trade licence, safety tickets and driving categories, with expiry dates.

What to put numbers on

The single most common reason a CV in this field reads as weak is that nothing in it is measured. These are the figures that mean something here:

jobs per week · downtime · first-time fix rate · safety record

Verbs that carry weight

Openers like “responsible for” and “worked on” describe a job description rather than a person. In this field these do the work instead:

Installed · Repaired · Serviced · Commissioned · Inspected · Fabricated

Length

1 to 2 pages is normal for this field.

Build a Skilled Trades CV See a worked example

Free, no account, and nothing is uploaded — the builder runs in your browser and the CV never leaves it.

Common questions

What should a skilled trades CV include?

A skilled trades CV has to carry work experience and trade skills. The order this field expects is professional summary, trade skills, tickets & licences and work experience.

What goes first on a skilled trades CV?

The professional summary. That is where this field's convention puts it, and it is what the builder applies when you pick Skilled Trades.

How long should a skilled trades CV be?

1 to 2 pages is normal for this field. Going longer does not add weight; it moves the thing being looked for further down.

Is a skilled trades CV the same as a skilled trades resume?

For applying to a job, yes - the same document under two names. Resume is the usual word in North America and CV almost everywhere else. The one real exception is the academic CV, which is long-form and lists publications.

Is there a free skilled trades CV template?

Yes. ihatejob builds one to this field’s convention for free, with no account and no upload: the section order, the section names and the rating all come from the skilled trades pack described on this page. It exports to PDF, Word and plain text.

Related fields

Aviation · Culinary · Hotels · Retail