Athlete Resume Templates & Examples

We all know that a good athlete resume is one of the keys to finding your next dream job. But what makes a good athlete resume? Well, we reviewed as many athlete resumes as we could find to figure out exactly what goes into a good athlete resume. This guide will help you write your own resume. Let’s get started.

Methodology

The goal of this guide is to give you real data what the “must haves” of athlete resumes are.

To do that, we compiled and analyzed data from athlete resumes and 35 athlete job listings to get the data used for this our athlete resume guide. 

In addition to athlete-specific resume data, we built a database of nearly 1 million resumes and job listings, and we use a propriety machine learning model to understand the anatomy of the best resumes in general.

Quick note: using the data below can help you build a competitive resume, but it’s always important to be creative, unique, and personal to stand out.

If you want more info on our methodology, you can check it out here.

Athlete resume objective data + athlete objective examples

Pop quiz: do athlete’s really need to use an objective? 

In general, whether or not you need an objective or professional summary can depend a lot on your personal career level (check out our article on resume objectives), but this is what our analysis found for athlete’s specifically:

• 33% of athlete’s included an objective section
• 26% of athlete’s included a professional summary
• 48% of athlete’s included neither an objective nor a summary

Athlete objective examples

Skills for athlete resumes

These are the skills that occurred most frequently in in athlete resumes, which means they tend to be core competencies or highly desired skills. 

Of course, you should only list skills that you actually have, and you should prioritze skills most relevant to the job you're applying for. But these are good core skills to include on your resume.

To get more detail on building a powerful skills section, take a peek at our article on resume skills.

*Note: to find skills our machine learning model basically looks for common words, so take these with a grain of salt and use your best judgment. 

Most common athlete resume skills

Other good athlete resume skills

• Communication
• Time management
• Self-discipline
• Teamwork
• Flexibility
• Problem-solving
• Leadership
• Time management
• Program development
• Analytical
• Diet planning
• Conditioning & weight loss
• Detail-oriented
• Negotiation
• Collaboration
• Decision-making

Athlete skills section examples

Note: these examples are formatted the same here just because it’s simple, but we have more detailed formatting advice (and examples) in our guide to resume formatting.

Athlete skills example 1

Athlete skills example 2

Athlete skills example 3

Work experience for athlete resumes

Your work experience section is almost always the most important part of your resume. Because it’s difficult to pull trends from this kind of section, this section is mostly just examples. 

For some advanced strategies for writing about work experience on a resume, refer to our article on building a strong work experience resume section. We also have a guide on writing a resume with no experience if you’re just starting your career.

For now, it’s good to remember that the most important experience for any athlete resume is the most relevant experience.

A couple examples for you:

Athlete work experience examples

Education for athlete resumes

For most positions, work experience is more important than education, although it can be important for new grads or for fields in which specific classes are industry-standard. 

So it’s not a big section, but it’s still important, and often, athlete job postings list a minimum education requirement. 

Check out our blueprint for education on resumes for our full playbook on education sections.

Data from our sample of 933 athlete resumes

• 9% athlete resumes listed an associate’s degree
• 59% athlete resumes listed a bachelor’s degree
• 27% athlete resumes included a masters degree
• 1% athlete resumes mentioned a doctoral degree

Athlete resume education examples

Certifications for athlete resumes

Certifications aren’t a strict requirement for every job, but there are almost always certifications you can get to boost your chances of success. 

If you want to see how to build these sections, we have a guide about certifications on resumes.

We did a little research and found certifications can help athlete’s specifically, according to CareerOneStop.

Athlete certification examples

Athlete resume action verbs

Using our database of nearly 1,000,000 publicly available resumes, we compiled an index of action verbs and cross-referenced it with our sample of 933 athlete resumes and job postings to uncover which action verbs are most commonly used by athlete’s and athlete employers.

The most common action verbs on athlete resumes are: program, process, assist, prepare, and manage.

The most common action verbs on athlete job postings are: lead, plan, review, handle, and field.

Other action verbs for athlete resumes: 

• Perform
• Develop
• Design
• Test
• Direct
• Create
• Monitor
• Track
• Organize
• Resolve

Full athlete resume example

Lastly, we wanted to give you a couple full athlete resume examples.. 

Please note: you can write a better resume than this. This is just a quick illustration to show you how these pieces might fit together. 

If you’d like to see “perfect” resumes, we have a showcase of resume examples.

Athlete resume example

What experts say about athlete resumes

Before we wrap it up, we want to leave you with some advice from other experts we admire.

Want help with your athlete resume?

That’s all folks! We hope this guide has been helpful in understanding what exactly makes a great athlete resume. If you have any questions, just drop them in the comments below.