6 Athlete Resume Examples & Guide for 2024

As an athlete transitioning into a new career, you might struggle to convey the relevance of your sports experience on a professional resume. Our comprehensive guide is designed to help you effectively translate your athletic discipline, teamwork, and dedication into compelling skills and accomplishments that resonate with employers.

Creating your athlete resume experience to catch recruiters' attention

Remember that for the athlete role, hiring managers are looking to see how your expertise aligns with their requirements. Here's where your resume experience section can help out. Make sure you:

• Include mainly roles that are relevant to the athlete job you're applying for;
• Don't go too far back in your experience - recruiters will only care what you did a decade ago if it's really important for the athlete role;
• Each bullet you include should say what you did, followed by the skills you used and the actual end result of your efforts;
• Quantify each of your achievements with numbers and possibly the overall effect it had on the organization;
• Highlight transferrable skills - or personal skills you've attained thanks to past jobs - that could be applicable within your potential workplace. This would showcase your unique value as a professional.

Formatting the experience section of your resume doesn't have to be an over-the-top deep dive into your whole career. Follow the athlete resume examples below to see how industry-leading professionals are presenting their experience:

Quantifying impact on your resume

• List the number of competitive events participated in to demonstrate consistency and experience in high-pressure situations.
• Include specific personal records or best times to show a trajectory of improvement and peak performance levels.
• Quantify the amount of team practice hours per week to highlight dedication and work ethic.
• Detail the percentage improvement in performance statistics over a period to showcase growth and adaptability.
• Mention the ranking within a team, league, or competition to provide context to your competitive standing.
• Note the number of awards or accolades received to emphasize recognition in your field.
• Specify the number of off-season training hours to show commitment to maintaining and improving skill levels year-round.
• State the percentage of financial sponsorships or scholarships earned through athletic performance to indicate the financial impact of your sports career.

Remember these four tips when writing your athlete resume with no experience

You've done the work - auditing the job requirements for keywords and have a pretty good idea of the skill set the ideal candidate must possess.

Yet, your professional experience amounts to a summer internship .

Even if you have limited or no professional expertise that matches the role you're applying for, you can use the resume experience section to:

• List extracurricular activities that are relevant to the job requirements. Let's say you were editor-in-chief of your college newspaper or part of the engineering society. Both activities have taught you invaluable, transferrable skills (e.g. communication or leadership) that can be crucial for the job;
• Substitute jobs with volunteer experience. Participating in charity projects has probably helped you develop an array of soft skills (e.g. meeting deadlines and interpersonal communications). On the other hand, volunteering shows potential employers more about you: who you are and what are the causes you care about;
• Align job applications with your projects. Even your final-year thesis work could be seen as relevant experience, if it's in the same industry as the job you're applying for. Ensure you've listed the key skills your project has taught you, alongside tangible outcomes or your project success;
• Shift the focus to your transferrable skills. We've said it before, but recruiters will assess your profile upon both job requirements and the skills you possess. Consider what your current experience - both academic and life - has taught you and how you've been able to develop your talents.

Athlete resume skills: the essential hard skills and soft skills checklist

Ultimately, your Athlete resume should hint to recruiters that you possess an array of talents that are indispensable to the role.

For example, listing the technologies and software you're apt at using (or your hard skills) and how you apply them in your day-to-day responsibilities would ensure you meet the technical requirements of the role.

But is this enough to ensure that you make a good impression on recruiters?

Go a step further by detailing the soft skills or personality traits you've attained thanks to your work and life experience.

The best way to balance hard skills and soft skills on your Athlete resume is by:

• Highlighting up to three of your most noteworthy career accomplishments in a separate section.
• Listing at least one hard skill and one soft skill you've used to solve a particular challenge or problem.
• Feature niche skills and technologies that would help you stand out amongst candidates.
• Think back on the social impact your efforts have had towards improving the work environment - were you able to always maintain a professional ethic, while enhancing the team culture? Write about your contribution to the role, department, or organization itself as a metric of success.

The skills section of your resume provides you with plenty of opportunities to detail your technical and personal traits.

All you have to do is select the talents that best fit your application and expertise. Make note of some of the most prominent hard and soft skills across the industry from our list:

Certifications and education: in-demand sections for your athlete resume

Your academic background in the form of certifications on your resume and your higher degree education is important to your application.

The certifications and education sections pinpoint a variety of hard and soft skills you possess, as well as your dedication to the industry.

Add relevant certificates to your athlete resume by:

• Add special achievements or recognitions you've received during your education or certification, only if they're really noteworthy and/or applicable to the role
• Be concise - don't list every and any certificate you've obtained through your career, but instead, select the ones that would be most impressive to the role
• Include the name of the certificate or degree, institution, graduation dates, and certificate license numbers (if possible)
• Organize your education in reverse chronological format, starting with the latest degree you have that's most applicable for the role

Think of the education and certification sections as the further credibility your athlete resume needs to pinpoint your success.

Now, if you're stuck on these resume sections, we've curated a list of the most popular technical certificates across the industry.

Have a look, below:

Which one to use: a resume summary or a resume objective?

The athlete resume summary or objective serves as a good introduction to your experience for recruiters.

Have you ever wondered which one (the summary or objective) will be more appropriate for your athlete resume?

• If you are a less experienced professional, write a resume objective statement. The objective is about three sentences long and provides recruiters with information about your career goals, strengths, and achievements . It should basically denote how you see yourself in this particular role, and what is your relevant experience and/or know-how;
• If you happen to have plenty of relevant experience, select your most impressive achievements for your resume summary. The summary is no longer than five sentences and serves as a storytelling instrument - highlighting your greatest career wins . Don't forget to align your summary with the job requirements to ensure your resume stays relevant to the role.

Read on for more information and examples of resume summaries and objectives from real world professionals.

Other athlete resume sections to support your expertise and skills

Recruiters are always on the lookout for that athlete candidate who brings about even more value to the role.

This can be either via their personality or additional accreditations they have across the industry.

Add to your resume any of the four sections that fit your profile:

• Projects for your most impressive, cutting-edge work;
• Awards or recognitions that matter the most;
• Publications further building up your professional portfolio and accreditations;
• Hobbies and interests to feature the literature you read, how you spend your time outside of work, and other personality traits you deem may help you stand out .

Key takeaways

At the end of our guide, we'd like to remind you to:

• Invest in a simple, modern resume design that is ATS friendly and keeps your experience organized and legible;
• Avoid just listing your responsibilities in your experience section, but rather focus on quantifiable achievements;
• Always select resume sections that are relevant to the role and can answer job requirements. Sometimes your volunteering experience could bring more value than irrelevant work experience;
• Balance your technical background with your personality traits across various sections of your resume to hint at how much time employers would have to invest in training you and if your profile would be a good cultural fit to the organization;
• Include your academic background (in the form of your relevant higher education degrees and certifications) to show recruiters that you have the technical basics of the industry covered.