Coaching Resume Example

Coaching jobs can take many forms, from being a fitness coach to helping young athletes hit career highs or even training teams for international competitions.

Whatever your goal is for becoming a coach, learning how to write a good resume is vital because directors and hiring committees need to know that their star athletes are in good hands.

If you’re looking to make your next move in the coaching industry, these three professionally written tips will help you score that winning coaching position.

Tip 1: Quantify your successes

As a coach, your job is to help athletes or clients achieve their goals. Your resume should focus on those achievements and highlight your successes. This involves highlighting your wins, as well as what you’ve helped others achieve through tailored training programs.

To immediately impress hiring managers, you should add hard numbers to your accomplishments. Quantifying your accomplishments involves using percentages, rankings, and time frames to make your work experience measurable.

Quantification is key to writing an accomplishments-based resume and demonstrating that you’re focused on helping clients and athletes achieve their physical goals rather than just going through the motions.

Here are two examples from our candidate’s resume:

• Coached one athlete to 2nd place in the CrossFit Regionals
• Developed offensive and defensive football game plans in cooperation with the head coach and won 75% of state games

These bullets quickly illustrate how the candidate implements great coaching techniques to help their team win games. Don’t be shy about drawing attention to your triumphs. Coaching is a competitive industry, and you need to stand out.

Although it’s vital to quantify your athletic impact, there are other valuable types of experience you should quantify too. If you have a consistently high record of client return rates or always have customers on the waitlist for your training class, for example, this makes you an attractive candidate to employers.

Our candidate is able to demonstrate considerable sales experience:

• Built authentic relationships with members and increased sales of sports nutrition products by 15%, worth over $1,500 a month

This bullet point demonstrates our candidate’s excellent interpersonal skills—which are vital for coaching resumes— as well as their ability to profit from those relationships, which is good for business.

Tip 2: Target using actions verbs for your preferred sport

Regardless of what you coach, adding actions verbs detailing your coaching duties, responsibilities and accomplishments will help your resume stand out by making it mirror the language used in job advertisements.

For example, our candidate was an assistant athletic coach at a high school and then began to specialize in CrossFit training. Here’s how he describes his responsibilities at his current position using targeted action verbs:

• Manage classes of up to 20 people, implement thorough warmups, program effective WODs, and supervise use of gym equipment

You can do this for any sport, from weightlifting to cricket. Additionally, notice how our candidate uses good adjectives for a resume, such as “thorough” and “effective.”

For reference, we’ve included some bulleted experience point examples for a variety of sports below:

Basketball Coach Resume (Bullet Examples)

Basketball coaches need to excel in both strategy and fitness. On your basketball coach resume, make sure you provide examples of how you thrive in both areas, and you’ll put yourself in a much better position to find work.

• Planned and supervised weekly basketball matches and practice sessions for groups of 12 high school students, increasing school team wins by an average of 6 annually
• 100% of my athletes graduated with their high school diplomas, and one former student now plays for the NBA

Soccer Coach Resume (Bullet Examples)

Soccer coaches have responsibilities before, during, and after the game. Make sure you describe how you balance your duties on your soccer coach resume to give yourself the best chance at securing a soccer coach gig.

• Coached weekly five-a-side matches for students while monitoring their academic performance and weekly nutritional intake
• Due to my guidance and training regimen, the girls’ soccer team ranked 11th at a national level

Football Coach Resume (Bullet Examples)

The best football coaches know their athletes’ strengths and weaknesses. A solid game plan for your football coach resume is to demonstrate how your leadership helped your players reach peak performance.

• Responsible for all aspects of the football program, including skill instruction, competition preparation, recruitment, and budget management
• Trained four students to prepare for university physical fitness tests, which lead them to secure scholarships to NCAA Division 1 schools

General Coaching Resume (Bullet Examples)

Many talented athletes won’t ever reach their full potential without a skilled coach. If you’re writing a general coaching resume, highlight how you instilled confidence in your players and always went the extra mile.

• Instructed and trained middle school students in over six different sports, including baseball, dodgeball, and gymnastics
• Secured funding for a weekly extra-curricular sports workshop for disadvantaged students

Notice how all of these examples include action verbs. Regardless of your preferred sport or athletic expertise, it is always important to show your potential employer by using actionable verbs how you specifically made a difference in your athlete’s life and training.

Tip 3: List key certifications

Coaches will need to have a well-rounded education and specific certifications under their belt in order to succeed. Therefore, it’s crucial to list key certifications on your coaching resume.

Education

Coaches are passionate and have an in-depth knowledge of their chosen sport. Therefore, many professional coaches will have an undergraduate degree or a sport-specific certification.

For your reference, our coaching resume example displays our candidate’s education and sport certification:

Education

CrossFit Level 2 Certification, Ironbros CrossFit, 2018

B.A. Sports Science, Florida State University, 2011 – 2015

Our candidate designed his resume to apply for a position as a university football coach, so he proudly displays his academic background in sports science.

As a coach, you will need to make sure to add your certifications to your resume.

For more information about the certifications you need to coach a sport in your state, the National Association of State Boards of Education is an excellent resource.

Additional Skills

Finally, finish off your resume by listing out key additional skills, certifications, or awards.

Our candidate has knowledge of CPR, AED, and First Aid. Each of these is highly relevant to working with students, especially in athletic scenarios where a qualified adult may be needed to help someone in an emergency.

You could even display your experience with teaching classes online. Many coaches and trainers were forced to teach online due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and employers may want to see if you’re capable of performing remote work effectively.

In the coaching industry, proving that you’re dedicated to your clients’ and athletes’ safety, and not just the outcome, might be the winning detail that gets you an interview for your perfect job.