Truck Driver Resume Sample

Hauling cargo is a tough business. Meeting deadlines, planning, safety, and logistics all take time and practice. If you’ve gained experience on the road, you deserve to make that next step in your career. But, to successfully land your next position, you’ll need to write a great truck driver resume to impress potential employers.

We’ve put together four truck driver resume writing tips to help you succeed in writing your truck driver resume, so that you can nail your next job application.

1. Highlight your strengths in your resume summary

The main goal of a resume summary is to introduce yourself to a company and emphasize what you can offer to help them achieve their goals. As a truck driver, one of the best ways to help your resume stand out and encourage the hiring manager to keep reading is by writing a resume summary that highlights your certifications, truck driving experience and safety record.

Below, we’ve included an example of a great truck driver resume summary. Pay particular attention to how the candidate emphasizes their relevant driving experience, safety record, and certifications:

Truck Driver with 7+ years of experience safely transporting materials via interstate and intrastate, while maintaining adherence to OSHA and DOT standards. Highly skilled in transportation logistics and route planning, consistently achieving on-time deliveries and maintaining a high rate of customer satisfaction. Flawless driving record with zero accidents or injuries. Possesses a Class A Commercial Driver’s License with N, T, and H endorsements, and ME Certificate.

After reading this, the hiring manager will immediately be interested in you as a candidate, and will continue reading your resume.

2. Action verbs to utilize in your truck driver resume

As a truck driver, your ability to do your job well is pretty clear-cut: either you delivered the cargo on time or you didn’t. So when you write your resume, avoid using words such as “responsible for” or “tasked with.”

Instead, use action verbs to describe your accomplishments and work-related responsibilities. This helps give the hiring manager or recruiter a better understanding of exactly how you contributed to an organization.

For truck drivers, you’ll want to use action verbs in bullet points that are synonymous with logistics, driving, safety, time, and teamwork. Here’s an example of three great bulleted experience points from our truck driver resume, with the action verbs highlighted:

• Ensure 95% on-time deliveries. Coordinate with management to carefully plan alternative routes to avoid high traffic conditions and mitigate safety concerns.

• Reviewed and organized stock inventory before each departure, correcting log mistakes and errors.

• Adhered to and trained novice drivers on all organizational, DOT, and OSHA rules and guidelines regarding handling of hazardous waste materials. Develop company SOPs for accidents and emergencies.

Additionally, we’ve included a list of other truck driver-friendly actions verbs below:

If you include any of the above action verbs, your truck driver resume will be sure to stand out to the hiring manager amongst the other job applicants.

3. Include relevant truck driver skills

Truck drivers do more than just driving. Everyday you’re required to do calculations, perform maintenance, be alert to prevent accidents, and do calculations to avoid errors. Truck drivers need a range of hard skills consisting of basic physical, mental, and technical skills to do their jobs well.

Here are a handful of important truck driver skills to list on your resume:

• Math: How to do basic math like adding, subtracting, dividing, and multiplying whole numbers, fractions, and decimals
• Technical: How to do basic vehicular repairs, like oil and tire changes and engine maintenance
• Physical: The ability to lift, stretch, and do physical activities. (In fact, you need a Medical Examiner’s Certificate to even apply — and the company will probably test you, too.)
• Inventory Management: Be able to organize, log and store inventory that you’re hauling. Multiple deliveries can happen on a single trip. It’s important to only drop off the relevant materials for each customer. Losing items = loss of money and reputation.
• Logistics: Route planning is a major part of being a truck driver. Road situations can change due to weather, traffic, accidents, repairs, etc. You must have alternate routes that you can take to meet your destination in time.
• Customer service: Be able to resolve client disputes in a polite manner
• Clean driving record: Logistics companies only want to hire drivers that are careful and attentive while on the road. If there’s an accident, it ruins that company’s reputation.

If you have these hard skills, make sure to put them in your truck driver’s skills section so that the hiring manager can see them. Additionally, here are some great soft skills that hiring managers love to see on your truck driver resume:

• Collaboration
• Teamwork
• Time management
• Attention to detail
• Diligent
• Reliable
• Written and oral communication
• Patience
• Problem-solving
• Creative thinking

4. Highlight your truck driver certifications

Logistics companies will want to know that they’re hiring truck drivers with the proper certifications and licenses.

As a truck driver your most important certification will be your Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). You’ll want to list your CDL, along with which class it is (A, B, or C) under a dedicated “Certifications” section on your truck driver resume.

Additionally, if you’ve taken any classes and added endorsements to your CDL, you should list them as well. Having a medical examiner’s license is also important as we mentioned previously, so be sure to include that if you already have one.