Lifeguard Resume: Examples and Tips

Lifeguards are water-safety professionals who work to ensure the safety of swimmers and patrons in swimming areas. Attention to detail, excellent focus, physical strength, and swimming are needed to work as a lifeguard, as it’s their job to observe water conditions and help swimmers if there’s an emergency. Lifeguards are trained professionals who need to have CPR and first aid certifications.

Use these resume examples and expert tips to create an eye-catching resume for a lifeguard position.

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Lifeguard Resume Example Remarkable Comboc Featured 1

Top 4 Characteristics of a Best-in-Class Lifeguard Resume

  1. Summary Make your professional summary a quick “elevator pitch” that highlights your best skills and accomplishments. This section should address the most critical aspects of the job you want. For example, suppose the employer emphasizes pool area maintenance. Your summary could read: “Certified Lifeguard by the American Red Cross with 4 years of experience supervising swimming pool areas and ensuring patrons safety. Highly skilled swimmer and excellent communicator, experienced in maintaining pool area free from hazards. Certified in CPR and first aid.”
  2. Skills Feature technical skills such as excellent swimming, first aid, or physical strength, and important soft skills such as teamwork, ability to remain calm in stressful situations, or quick-thinking.
  3. Work History Use powerful action verbs while describing your KRAs and mention job-specific accomplishments that showcase your ability to function as a successful lifeguard. Make sure that you highlight your job responsibilities in a bulleted list and keep them very precise. Do not overload information and make your KRAs sound redundant.
  4. Education Include your top academic credential (e.g., high school diploma or university degree) along with the school’s name and location. You can also use this section to list your certifications or training completed to be a lifeguard.

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Find the Right Template for your Resume

Stand out from the pool of applicants with one of our professionally designed templates.

Centered

Draw the hiring manager’s attention with a vibrant stripe at the top of the page, followed by your capitalized name. This template features clear dividing lines between sections that make it easy to organize and find your information.

Remarkable

Give a bold impression with this unique design, which utilizes box graphics to highlight each section and a prominent header space to showcase your name.

Insightful

This template smartly aligns the headings to the left, allowing the hiring manager or recruiter to find the information they need quickly and easily.

For more resume templates you can use, visit My Perfect Resume’s complete collection of resume templates.

Do’s and Don’ts for Your Resume

  • DO use action verbs. Instead of just claiming you have a skill, feature examples of how you’ve used that skill using action verbs at the beginning of your statements. Verbs like performed, maintained, rescued, and prevented help you appear like a proactive and enthusiastic job applicant.
  •  DO proofread and edit your resume. Don’t rush to submit your resume. Before saving and sending, read your document to make sure there are no typos or grammatical mistakes. No matter how small, these types of errors can turn away hiring managers and recruiters.
  •  DO keep your resume straightforward. A resume shouldn’t be longer than a page. The only scenario where it’s acceptable for a job applicant to submit a two-page resume is if they have more than 10 years of experience in the same field. Otherwise, keep your statements sweet and short.
  • DON’T use first-person pronouns. Avoid referring to yourself in the first person. Using pronouns like “I,” “me,” or “my” in your resume is considered unprofessional and will make it seem like you’re focusing on yourself instead of how you helped in your previous jobs.
  •  DON’T use complicated designs. Resumes with many years of experience as a lifeguard, choose a chronological format, as it spotlights your work history and career accomplishments. If you have a couple of years of experience and can feature a good mix of job-related skills and experience, then the combination format is perfect for you. On the other hand, if you’re just starting or lack professional experience, the functional format is your best option to show the hiring manager that you have the skills and training to do the job.