Free Downloadable Sports Resume Templates and Expert Writing Tips

9 Sports Resume Examples

A resume format structures your document to enhance your opportunities to continue a hiring process. You have three options for resume formats: chronological, combination and functional, depending on your degree of experience and skills. Each style highlights different facets of your knowledge and strengths.

Your resume format is critical in determining the outcome of your job application. Here are a few examples for applying to any profession related to sports.

Chronological Resume

A chronological resume is the best option for sports professionals with over 10 years of experience. With a focus on employment history and responsibilities, hiring managers will assess your talent and accomplishments more quickly through your previous roles.
However, if you have employment gaps, they are easily discernible in a chronological resume and can affect your job application.

Here are some examples of chronological resumes for your reference:

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  1. Football Coach: Football coaches are responsible for training, organizing and motivating football teams. Eric Evans uses this chronological resume to highlight his 10+ years of experience in coaching university football teams. He lists six essential skills and provides a detailed description of tasks and achievements supported by numbers.
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  2. Swim Coach: This elegant chronological resume with light colors is a great way to convey your expertise and experience as a swim coach. Cynthia Evans uses the separated sections to provide a detailed description of her work experience, skills and educational qualifications.
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  3. Volleyball Coach: This is a creative and polished chronological resume that helps employers efficiently navigate the sections. Diane Flores uses this chronological resume to highlight her extensive experience and focuses on quantifiable accomplishments in the work history section.

Combination Resume

A combination resume balances professional qualifications and employment experience. It focuses on a candidate’s ability to advance professionally and acquire job-specific skills. This format is best for mid-level professionals and individuals with a diverse skill set but limited job experience in a particular role.

With all the information it includes, a combination resume might be challenging to produce and can get pretty lengthy.

Take a look at these three examples to understand better.

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  1. Conditioning Coach: If you are a conditioning coach looking to advance your career, your resume should communicate the skills and accomplishments you have acquired. Craig Green effectively lists his experience as a personal trainer, gym trainer and conditioning coach accompanied by 11 relevant skills. This format allows employers to have a balanced view of the candidate’s capabilities and potential.
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  2. Tennis Coach: If you have the right skills and experience for the tennis coach position, let your resume convey that to the hiring managers. Focus on your skills and support them with tasks, duties and achievements like Alan Kelly has done in this combination resume. You can further bolster your opportunities by adding numbers and percentages of goals and successes in the summary and work history section.
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  3. Track and Field Coach: As a track and field coach, you should have skills such as “fitness assessments,” “exercise planning” and “first aid.” To continue expanding your combination resume, describe your work experience supported by tasks and accomplishments in detail.

Functional Resume

We recommend using a functional resume if you are an entry-level professional, a freelancer or a recent graduate. Functional resumes emphasize talents over work experience. They provide plenty of room to highlight the essential skills, qualifications and formal training needed for a position. In contrast to other formats, the work history section in these resumes provides only a basic overview of job experience.

Applicants with employment gaps or short-term work experiences can use the functional format to compensate for their shortcomings by focusing on educational qualifications and skills. A well-crafted functional resume includes a professional aim, considerable skills, relevant training and internship.

While it is a good strategy when work experience is lacking, an applicant tracking system (ATS) may reject functional resumes due to the lack of comprehensive work history, hurting your chances of achieving the position.

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  1. Athletic Director: Athletic directors supervise the various aspects of athletic programs. Carefully curate your resume regarding skills, responsibilities, experience and achievements and focus on what you can contribute to the role like Johnny Allen has done in this classic functional resume.
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  2. Baseball Coach: Employers will better understand you as a volleyball coach if you include a summary of your qualifications and skills. If you are using a functional resume as above, describe a few of your primary skills in bulleted format and elaborate on tasks and accomplishments.
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  3. Basketball Coach: Jessica Howard uses this concise functional resume to focus on her top three skills and expands each with duties and accomplishments. As her, you can also provide a summary of your qualifications to position yourself as a promising candidate for the basketball coach position.