Filling your resume as a former athlete can be a little challenging.

The reality is, many student-athletes graduate high school or college without much work experience since the majority of your time outside the classroom is spent at practice or in the weight room.

The good news is, athletics provides a ton of relevant work experience that employers look for.

Here are some tips on how to highlight those areas on your resume as a former athlete.

Tip #1: List all of your Accomplishments

Brainstorm with friends, family, teammates, and coaches to create a list of all your accomplishments, organizations your team has partnered with, and how much work you’ve put into your sport.

Don’t limit yourself to professional accomplishments. Instead, cast a broad net and then narrow down later.

Examples of what this brainstorm list may look like for you:

• Spend 5 hours a week watching film
• Spend 10 hours a week in the weightroom
• Spend 20 hours a week in practice
• Babysat for some local kids
• Took part in a freshman mentoring program
• Volunteered with a local charity
• Received Conference Honor Roll designations
• Coached summer camps 
• MVP of “specific” tournament
• Academic All-American
• Qualified for NCAA tournament in (year)
• Professional Groups
• Student Organizations
• Sorority Activity 
• Project Leader, Entrepreneurship Course

Tip #2: Organize Your Resume

Many employers spend less than a minute on the first pass of a resume.

Presentation is key when it comes to your resume, and you want to make sure your strengths are emphasized.

While others may list “Work Experience,” you can have sections that list “Activities and Skills”, “Intercollegiate Athletics”, and/or “Community Service”, which you can use to highlight the accomplishments you previously brainstormed.

Make sure you use action words throughout your resume. Take away passive words and turn them into strong power statements.

Click here for action words ideas.

Each resume will be formatted a little differently based on what you’ve brainstormed.

Consider using the format below to highlight the skill sets you have:

WORK, VOLUNTEER, ATHLETIC, LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE (or any combination of the three)

• Any paid or unpaid work or volunteer experience
• If you don’t have a lot of paid, feel free to move volunteer/community service work here

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

• Include sport, years participated, sport-related accomplishments, time devoted to training, and any athletic honors/awards

VOLUNTEER AND COMMUNITY SERVICE

• If not listed above, any volunteer initiatives or community service projects you or your team have been involved in.
• After listing the organization, include a brief description of what you did with them

AWARDS AND ACTIVITIES

• List Academic Honors here- if not well known explain what that award means
• Any groups or activities you participated in and leadership roles you held. 

Tip #3: Ask for help

You don’t need a professional editor, but have someone who doesn’t know sports review your resume.

While averaging 15 points a match or having a .300 batting average is phenomenal, this probably doesn’t mean much to a future employer.

Have them review the first word of each bullet point and make sure it’s not a passive word.

Other Tips

• Choose a professional-looking e-mail address. I recommend not using your school e-mail as you won’t have access to it forever, and who knows what openings may come up in the future with companies. You don’t want a company reaching out to an old e-mail address you don’t use.
• Check your social media platforms to be sure that privacy settings, photos, interests, and activities are appropriate. 
• Try to fit resume nicely on one page. Some day, your resume may warrant an additional page. Adjust margins, font size, and spacing. You don’t want too much white space so you may need to break up your categories to make everything fit.

Sample Resume

Below is a sample resume for what my resume might have looked like after I graduated from college and retired from volleyball. Feel free to steal my format!

EDUCATION

B.S. in Business Administration
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Second Major: Exercise Sport Science (Sport Administration Concentration)
Cumulative GPA: X.X

WORK AND VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

Game Day Producer for UNC Volleyball, New Media Department, Chapel Hill, NC         Dates

• Collaborated with a team of staff to coordinate the band, music, videos, and announcements for all home volleyball games
• Created highlight reels and interview video content to play online and during game breaks

Coach, UNC Volleyball Summer Camps, Chapel Hill, NC                                         Dates

• Lead teams and individuals in complex drills while identifying room for improvement
• Communicated effectively with different personality traits to help each individual grow their potential

Volunteer Roles                                                                                                          Dates

• Special Olympics– coached in annual Special Olympics volleyball field day
• Ronald McDonald House– cooked meals and cleaned the local chapter for 

ATHLETIC AND LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE

The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Women’s Varsity Volleyball Teammate        Dates

• Elected as team captain junior and senior years, a four-year starter, team leader in kills in 2011 and 2012
• Earned Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Roll recognition each year
• Balanced over 20 hours of time training, in the weight room, and competing with heavy academics

CREED, Rising Stars, Gap Year, & Veteran Leader Leadership Programs                          Dates

• Selected for the highest level of training in the premier leadership program in collegiate athletics
• Showed significant improvement in leadership skills, as evaluated by coaches, teammates, and self
• Demonstrated ability to receive constructive criticism and use it to improve on weaknesses
• Completed a Capstone Project designed to implement leadership skills gained during the year

Student-Athlete Advisory Council Chapel Hill, NC                                                 Dates

• Served on a panel of 30 athletes to represent the university’s entire student body 
• Collaborated with athletic department staff and to solve problems and make improvements
• Restructured communication avenues between athletes and advisors in order to improve access to courses

SKILLS

• Conversational Spanish 
• Computer knowledge (Word, Powerpoint, Avid, Social Networking Sites)