Sheet metal covers shop fabrication, duct installation and air balancing, and shops hire for one of them at a time. Say which side you work, what gauges and materials you handle, and whether you lay out your own work.
Sheet metal journeyworker with 8 years split between shop fabrication and commercial HVAC duct installation. Layout from shop drawings, plasma and shear work in 26 to 16 gauge galvanised and stainless.
Here is how to write your own, and what actually gets you the call in this trade.
The first pass answers two practical questions: can you legally do this work, and are you free to start. A foreman with a job beginning next week reads for the licence, the current tickets and the availability, and everything else on the page waits behind those.
Entry is usually through a formal apprenticeship combining on-the-job hours and classroom instruction. Welding qualifications on light gauge stainless are useful for kitchen and laboratory work. Air balancing specialists hold certification through recognised balancing bureaus, which is distinct from installation work. Licensing requirements differ by state and locality.
Shops and mechanical contractors advertise the same trade for very different jobs. A fabrication shop wants machine setup, pattern development and clean seams; a field contractor wants hanger spacing, lift work and the ability to make a duct run fit a ceiling that is already full. Interviews often include reading a shop drawing. Testing, adjusting and balancing work is a separate speciality with its own hiring route.
Describe the work in the units the trade uses: square footage, linear feet, tonnage, service calls per day, machines run, crew size. Add safety record and callback rate if you have them, because on a job site those are worth as much as speed. If you have run a crew or trained apprentices, say so plainly — that is the difference between a hand and a lead.
A foreman reading this has a job starting Monday. Put your licence class, your certifications with their dates, and the equipment you can operate at the very top — above the work history — because that is the information that decides whether you get the call. Save the paragraph-style summary for one or two lines at most.
Apprentice to journeyworker, then lead installer, foreman, detailer or shop supervisor. Detailing and CAD-based layout is a common move for tradespeople who want off the tools without leaving the trade.
Check every certification date is current and every licence number is right, since these are verified and an expired ticket ends an application. Keep the file simple: one column, no graphics, no tables. Our free ATS checker will confirm it parses, which matters because large contractors and staffing agencies screen automatically.
Licence class, current tickets with their dates, and the equipment you can operate — all of it above the work history — then jobs described in the units the trade uses, your safety record, and any crew or apprentice responsibility. One page, one column, no graphics.
Which tickets are required depends on the trade, the jurisdiction and the site, and the posting sets it out. Whatever you hold matters more than anything else on the page, so list every one with its issue and expiry date — these are verified, and an expired certification ends an application regardless of the work history behind it.
Hiring in the trades is fast and often informal — a call, a short conversation, sometimes a day on site to see how you work. Referral and reputation count for more than in most fields, so how you leave one job affects the next one.
Your licence class, your current tickets, and when you can start. A foreman with a job beginning next week reads for whether you are legally able to do the work and free to do it, and the rest of the page waits behind those two answers.
The usual route runs from apprentice to journey level to lead hand or foreman, and from there into supervision, estimating or running your own work. Crew leadership and apprentice training are the lines that show you are ready for that step.
One page. Employers in this field read quickly and often on a phone, and a second page rarely gets opened. Cut old short-term roles before you cut certifications or equipment experience.
Use the structure and the way each achievement is phrased, but write your own content. The names and employers here are fictional, and a resume describing work you did not do will not survive an interview.
Start from this layout, edit in a live preview with an ATS score as you type, and download as PDF, Word or image — free.
Use This Example — Free
