Trades & blue-collar CV guide — licences, tickets, and site proof

A trades or blue-collar CV has one job: prove you are ticketed, safe, and experienced on the kind of sites the employer runs. Builders, facilities firms, warehouses, and labour hire still parse PDFs through ATS — so layout and licence wording matter.

Put licence class, ticket numbers, and expiry near the top — white card / construction induction, working at heights, forklift, refrigerant handling, heavy vehicle class, testing and tagging. If a ticket is expired, renew before you apply or omit it.

Name residential vs commercial vs industrial (or local vs long-haul for drivers). That single line often decides whether a dispatcher shortlists you.

Prefer owned verbs and scope: fit-outs completed, faults diagnosed, PM routes finished, units picked, on-time drops. Skip corporate jargon — synergy and stakeholder alignment do not travel on a job site.

Safety outcomes matter when real: zero lost-time incidents on supervised jobs, PPE compliance, lockout procedures. Never invent incident-free claims.

Electrician: "Completed electrical fit-outs for retail tenancies; coordinated with builders on programme dates; mentored [N] apprentices on safe isolation."

Plumber: "Ran service call-outs for leaks and blockages; same-day diagnosis on priority jobs; passed inspection first visit on listed installs."

Warehouse: "Picked and packed to daily unit targets with high RF-scan accuracy; forklift ticket current for pallet put-away."

Driver: "Local multi-drop routes hitting on-time targets; pre-trip inspections and POD photos completed every run." Full duty-line formulas: Truck Driver Resume Guide

Lead with host employer, supervising tradesperson, and modules or stages completed. Add site types and tickets even if paid experience is short. Reliability (attendance across placements) is a hiring signal — state consecutive months when strong.

Pair thin experience with the early-career or trades template; keep the PDF to one page.

Listing expired tickets or licence classes you cannot produce on day one.

Long soft-skill essays with no site type, tools, or ticket block.

Photo-heavy or multi-column layouts that break contractor career portals.

Copying brand names of tools you only saw once on a toolbox talk.

Template: Trades · Truck driver template: Truck Driver Examples: Electrician · Plumber · Warehouse Associate · Truck Driver Driver duties guide: Truck Driver Resume Guide Practice licence tests: Licence Tests Builder: Signup Aussie format: Aussie Resume Format