Teaching assistant resume example

What recruiters look for

• The required certificate or test: many states and federally funded (Title I) schools require an associate degree, two years of college or a paraprofessional assessment.
• Instruction you led: small groups, intervention programs, one-on-one support, with the result.
• Behavior and special education support: IEP accommodations, behavior plans, data collection, de-escalation training.
• Reliability: attendance, duty coverage and taking direction from several teachers at once.
• Experience with children: after-school programs, camps, coaching and childcare all count.

Writing the summary

Name the grades and settings you work in, your certificate, and the kind of support you are best at (reading groups, behavior support, one-on-one with a student who has high needs). Keep it to two sentences.

Bullet points that work

Strong lines for this role, beyond the ones in the example. Borrow the shape and put in your own numbers.

• Provided one-on-one support for a student with autism in a general education class, helping him stay in class for 90% of the day, up from 50%.
• Ran a math fluency group for 10 third graders; 8 met their fact fluency goal by spring.
• Recorded behavior data 5 times a day for 3 students, which the team used to rewrite two behavior plans.
• Prepared and organized materials for 4 teachers each week, freeing about 3 hours of their planning time.
• Covered 25 classes as a substitute when no sub was available, following the teacher’s plans.
• Translated for Spanish-speaking families at 30 parent conferences.
• Read aloud with kindergarteners daily and helped 12 of 18 learn all letter sounds by December.
• Completed 20 hours of training in structured literacy and applied it in my intervention groups.
• Kept a perfect duty attendance record for two school years.

Skills to list

Certifications and licenses worth listing

• Your state’s paraprofessional certificate or assessment: for example the ParaPro Assessment in many states, or the GACE Paraprofessional Assessment in Georgia. Often a hard requirement in Title I schools.
• Crisis prevention training (CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention or Safety-Care): expected in many special education settings.
• CPR and First Aid: useful for every school role and required for some.
• Registered Behavior Technician (RBT): valued for roles supporting students with autism.

Length and format

One page. Put certificates near the top or in their own section where HR can find them in seconds. Older non-school jobs can shrink to one line or go.

Common mistakes

• Describing the job as “helped the teacher”. Say what you taught, to how many students, and what changed.
• Leaving out the paraprofessional certificate or test, which many schools must check before hiring.
• Sharing student details. Describe needs in general terms and never name a child.
• Ignoring work with children outside school, which is often your strongest evidence.