Flight Attendant Resume

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the global airline industry hard, with canceled flights, job cuts, and long quarantine periods for pilots and cabin crew members. However, as the world learns to live with the virus, national and international travel is on the rise again.

If you’re looking to secure a job that allows you to travel for work, becoming a flight attendant is a great career move. Check out these four tips that will help you write a flight attendant resume that maximizes your chances of receiving a callback:

1. Write a compelling flight attendant resume objective

Whether you’re writing a flight attendant resume with no experience or you already have several years of experience, a strong resume objective will help you capture the hiring manager’s attention.

A resume objective is a short paragraph placed at the top of your resume that summarizes your previous work experience and education, highlights your greatest accomplishments, and demonstrates your strongest skills.

Here’s a good example of a flight attendant resume objective:

This is an effective resume objective because it provides employers with key information about the candidate’s skills and qualifications.

By taking only a few seconds to read the resume introduction, the hiring manager already knows that the candidate has 6 years of experience, is properly trained in CPR & AED, and has been recognized for their excellent customer service.

2. Showcase your flight attendant resume skills

In addition to the hard skills necessary to operate mechanical and safety equipment, flight attendants need a strong set of soft skills to be able to provide top notch customer service, handle difficult passengers, and command people’s attention during an emergency.

Hiring managers want to know you have these crucial skills before they seriously consider you for the position. By clearly listing your relevant hard and soft skills on  your resume, you show employers that you’re capable of not only handling the basic responsibilities of a flight attendant, but also navigating tense situations with professionalism and composure.

If you’re not sure what specific soft skills to list on your resume, here are some of the top soft skills for flight attendants:

• Customer service skills
• Communication skills
• Patience
• Cultural intelligence
• Flexibility
• Prioritizing
• Stress management
• Conflict resolution
• Empathy
• Responsibility
• Initiative
• Problem solving
• Calmness
• Positivity
• Active listening
• Mediation
• Friendliness

Here’s an example of how to demonstrate your flight attendant skills in the work experience section of your resume:

In this bullet point, the candidate shows they possess conflict resolution skills which they used successfully to prevent a potentially dangerous situation from escalating.

3. Write an impactful experience section

Once you’ve caught the attention of the hiring manager, the next step is to impress them with your experience.

However, there are different ways to approach your work experience section, depending on whether or not you have relevant professional experience.

How to write a flight attendant resume if you have relevant experience

If you’re a seasoned flight attendant and are simply looking for a new job with a different airline, it’s not a lack of experience that might cost you the job. However, if you don’t know how to write about your professional experience correctly, your application risks getting lost in the pile.

A common mistake that people make in their work experience section is to simply list the job duties of their previous roles. Doing this doesn’t provide employers with much information about you as an employee and could hurt your chances of getting an interview.

To write an impactful professional experience section that proves you know how to apply your skills and achieve results, you need to include numbers.

Bullet point without hard numbers

• Helped passengers with carry-on luggage

Bullet point with hard numbers

• Assisted passengers to stow carry-on luggage, saving 15% more cargo space through efficient stowing techniques

The first point without hard numbers is much more vague and doesn’t offer employers any insight into how effectively the candidate performed their duties. The second point is much more effective and convincing because it offers a measurement of the candidate’s performance, and helps demonstrate their work ethic.

By including hard numbers like this in your work experience section, you increase your chances of making a good impression on hiring managers and getting called in for an interview.

How to write a first time flight attendant resume with no experience

If you’re a recent graduate at the start of your career or a working professional looking for a career change, you should still include hard numbers in your resume when possible.

However, instead of focusing on flight attendant-specific experience, you should use your resume experience section to demonstrate transferable skills that will help you succeed as a flight attendant.

When you write a flight attendant resume with no experience, a good way to find out what qualities employers are looking for is by reading the job description carefully and looking for recurring keywords and phrases to incorporate into your resume bullet points.

For example, as a flight attendant, you’ll be interacting with hundreds of people on a daily basis. For this reason, many flight attendant job postings specify that applicants should have strong interpersonal skills. If you’ve worked in customer service or were a resident assistant in college, you’re likely to have developed these skills as a result.

Here’s one example of how you can highlight interpersonal skills on your resume:

This example works because the candidate specifies how many customers they interact with on a daily basis, and they describe how their interpersonal skills helped the company retain more customers.

4. Include the right certifications

Flight attendants must be FAA certified and certain certifications, like CPR and AED, are compulsory for all cabin crew members, including flight attendants. Other certifications that can help your application stand out are:

• Travel and Tourism Professional (TTP)
• Certified Travel Associate (CTA)
• Foreign language certificate
• Conflict management certificate

If you only have one or two certifications, list them in the skills section. In case you have multiple relevant certifications, list them in a separate section of your resume.

Remember to include the following information for each certification you list:

• Name of the certification
• Name of the awarding institution
• Date earned

When done correctly, the certifications listed on your resume should look like this: