Ironer (Garment Presser) CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for someone with about ten years in laundry finishing: care home linen first, then a dry cleaner, now a large hotel and workwear laundry. The name and the employers are made up. Copy the shape of it and put your own machines, piece counts and shifts in.

One note on job titles. In the UK and Ireland this role is usually advertised as ironer, laundry operative or press operator. Dry cleaners tend to say presser or finisher, and US postings use presser, garment presser or laundry attendant. Put the title from the advert at the top of your CV and mention the other word once further down, so both searches find you.

Plant supervisors and dry cleaning owners hire fast and read fast. Four things decide whether they call you.

• Output. "Ironed clothes" tells them nothing. "180–220 garments a day on a shirt unit and utility press" tells them what your hands can do. Every plant tracks pieces per hour, so give them a number.
• Damage and rework. A fast presser who scorches wool or puts a shine on a dark suit costs more than a slow one. Rework rate, customer complaints, or "no damage claims in two years" is the strongest line you can write.
• Which machines you have actually run. A flatwork ironer, a shirt unit, a form finisher and a hand press are four different skills. Name them. If you have only ever done hand ironing, say that honestly and say what you can pick up.
• Attendance and shift. Finishing is the last step before delivery, so a missing presser holds up the whole round. If your attendance is good, or you can work 5 a.m. starts, weekends or overtime in peak season, put it in the personal statement.

“I can train someone on the press in a week. What I cannot fix is a person who burns two blazers a shift or rings in sick every Monday. Show me your piece count and your damage record and I will bring you in the same day.”

Three or four lines under your name. Say how long you have done it, which machines, how much you finish and what your quality looks like. Pick the version closest to your situation and swap the numbers.

Most laundry CVs copy the job advert back: ironed garments, folded linen, maintained a clean work area. The manager wrote that advert. What they want is how many, how well and on which machine. Here are eight typical lines rewritten.

Split the skills section in two: equipment you can run, and what you know about fabric and process. Keep it to things you could be tested on tomorrow.

• Equipment: flatwork ironer (mangle), utility press, legger, topper, form finisher, steam tunnel, shirt unit, hand iron and steam board, spotting board, tunnel washer, dryer and folder.
• Fabric knowledge: cotton, linen, wool, silk, viscose and polyester blends; care label symbols; which fabrics shine, scorch or need a press cloth; how to handle pleats, linings and interfacing.
• Process: finish specs by account, garment inspection, tagging and assembly, FIFO rail order, rework handling, production counts and downtime logs.
• Safety: machine guarding, two-hand controls, safe isolation (lock-off), PPE, steam and burn hazards, COSHH and infection control procedures in healthcare laundry, safe trolley and cage loading.
• Reliability: shift flexibility, early starts, standing for 8 hours, lifting 10–20 kg within manual handling limits, peak-season overtime.

Soft skills only earn a place if a bullet backs them up. "Attention to detail" means nothing on its own; "checked every jacket against the account finish spec" is the same claim with proof.

Most laundry plants and dry cleaners will train you. They are not looking for a career history, they are looking for someone who turns up, works at a steady pace and does not ruin the goods. Build the page around those three things.

1. 1Put a two-line career objective instead of a personal statement: the shift you want, the pace you can work at, and any hands-on ironing you have done at home, in volunteering or in a family business.
2. 2Add a short section called "Hands-on skills" with what you genuinely know: reading care labels, iron temperature settings, pressing collars and cuffs, hanging and folding, sorting by colour and fabric.
3. 3List any work that proves stamina and reliability: kitchen porter, warehouse picking, cleaning, farm or packing work. Include hours per shift and attendance.
4. 4Say clearly that you are available for early or split shifts and for a paid trial shift. In this trade a trial is normal and it is often how you get hired.
5. 5Keep it to one page and hand in a printed copy at the plant or shop. Many small dry cleaners never advertise online and hire the person standing in front of them.

There is no licence to iron clothes in the UK. That means the few certificates you do have stand out, and so does a clean safety record.

• IOSH Working Safely. Not required, but it shows a plant you understand guarding, isolation and safe working. Many employers pay for it.
• Forklift certificate (counterbalance or reach) from accredited training. Useful in plants that move cages and bulk goods. List the truck type and the year, and give the date of your last refresher, as employers expect operators to be retrained and reassessed regularly.
• Infection prevention and control training. Standard and usually annual in hospital and care home linen work. Say the year you last did it.
• Employer machine training. "Trained on flatwork ironer feed and shirt unit, in-house training 2023" is a real, checkable line. Do not dress it up as a national qualification.
• Industry courses. Laundry and dry cleaning trade bodies run short training courses for staff. If your employer paid for a course, name it and the year. If you did not take one, leave the section out rather than inventing a title.
• If you trained or worked abroad, list any foreign laundry or dry cleaning certificate with one line of plain explanation next to it, as UK employers may not know it.

• One page. Always. Two pages for a laundry finishing job reads as padding.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. That is the UK convention, even though they are common on CVs from other countries.
• Put your shift availability in the header or the personal statement. "Available 5 a.m. starts, weekends, overtime in season" belongs where the manager sees it in the first three seconds.
• Plain layout, one column, black text, no icons or skill bars. Many plants print the CV and pass it around the floor, and some scan it into a basic recruitment system.
• Save as PDF unless the advert asks for Word. Name the file Firstname-Lastname-Presser-CV.pdf.
• Include a mobile number you answer during the day. In this trade the callback often comes within hours, and the second name on the pile gets it if you miss the call.

Large laundry groups, healthcare linen providers and hotel chains screen with software. Small dry cleaners do not. Write for both by using the advert's own words in your bullets, not in a keyword list at the bottom.

• Titles to mirror: presser, garment presser, finisher, laundry operative, laundry assistant, ironer, press operator.
• Equipment words: flatwork ironer, mangle, steam tunnel, form finisher, topper, legger, shirt unit, utility press, spotting board.
• Process words: finish spec, rework, piece count, pieces per hour, sort, tag, assembly, FIFO, soiled to clean.
• Compliance words that appear in healthcare and hotel adverts: PPE, safe isolation, infection control, COSHH, safety data sheets.
• Availability words: early shift, late shift, weekend availability, overtime, seasonal peak.