Print Finisher Resume Examples & Writing Guide

One page, written for a bindery supervisor who is trying to cover a shift. The name and companies are invented. The run speeds, makeready times and spoilage figures are the kind of numbers on your own job tickets.

A bindery supervisor is doing one thing when they read your page: matching your machines to the floor. Write makes and models, not categories, and say whether you set up or only run.

• Setup ability. Running a machine somebody else set up is a helper's job. Makeready time is the number that separates the two, so put yours on the page.
• Spoilage and rework. Finishing is where a whole press run gets destroyed in ten seconds. A spoilage percentage tells a supervisor how careful you are.
• Safety habits on a guillotine. Two-hand controls, guard checks, knife changes, lockout. Six years with no recordable injury is a hiring argument, not a throwaway line.
• Shift and overtime willingness. Bindery is the end of the line, so it absorbs every delay upstream. Second and third shift openings are the most common ones.
• Job ticket literacy: reading imposition, grain direction, fold dummies, trim marks and finished size, and catching a problem before 60,000 sheets go through the folder.

“Makes and models, then makeready time, then spoilage. That is all I need. Someone who tells me they took a folder makeready from 45 minutes to 28 has thought about the job, and I can put them on a machine the first week instead of the second month.”

• Forklift certification. Employers have to train and evaluate operators under federal workplace safety rules, so a card from a previous employer counts. Give the year and the truck type.
• OSHA 10-Hour or 30-Hour General Industry. Cheap, common in this industry and easy to verify.
• Lockout/tagout and machine guarding training, which matters more in a bindery than almost anywhere else in a print plant.
• Any manufacturer training you received on a specific machine, such as a folder or stitcher course run by the vendor during an install.
• First aid and CPR, and any emergency response or fire team role.
• Your injury record, if it is clean. 'No recordable injury in 8 years on guarded equipment' is a legitimate line on a finishing resume.

Most bindery operators started as helpers, jogging and banding, and learned machines from the person beside them. Write your resume for that opening rather than for an operator seat.

1. 1Ask for the helper role by name in your objective, and say which shift you want. Second and third shift openings come up most often.
2. 2Put attendance on the page with a number. In a plant that runs to a shipping cutoff, showing up is the whole first test.
3. 3List physical work you have already done: warehouse, packing, kitchen, moving, assembly line. Say the shift length and the weight you handled.
4. 4List any machine or vehicle you can already run, including a forklift, pallet jack or floor scrubber.
5. 5Mention hand skills: assembly work, hand collating, folding, packing to count. Bindery still does plenty by hand on short runs.
6. 6Keep it to one page, and bring a printed copy. Smaller printers hire from walk-ins more than from job boards.

• One page. Two only if you have supervised a department.
• Single column, PDF, plain headings. No photo and no date of birth on a US resume.
• Put a machine list block near the top, before your job history. It is the fastest way for a supervisor to decide about you.
• Mirror the posting's words for the applicant tracking system: bindery, finishing, saddle stitch, perfect bind, guillotine, laminate, die cut, makeready.
• Name the shift you want and whether you can work overtime. Finishing runs long when the press runs late.
• If you trained in the UK or Ireland, keep your job title as print finisher in the history and add the American equivalent in brackets once, so a US reader recognizes the work.