Screen Printer CV Examples & Writing Guide
A screen printer CV gets an interview when the shop owner can see your press speed, your spoilage rate, how fast you change over a six-colour job, and whether you can burn and reclaim your own screens. Below is a full sample plus bullets, a skills list and a version with no experience.
Screen printer CV example (garment printer, automatic press)
This sample runs an automatic press at a mid-size garment printer and also handles the screen room. The employers are invented, the equipment names are the kind of thing a real printer would list. Note how much of the page is production numbers, because that is how print shops hire.
Marcus Feld
Screen Printer / Press Operator
Leicester · 07700 900192 · marcus.feld.print@email.com
Summary
Screen printer with 7 years in garment decoration, running an 8-colour automatic press at 500 to 650 pieces an hour on standard jobs. Handles the full screen room: coating, exposure, registration, reclaim. Holds spoilage under 1.2% on production runs and changes a six-colour job in about 18 minutes. Comfortable with plastisol, water-based and discharge inks, with COSHH training for screen room chemicals.
Experience
Lead Press Operator · Garment decorator (40 staff), Leicester
Jun 2022 – Present
- Run an 8-colour, 10-station automatic press producing 500 to 650 pieces an hour on 1 to 4 colour jobs and 350 to 420 on simulated process work.
- Average 14 job changeovers a shift, with a six-colour setup and registration in about 18 minutes including test prints.
- Hold spoilage at 1.0% to 1.2% across roughly 480,000 pieces a year, against a shop target of 2%.
- Coat, expose and reclaim 60 to 90 screens a week across 43T to 120T mesh, keeping the exposure log and emulsion batch records.
- Cure plastisol at 160°C belt-verified with a thermocouple donut probe on every new fabric, and run wash tests on the first piece of each discharge job.
- Trained 4 new press operators and wrote the shop's one-page setup checklist for the auto, which cut new-operator changeover time by roughly a third.
Screen Printer (Manual and Auto) · Screen print and embroidery shop, Nottingham
Aug 2019 – Jun 2022
- Printed 1 to 6 colour jobs on a 6-station manual carousel and a 6-colour auto, averaging 220 pieces an hour manual and 420 auto.
- Ran the screen room alone: degreasing, coating with a 2/1 scoop, exposure calibration with a 21-step wedge, taping and reclaim.
- Mixed plastisol to Pantone match on 300+ jobs a year and kept a mix log so repeat orders matched within one shade.
- Handled poly, tri-blend, fleece and performance fabrics, adjusting cure and using low-bleed white on 100% polyester to prevent dye migration.
Print Shop Assistant · Blank garment supplier and print shop, Leicester
Feb 2018 – Aug 2019
- Loaded and unloaded the press, folded and boxed 1,200 to 1,800 pieces a shift, and pulled orders from a 9,000-piece blank stock.
- Caught and pulled misprints before packing, cutting customer returns on decorated goods to under 0.5% of despatched orders.
Education
BTEC Level 3 in Art and Design (after GCSEs)
Further education college, Leicester, 2017
Certifications
- IOSH Working Safely, 2023
- Counterbalance forklift certificate (RTITB accredited), current
- COSHH and chemical handling training (solvents, emulsions), 2024
Skills
What a print shop owner checks first
Shops run on thin margins and tight deadlines. The owner or production manager reading your CV is trying to work out how much of the shop they can hand you.
- Press type and size. Manual carousel, 6-colour auto, 8 or 12-colour auto, or a flatbed for signage. Say the make if you know it, because a printer who has run one brand of auto learns another in a day and shops know that.
- Speed with colour count. Pieces per hour is meaningless without the number of colours and the fabric. Give both.
- Waste. Spoilage percentage is the number owners quote to each other. If you know yours, put it on the page. If you do not know it, find out before your interview.
- Screen room ability. A printer who can burn, register, reclaim and troubleshoot their own screens is worth far more than one who only stands at the press. Say plainly which parts you own.
“Tell me your pieces per hour, the colour count and your spoilage. Then tell me whether you can burn your own screens. Those four facts decide whether you start on the manual or on the auto, and most CVs I get do not contain a single one of them.”
Screen printer CV personal statement examples
Two or three lines. Press, speed, spoilage, screen room, ink types. Pick the one closest to your shop and swap the numbers.
Screen printer with 7 years in garment decoration running an 8-colour automatic at 500 to 650 pieces an hour. Averages 14 changeovers a shift with a six-colour setup in about 18 minutes, and holds spoilage at 1.2% against a 2% target. Runs plastisol, water-based and discharge.
Manual screen printer with 4 years in a 5-person shop, printing 1 to 6 colour jobs on a 6-station carousel at 200 to 240 pieces an hour. Owns the whole job from film output and screen burning to press, cure and pack, and mixes to Pantone with a repeat-match log.
Screen technician with 5 years coating, exposing and reclaiming 150+ screens a week for three automatic presses. Calibrates exposure with a 21-step wedge, checks tension on every screen at 22 to 25 newtons, and keeps emulsion and mesh records that cut pinhole rework by about half.
Screen printer with 6 years on flatbed and cylinder presses printing decals, membrane switch panels and signage on vinyl, polycarbonate and acrylic. Works to a printed tolerance of ±0.25 mm on registration, and handles UV and solvent ink systems with the matched cure profile.
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Screen printing duties rewritten as strong bullets
Every screen printer's duty list is roughly the same. What separates the CVs is whether the numbers are there.
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Operated screen printing equipment. | Ran an 8-colour, 10-station automatic at 500 to 650 pieces an hour on 1 to 4 colour work and 350 to 420 on simulated process. |
| Set up jobs on the press. | Averaged 14 changeovers a shift, registering a six-colour job in about 18 minutes including test prints and ink adjustment. |
| Kept waste low. | Held spoilage between 1.0% and 1.2% across roughly 480,000 pieces a year against a 2% shop target. |
| Prepared screens. | Coated, exposed and reclaimed 60 to 90 screens a week across 43T to 120T mesh, calibrating exposure with a 21-step wedge and logging every emulsion batch. |
| Mixed inks. | Mixed plastisol to Pantone match on 300+ jobs a year, keeping a mix log so repeat orders matched within one shade. |
| Made sure prints were cured. | Verified cure at 160°C with a thermocouple donut probe on every new fabric and ran a wash test on the first piece of each discharge job. |
| Worked with different fabrics. | Printed poly, tri-blend, fleece and performance fabrics, using low-bleed white and adjusted cure to stop dye migration on 100% polyester. |
| Trained new staff. | Trained 4 press operators and wrote the shop's one-page auto setup checklist, cutting new-operator changeover time by about a third. |
| Maintained the equipment. | Ran weekly planned maintenance on press and dryer: pallet levelling, belt tracking, temperature checks and squeegee sharpening on a set rotation. |
Screen printing skills to list
Be technical. A production manager will read this list and picture exactly where you fit in the shop.
- Press: manual carousel, automatic press by station and colour count, flatbed or cylinder for industrial work, pallet types (standard, sleeve, youth, jacket hold-down).
- Screen room: degreasing, coating with scoop coater ratios, exposure calibration, mesh count selection, tension measurement, taping, reclaim and dehazing, pinhole repair.
- Ink: plastisol, water-based, discharge, high-density, puff, metallic, UV and solvent for industrial substrates. Pantone mixing and match records.
- Technique: registration and micro-registration, off-contact setting, squeegee angle and durometer, flash and cool-down, halftone and simulated process, four-colour process, oversize and all-over printing.
- Prepress: art file clean-up, colour separation, film output and RIP software, dot gain awareness, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop basics.
- Quality and safety: cure verification with a donut probe or belt thermometer, wash and stretch tests, first-article approval, COSHH assessments and safe handling for solvents and emulsions, IOSH Working Safely, forklift where the shop has one.
Screen printer CV with no experience
Most printers learn on the job. Shops hire helpers, catchers and folders and move the good ones onto the manual within a few months. Your CV needs to show that you will not quit in week two.
- 1Apply for the job that actually exists at entry level: press catcher, loader, folder and boxer, screen reclaim, or despatch. Say in your first line that you want to learn the press.
- 2Use any hands-on work: warehouse, assembly, kitchen, car valeting, landscaping. Say the pace, the shift length and the physical load, because print shops are hot and fast.
- 3Mention any home or hobby printing honestly. A garage setup with a 4-colour 1-station and a small exposure unit is real experience if you say what you actually printed and how many.
- 4Show you can follow a spec. Anything with a checklist, a tolerance or a quality check counts: food safety logs, machine minding, inspection work.
- 5Do IOSH Working Safely or a short COSHH awareness course. They are inexpensive, available online, and tell a shop you understand chemicals and safe working around machines.
- 6Say you are available for early starts and overtime. Print seasons spike hard around back to school, Christmas and the summer events season.
Warehouse operative seeking a screen print shop role with a path to the press. Two years picking and packing 400 to 600 orders a shift on a 10-hour rota. Prints at home on a 4-colour 1-station with a homemade exposure unit, roughly 60 shirts a month for a local football club. COSHH awareness course completed. Available for 6am starts and overtime.
Digital print operator of 3 years on wide-format and DTG, moving into screen printing. Handles colour management, RIP software and substrate testing daily, and has run cure profiles for polyester and cotton. Wants to learn manual and auto screen work; already familiar with prepress, art file clean-up and Pantone matching.
Format, length and applying to shops
One page. Print shops are small businesses and the owner is often the one reading. Large decorators do use applicant tracking systems, so keep the formatting plain.
- Use the job advert's word for the job: screen printer, press operator, screen print technician, garment decorator, production printer.
- Put technical terms on the page so a keyword filter catches them: automatic press, manual carousel, plastisol, water-based, discharge, emulsion, mesh count, registration, flash cure, conveyor dryer, spoilage.
- Say your shift availability and whether you can work overtime in peak season. Decorators live and die by seasonal deadlines.
- No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. Single column, plain headings, PDF unless the advert asks for Word.
- Bring physical samples to the interview. A folded stack of six-colour prints you actually ran beats another paragraph on your CV.
Frequently asked questions
What does a screen printer do?
You prepare screens by coating them with emulsion and exposing the artwork, register those screens on a manual or automatic press, mix and match ink, print the run, cure it in a conveyor dryer at the right temperature, and check quality on the way out. In smaller shops you also reclaim screens, output film and pack orders.
How do I write a screen printer CV?
Lead with your press type, pieces per hour with the colour count, and your spoilage percentage. Give each shop four to six bullets with numbers: changeovers per shift, screens per week, mesh range, cure temperature verification, pieces per year. Add a technical skills list and any health and safety, COSHH or forklift training. One page.
What skills should be on a screen printing CV?
Press operation by type and colour count, screen coating and exposure calibration, mesh selection and tension, registration and micro-registration, plastisol, water-based and discharge inks, Pantone mixing, cure verification, and prepress work like separations and film output. Add planned maintenance if you do it.
What numbers should I use on a screen printer CV?
Pieces per hour with colour count and fabric, changeovers per shift, setup time for a multi-colour job, spoilage or misprint percentage, screens processed per week, mesh counts you work across, and annual volume. Those are the figures a production manager compares between applicants.
Can I get a screen printing job with no experience?
Yes. Shops hire catchers, folders and screen reclaim helpers constantly and promote from inside. Say clearly that you want to learn the press, describe any hands-on physical work you have done, mention hobby printing honestly with real numbers, and state that you can do early starts and overtime.
Do screen printers need a qualification or licence?
No licence is required in the UK. What helps is health and safety training such as IOSH Working Safely, COSHH training for solvents, emulsions and screen chemicals, and a forklift certificate if the shop has one. Skill on the press is what gets you hired, and most shops will test you on the floor.
How do I show hobby or garage printing on a CV?
Put it in its own short section called something like "Independent printing" and give it real detail: your press, exposure setup, the ink you use, what you printed and how many pieces. Vagueness reads as inflation, while "60 shirts a month on a 4-colour 1-station for a local club" reads as genuine practice.
How long should a screen printer CV be?
One page. Shop owners read fast and often between jobs on the floor. If you have more than three shops in your history, give full bullets for the last two and one line each for the rest.
Ready to write yours?
The builder suggests a summary from your own experience, then checks it against the job posting.
How this page was made: a first draft was written with AI assistance from cvplex's example library, then edited and fact-checked by the cvplex Careers Team. Examples are fictional composites; numbers are illustrative. Report an error via the editorial policy page.