Welder Resume Examples & Writing Guide

A one-page resume for a welder with eight years split between industrial pipe and a structural steel fab shop. The name and companies are made up. Notice that the title line names the codes he is qualified to, and that every bullet gives a process, a position, a material or a size, and an inspection result. That is the pattern to copy.

Welder resumes are read by a shop foreman, a QC manager or a construction superintendent. Most of them will make you weld a test coupon before hiring you anyway, so the resume has one job: convince them you are worth the cost of a test. They look for four things.

• Process and position. SMAW, GMAW, FCAW or GTAW, and 1G through 6G. "Welding" tells them nothing. "FCAW 3G and 4G to D1.1, GTAW 6G stainless" tells them exactly which test to hand you.
• Code and material. Structural steel (AWS D1.1), bridges (AWS D1.5), pressure piping and vessels (ASME Section IX and B31.3), pipelines (API 1104), sheet metal (AWS D1.3), aluminum (AWS D1.2). Then the metals: carbon, stainless, aluminum, chrome-moly, and the thickness or pipe schedule range.
• Quality record with numbers. Repair or reject rate on X-rayed or UT-tested welds, first-time acceptance rate, hydrotest results. A stated 1.4% repair rate carries more weight than a paragraph about attention to detail.
• The practical facts: can you read prints and weld symbols, do you fit your own work, do you have a driver's license and your own hood and hand tools, can you pass a drug screen and work 12-hour turnaround shifts or travel.

“Every welder we hire tests out, so the resume only decides who gets a coupon. If it lists the process, the position, the code and a repair rate, that person tests the same week. If it just says 'welding' and 'attention to detail', it goes to the bottom of the pile.”

Welding "certification" means two different things, and hiring managers know the difference. Most welder qualifications are performance tests given by an employer to a specific procedure (a WPS, welding procedure specification) under a code such as AWS D1.1 or ASME Section IX. Those records belong to the employer and usually do not transfer when you change jobs. The American Welding Society's Certified Welder (CW) program is different: you test at an accredited test facility, AWS holds the record, and it stays valid as long as you file a continuity form every six months. List both kinds, but be honest about which is which.

• Required on most industrial and structural jobs: a passed test to the shop's procedure (they give it), OSHA 10, and a valid driver's license. Refineries, ports and shipyards also need a TWIC card and a site safety council orientation.
• Strong plus: AWS Certified Welder in the process the shop uses; a Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) or Certified Welding Educator credential if you have moved toward QC; a state or city structural welding license where one exists (a few cities, such as Los Angeles, license structural welders).
• Nice to have: manufacturer training (Miller, Lincoln), rigging and crane signal cards, first aid, and any NDT (non-destructive testing) coursework.
• Do not write "certified welder" on its own. Say which test, which code, which process and position, who gave it and when. A CWI will ask, and a vague answer costs you the interview.

Three lines at the top: years and the kind of welding, your processes and positions with the code, and one quality or safety number. Use an objective only if you are just out of welding school or switching from another trade; a summary once you have shop time.

List 10 to 14 skills a foreman could test you on. Sort them to match the shop: processes and positions first for a fab shop or contractor, part rates and equipment first for a production line, layout and fit-up first for a fabricator job. Group them so they are easy to scan.

• Processes: SMAW (stick), GMAW (MIG, short-circuit, spray and pulsed), FCAW (gas-shielded and self-shielded flux-core), GTAW (TIG, including purged stainless and aluminum), SAW for heavy plate, oxy-fuel and plasma cutting, carbon arc gouging.
• Positions and joints: 1G to 4G plate, 1F to 4F fillet, 2G, 5G and 6G pipe; groove, fillet, socket and branch welds; open root, backing bar, consumable insert.
• Materials and sizes: carbon steel, stainless (304/316, duplex), aluminum (5xxx and 6xxx), chrome-moly (P11, P22, P91), cast iron repair; plate thickness range and pipe size and schedule range.
• Codes and documents: AWS D1.1, D1.2, D1.3, D1.5; ASME Section IX and B31.1/B31.3; API 1104; reading WPS and PQR, shop drawings, isometrics, weld symbols (AWS A2.4), weld maps.
• Fabrication: layout, squaring and fit-up to tolerance, tacking sequence, distortion control, preheat and interpass temperature, purging, grinding and finishing, basic press brake, shear and iron worker.
• Inspection: visual inspection with fillet and undercut gauges, preparing welds for UT, RT, MT and PT, reading an NDT report and fixing rejects.
• Equipment: Miller and Lincoln multi-process machines, engine-driven welders, wire feeders, Hypertherm plasma, track torches, overhead cranes, forklifts, man-lifts, rigging.
• Safety and site: OSHA 10 or 30, hot-work permits and fire watch, confined space, fume extraction, lockout/tagout, TWIC, working 12-hour turnaround shifts or 6-10s.

A good welding bullet has four parts: what you welded (product, material, size), how (process, position, code), how much (tonnage, joints, inches of weld, parts per shift, hours) and the result (acceptance rate, repair rate, schedule, no injuries). Pull the numbers from the shop's QC log, NDT reports, production sheets and your own test records.

Shops hire beginners all the time, as helpers, fitters' assistants and tack welders, because they can test you in an hour. What they cannot test in an hour is whether you will show up at 6 a.m., grind for eight hours without complaining and keep your hood down. Your resume has to prove those things with specifics, plus every welding hour you can document.

1. 1Header: name, phone, email, city, then one line of practical facts: valid driver's license and reliable transportation, own hood and basic hand tools, OSHA 10 if you have it, available for first shift or 12-hour rotations.
2. 2Objective (two lines): the type of shop you want and what you bring: the program, the tests you passed, any labor or mechanical work.
3. 3Training first, above work history: program name, total hours, processes covered, and the tests you passed under the school's CWI with position and code. If you logged booth hours, give the number.
4. 4Work history: any job that proves reliability and physical work. Construction labor, warehouse, landscaping, auto shop, farm, military. Add numbers: hours a week, months without a missed shift, weights lifted, tools used.
5. 5Skills: processes you have run, positions you have practiced, cutting and grinding tools, tape measure and basic print reading, any forklift or crane exposure. Keep it honest; you will be tested on every process you list.
6. 6One page, plain layout, saved as a PDF. Bring printed copies: many small shops still hire at the counter.

A fabricator job is welding plus everything before and after it: reading the drawing, laying out, cutting, forming, fitting, welding, grinding and checking the finished piece. Shops that post "welder/fabricator" want to know you can take a print and a pile of steel and hand back a finished part without a fitter doing half the work.

• Lead with print reading and layout: drawings, weld symbols, tolerances you work to, and whether you can build from a sketch or field measurements.
• List the machines: CNC plasma or laser table, band saw, iron worker, shear, press brake (tonnage), tube bender, drill press, and the crane or forklift you use to move material.
• Name the products: handrails and stairs, platforms and mezzanines, tanks and hoppers, trailers, equipment skids, truck bodies, architectural steel, food-grade stainless. Each has its own tolerances and finish standards.
• Give fabrication metrics: pieces or tons per week, rework or return rate, on-time completion, material saved by nesting or layout.
• Finish and materials: stainless finishing and passivation, aluminum, galvanized prep, powder-coat prep. A fabricator who can grind and finish stainless to a sanitary standard is worth more than one who cannot.

• One page. Even a 20-year pipe welder fits on one page: title line, summary, certifications and qualifications, work history, skills, education. Two pages only if you have moved into QC, CWI or supervision.
• Certifications and weld tests go above work history. Foremen sort on them.
• Plain single-column layout, standard font, no photo, no date of birth. Large fabricators and contractors run resumes through applicant tracking systems (Workday, iCIMS, Taleo); small shops print them. Both prefer plain.
• Text-based PDF unless the posting asks for Word: Firstname-Lastname-Pipe-Welder.pdf. Scanned images and photos of a paper resume fail ATS parsing.
• Keywords to mirror from the posting: the process names ("MIG", "TIG", "stick", "flux core" and the AWS abbreviations GMAW, GTAW, SMAW, FCAW), "6G", "D1.1", "ASME", "blueprints", "fit-up", "fabrication", "stainless", "pipe", "structural", "overhead crane", "forklift", "OSHA 10". Use the wording the posting uses, then the other form once.
• Outside the US the document is usually called a welder CV, and employers may ask for a coded welder certificate under ISO 9606 or a country-specific welding card instead of AWS or ASME tests. Everything else on this page still applies.

Run the finished page through the cvplex ATS checker with the job posting pasted in. It flags a process the posting names that you left out, a missing code or position, and bullets with no size, quantity or inspection result.