Construction Laborer Resume Examples & Writing Guide

This resume is for a laborer who started as a mason tender, moved into demolition and now works on a commercial general contractor's site crew. The name and companies are made up. The numbers are the ones a superintendent can check with one phone call: tons hauled, dumpsters loaded, feet of trench, hours flagging, injuries, days missed.

Laborer resumes are read by a superintendent, a foreman or a subcontractor's office manager, often on a phone. Big general contractors run them through an applicant tracking system first. Either way the reader asks four questions, in this order.

• Have you been on a real jobsite? Naming the work (demolition, trenching, concrete, mason tending, scaffolding, cleanup) and the tools (jackhammer, plate compactor, skid steer, demo saw) proves it. "Assisted with various construction tasks" does not.
• Will you show up? Early starts, long days, heat and cold, and a crew that cannot start without you. A driver's license, your own transportation, and a line about attendance answer this before the phone call.
• Are you safe to have on site? An OSHA 10 card (OSHA 30 is better), zero recordable injuries, and any competent-person or flagger training. Many commercial sites will not let you through the gate without OSHA 10.
• What can you run? A laborer who can run a skid steer, plate compactor or forklift, or who holds a flagger card, saves the foreman from hiring another person. List every machine you can operate without supervision.

“I read a laborer's resume for two things: can you show up, and have you actually been on a site. Somebody who writes 'loaded twenty-yard dumpsters, ran the plate compactor, hold a flagger card' has been there. 'Hard worker, team player' is what people write when they have not.”

Most laborer resumes copy the job posting: "performed general labor, cleaned the site, assisted skilled trades". Every applicant did that. Add what you handled, how much, with which tool, and one thing the foreman can check, and the same duty becomes evidence. Eight rewrites from real laborer work:

Group your skills the way a foreman thinks about the day: what work you can do, what you can run, what you know about safety. Ten to fifteen items is enough. Leave out "Microsoft Office" and "communication". "Physically fit, lifts 80 to 100 lb" and "works in heat and cold" belong on a laborer resume; they answer a real question.

• Site work: site prep, cleanup and debris removal, material handling and staging, loading and unloading trucks, trenching and backfill, grade checking, erosion control, snow and water removal.
• Demolition: jackhammer and breakers, chipping hammer, demo saw, cut-off saw, sledgehammer and pry bars, debris sorting and dumpster loading.
• Helping the trades: mixing and placing concrete, running a wheelbarrow or buggy, vibrating, mortar mixing and stocking block, carrying and cutting drywall and lumber, setting and stripping forms, tying rebar, building scaffolding under a competent person.
• Equipment: skid steer, plate compactor, jumping jack, forklift, aerial or scissor lift, mini excavator, 1-ton dump truck, concrete mixer. Only list what you can run without someone standing next to you.
• Traffic control: flagger card, cone and barricade setup, reading a traffic control plan.
• Safety: OSHA 10 or 30, silica dust controls, trench and excavation awareness, ladder and fall protection, lockout/tagout, hazard communication, PPE.
• Other real skills: driver's license and own transportation, CDL if you have one, bilingual English and Spanish, first aid.

The top of a laborer resume is two or three lines. If you have worked on a site, write a summary: years, the kind of work, the equipment you run, your OSHA card, one number and your availability. If you have never worked construction, write a one-line objective that names the job, the company and what you bring (license, transportation, physical work history, OSHA 10). Skip "seeking a challenging position"; nobody reads it.

Yes, you can get a construction job with no experience. Laborer is the entry job on almost every site, and crews teach the work. What they cannot teach is showing up at 5 a.m., working 10 hours in the heat, lifting all day and doing what the foreman says without argument. Your resume has to prove those with whatever you have done so far.

1. 1Get an OSHA 10-Hour Construction card before you apply. It costs under $100 online, takes about two evenings, and many commercial sites require it at the gate. Put it in your contact line and your certifications.
2. 2Write a one-line objective that names the job and the company, then your license, transportation and availability (early starts, weekends, out-of-town). This is the whole first impression.
3. 3List every physical job you have had: warehouse, landscaping, moving, farm work, roofing helper, fast food, military. Pull out the parts that look like construction: lifting weights and how much, shoveling and digging, running a forklift or mower, reading a tape, early shifts, working outside. One number per bullet.
4. 4Put your attendance record in writing: "missed 2 days in 18 months" or "perfect attendance for the 2025 season". Foremen care about it more than anything else on the page.
5. 5Keep it to one page and apply in person too. Many subcontractors still hire laborers at the yard or the jobsite gate at 6 a.m., and a printed resume in hand beats an online application.

No US state licenses construction laborers. But a few cards are expected, some are required on certain sites, and each one you hold makes you cheaper to hire. List them with the year, newest first. Never list a card you do not have; the safety manager will ask to see it.

• OSHA 10-Hour Construction: the standard entry card. Required by law for public construction work in several states (New York, Nevada, Connecticut, Massachusetts and others) and by most commercial general contractors. OSHA 30 is expected for lead laborers and foremen.
• Flagger certification: ATSSA or a state DOT-approved course. Needed for road and street work and easy to get in one day. Some states require their own card; check the posting.
• Equipment cards: forklift, telehandler, aerial and scissor lift. These are employer-issued under OSHA rules, so write "employer certified" and the year. A CDL (Class A or B) is a real advantage if you can drive the dump truck or pull the equipment trailer.
• Specialty training when the job calls for it: HAZWOPER 40-hour for environmental and remediation sites, confined space entry, trench and excavation competent person, scaffold user or competent person, asbestos and lead awareness for demolition and renovation work.
• Applying in the UK or Canada? UK sites need a CSCS card (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) and the document is called a CV. In Canada, list WHMIS and any provincial requirement such as Ontario's Working at Heights training; the spelling is "labourer" in both countries.

Most subcontractors are small companies. The person reading your resume is on a phone in a truck, or has a printout on the hood. Large general contractors and public agencies run resumes through an applicant tracking system before a person sees them. One plain page works for both, and it is what you hand over at the gate.

• One page, always. Ten years of labor fits on one page when older jobs get one or two lines each.
• Order: contact line with license, transportation, OSHA card and availability; two-line summary or one-line objective; skills; work history newest first with tools and numbers; certifications; education.
• Standard headings, one column, normal font, no photo, no date of birth, no colored boxes. Save as a PDF for online applications and bring printed copies to the yard.
• Mirror the posting's words once each: "construction laborer" or "general laborer", "demolition", "site cleanup", "material handling", "trenching", "OSHA 10", "flagger", and the equipment they name. An ATS matches the exact words.
• The same job is "construction labourer" in the UK, Canada, Australia and Ireland and the document is a CV. Use their spelling when you apply there, keep the US rules (no photo, one page) and swap OSHA for the local card (CSCS in the UK, WHMIS and provincial safety training in Canada, White Card in Australia).

Paste the posting into the cvplex ATS checker with your resume before applying online. It shows which trade words and equipment names from the posting you are missing and whether your skills list parsed as one.