Farm Worker Resume Examples & Writing Guide

This resume is for a farm worker with 9 years across row crops, dairy and orchard work who now runs equipment on a large irrigated farm. The name and farms are made up. Notice that every job gives acres or head count, the machines he runs and the hours he works in season. A farm manager reads for exactly those things, because they say what you can be put on tomorrow morning.

Most farm jobs are filled by the owner or a farm manager, not a human resources department. They read fast and they read for practical things. Four items decide whether you get a call.

• What you can run and drive. Tractors (with horsepower range), sprayers, combines, balers, loaders, skid steers, feed trucks, grain trucks. A CDL is a big plus on any farm that hauls its own crop.
• What you have raised or grown, in numbers. "Worked on a dairy" means little; "milked 1,200 cows in a rotary parlor" or "grew 4,800 acres of corn, beets and alfalfa" tells the manager where you fit. Poultry, hogs, cattle, dairy, row crops, orchards and vegetables are different jobs.
• Hours and seasons. Farms need people who will work planting and harvest weeks of 60 to 80 hours, early milking shifts, weekends and holidays. Say it plainly and give proof (shifts missed, seasons completed).
• Licenses and safety record. Pesticide applicator license, CDL, forklift training, and no accidents or injuries with equipment. Insurance and liability drive this; a clean record is worth a line in your summary.

“A good farmhand resume is short and full of numbers: acres, head, horsepower, seasons. What gets read twice is a line like 'ran a 300 horsepower tractor with auto-steer and hauled 400 loads of beets on a CDL'. What gets skipped is 'hardworking team player with a passion for agriculture', because every applicant writes that and none of it tells the owner what to put you on Monday.”

Three or four lines at the top: years and type of farming, the equipment and animals you know, your licenses, and one line on hours and reliability. Use an objective only when you have not worked on a farm for pay yet.

Farm work is easy to undersell. "General farm duties" hides the fact that you ran a $400,000 machine, kept 1,200 animals healthy or put up a whole season's hay. Give the number, the equipment and what went right.

List 10 to 14 skills that match the farm you are applying to. A dairy does not care about your combine hours, and a vegetable farm does not care about calving. Read the ad and lead with what they grow or raise.

• Equipment: tractor operation (give the horsepower range), GPS auto-steer, planters and drills, sprayers, combines and forage harvesters, balers, loaders, skid steers, telehandlers, feed trucks, grain trucks and semis (CDL).
• Crops: planting and seeding, tillage, fertilizer and pesticide application, irrigation (center pivot, drip, flood, hand lines), scouting for weeds and pests, harvest, grain handling and drying, hay and silage.
• Livestock: milking and milk quality, calf care, feeding and TMR, herd health checks, calving or farrowing assistance, vaccinations and treatments under direction, hoof care, low-stress cattle handling, biosecurity.
• Poultry and hogs: house walks and mortality records, ventilation and temperature control, feed and water line maintenance, litter and manure management, load-out, biosecurity procedures.
• Maintenance and building: greasing and servicing, hydraulics and belts, tire changes, welding and fabrication, fence building, barn and shop repairs, plumbing for waterers.
• Work habits farms hire for, with proof: long seasonal hours, early shifts, weekends, working alone without supervision, showing up in bad weather, Spanish or English as a second language.

No license is required to be a farm worker in the US. A few make you cheaper and safer to hire, so farms pay more for them or hire you first. Requirements and names vary by state; check your state department of agriculture or extension office before you list one.

• Pesticide applicator license or certification: issued by your state (a private applicator license lets you apply restricted-use pesticides on the farm you work for; some states also have a commercial or agricultural category for employees). Requires a written exam. High value on crop, orchard and vegetable farms.
• Worker Protection Standard (WPS) training: an EPA requirement for farm workers and pesticide handlers on farms that use pesticides. Employers must provide it yearly; list the year if you have completed it.
• Commercial driver's license (CDL): Class A for semis and grain trailers, Class B for straight trucks. Many states have a farm exemption for short hauls, but a CDL still makes you far more useful at harvest.
• Forklift and telehandler training: OSHA requires employer training and evaluation; list the year and the equipment.
• Livestock programs: Beef Quality Assurance (BQA), Pork Quality Assurance Plus (PQA Plus) and Transport Quality Assurance (TQA) are real industry certifications that packers and buyers ask farms about. Dairy workers can list FARM program training if their farm provided it. Artificial insemination (AI) courses count too.
• Produce safety: a Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) Grower Training certificate or on-farm GAP training if you have worked on fruit or vegetable farms.

Farms hire people with no farm experience every season, especially for harvest, packing, calf feeding and general labor. What the owner needs to know is that you can handle the physical work, will show up at 5 am, and can learn equipment safely. Show that with what you have already done, even if it was not on a farm.

1. 1Header with the practical facts: phone, town, driver's license (and class), own transportation, and "available for seasonal or full-time, any shift".
2. 2Objective, 3 lines: your physical work background, any exposure to farming (family farm, 4-H, FFA, gardening, hunting and ranch work), and the position you want.
3. 3Experience: any job with long hours, outdoor work, machinery or animals. Lawn care, construction labor, warehouse, meat processing, stables. Give hours, weights and equipment.
4. 4Farm exposure section if you have it: family farm or ranch chores with numbers (80 head, 200 acres), FFA or 4-H projects, a community garden, a summer at a relative's dairy.
5. 5Skills you already have that farms use: driving a manual transmission, towing a trailer, basic mechanics, welding, power tools, Spanish or English.
6. 6Certifications you can get in a week: First Aid/CPR, a forklift class at a community college, and a free WPS training session through your extension office.

A farm worker resume is one page. It is often read on a phone in a truck cab. Plain text, big enough to read, numbers first.

• Order: header with licenses, summary, experience (acres, head, equipment, hours), skills, certifications, education last. A high school diploma or GED is enough; list agricultural courses or an associate degree if you have one.
• No photo, no date of birth. Farms in the US do not expect them, and large operations with HR departments remove them.
• Seasonal work: group it. "Seasonal Farm Hand, 3 harvest seasons (2016 to 2018), two orchards in Washington" reads better than three short entries.
• Words to mirror from the ad: the crops and animals they name, the equipment brands they run, "irrigation", "harvest", "milking", "calf care", "CDL", "applicator license", "housing provided" if you need it.
• Many searches for farm worker resumes come from people applying to Canada or New Zealand. Both use the same one-page format with no photo (Canada says resume, New Zealand says CV). Add one line on your visa or work permit status (H-2A in the US, Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program for Canada); the farm has to sponsor the paperwork and reads that line first.
• Applying through a large farm's online form or a staffing agency? Run the file through the cvplex ATS checker; it catches a missing equipment or crop word the ad uses.