Scaffolder Resume Examples & Writing Guide

Here is a full resume for a journeyman scaffolder with nine years on the tools. The name and companies are made up. Read the top third the way a scaffold superintendent does: systems built, height, training cards, site type.

Scaffold hiring is fast, especially before a turnaround. The person reading your resume is usually filling 20 to 60 slots in a week. They scan for four things.

• Which systems you can build. Frame and brace, tube and clamp, and system scaffold are three different skill sets. Say all three if you have all three, and name the styles you have used.
• What kind of site. Refinery and petrochemical, power plant, shipyard, commercial high-rise and residential are different worlds. A refinery super wants someone who has worked hot work permits and confined space, not someone who has only done house siding.
• Training cards and their dates. OSHA 10 or 30, competent person, fall protection, safety council card, TWIC. Expired cards read as no card.
• Safety record and reliability. Hours worked without a recordable, audit results, attendance on turnarounds. Scaffolding is one of the most cited areas in construction, so a clean record is worth more than a long duty list.

“I hire fifty scaffold hands for a turnaround in about ten days. If I cannot see your systems, your OSHA card and whether you have been inside a live unit in the first six lines, your resume goes in the maybe pile and the maybe pile rarely gets read twice.”

There is no single national scaffolder license in the US. What exists is training required by OSHA rules (scaffolds are covered by 29 CFR 1926 Subpart L) plus employer and site cards. List what you actually hold, with the year, and never write a card you have not earned. Gate checks catch it on day one.

• OSHA 10-Hour or 30-Hour Construction (OSHA Outreach Training Program). The 10 is normal for hands, the 30 is expected for leads and foremen. Some states and cities require it on public work, so check the rules where you work.
• Scaffold competent person training. OSHA requires a competent person to supervise erection, moving, dismantling and inspection. Training providers include the Scaffold & Access Industry Association (SAIA), manufacturers and union training centers.
• NCCER Scaffolding craft credentials (Level 1 and Level 2 are common). These transfer between contractors because the record sits in the NCCER registry.
• Union apprenticeship. In many areas scaffold erectors train through a local carpenters or laborers apprenticeship. Put your local number and the year you turned out.
• Site access cards: safety council orientation (BASICPLUS or the local reciprocal council), TWIC for ports and many refineries, plus site-specific unit orientations.
• Add-ons that get you picked first: fall protection competent person, confined space entrant, rigging and signalperson, forklift and telehandler, aerial and scissor lift, respirator fit test date.

Use a summary if you have worked scaffold before. Use an objective only if you are switching in from another trade or starting out. Either way, four lines maximum, and put systems, height, training and site type in it.

Copying a job description onto your resume is the most common mistake in this trade. Everyone erects and dismantles scaffold. Say what type, how much, how high and what happened as a result.

Keep the skills section to the things a scaffold super would tick off on a hiring sheet. Split it so the systems and the safety training are easy to find.

• Scaffold systems: frame and brace, tube and clamp, system scaffold (Ringlock, Cuplock style), rolling towers, shoring, sidewalk sheds, birdcage, cantilever, hanging and needle beam scaffold.
• Suspended access: two-point swing stages, mast climbing work platforms, outriggers, tiebacks and counterweight setups.
• Safety and inspection: scaffold tagging (green, yellow, red), daily pre-use inspection, load ratings, plank grading and rejection, guardrails, toeboards, debris netting, dropped object prevention.
• Fall protection and rigging: full body harness, shock-absorbing lanyards, self-retracting lifelines, anchor selection, knots, gin wheel, chain hoists, hand signals.
• Site skills: hot work permits, confined space entry, lockout/tagout awareness, respirator use, JSA and toolbox talks, isometric and blueprint reading, tape and level layout.
• Equipment: telehandler and forklift, scissor and boom lift, impact wrench and scaffold ratchet, pipe cutter, laser level.
• Soft skills that matter here: showing up for 6 a.m. gate call, working nights and 12-hour turnaround shifts, taking direction on a radio, and speaking up when a tie-in is missing.

Skip generic lines like team player or hard working. Every applicant writes them, and none of them tell a super whether you can lay out a birdcage around a heat exchanger.

Most scaffolders start as a ground man or laborer passing material. You do not need scaffold hours to get that first job, but you do need to look safe, fit and ready for a 6 a.m. start.

1. 1Get OSHA 10-Hour Construction first. It costs little, takes two days online and removes the main reason a contractor says no.
2. 2Add whatever else you can get cheaply: First Aid and CPR, a driver's license, and in Gulf Coast or port work, apply for a TWIC card early because it takes weeks.
3. 3Put a short objective at the top saying you want a ground man or scaffold helper spot, plus the physical facts: you can lift 50 to 75 lb repeatedly, work at height and pass a drug screen.
4. 4Turn any physical job into scaffold-adjacent experience. Warehouse, landscaping, moving, farm work, military service and roofing all show lifting, heights, tools and showing up.
5. 5List the courses on your resume, not just the cards in your wallet, and bring copies to the interview.
6. 6One page. No photo, no date of birth, no references section.

One page if you have under ten years. Two pages only if you have run crews on several large outages and need the project list. Plain layout, one column, no photo, no graphics, no skill bars. Save as PDF unless the posting asks for Word.

• Put a short project or outage list if you do turnaround work: site type, dates, crew size, scope. Supers read it like a track record.
• Write dates as month and year, and cover gaps. Layoffs between outages are normal in this trade, so write "seasonal layoff between turnarounds" rather than leaving a hole.
• Mirror the exact phrases from the posting: scaffold erector, competent person, tube and clamp, system scaffold, suspended scaffold, fall protection, turnaround, shutdown, confined space, hot work permit, OSHA 30, TWIC, plank, tie-in, load rating.
• Spell out an abbreviation the first time, then use the short form: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Job Safety Analysis (JSA).
• Do not include a photo, your age, your Social Security number or your union dues status. US employers do not expect them.
• Keep the file name simple: marcus-delgado-scaffolder-resume.pdf.

In the UK and Ireland the same job is called a scaffolder too, but people there send a CV and quote CISRS card levels. If you are applying to US contractors, keep the US resume conventions on this page and mention your CISRS card as one line under certifications.