Tile Setter (Tiler) Resume Examples & Writing Guide

In the US the job is called tile setter or tile installer; in the UK, Ireland and Australia it is a tiler or wall and floor tiler. Use the word the posting uses. This resume is for a lead setter at a mid-size tile contractor in Colorado who came up through an apprenticeship. Name and companies are made up. The numbers are the kind a foreman tracks on the daily log: square feet set, jobs completed, callbacks.

The reader is usually the owner of a tile company or a flooring contractor's field superintendent. They are hiring against a schedule and a warranty, and they read a setter's resume for four things.

• What have you actually set, and where? Residential bathrooms only, or commercial floors with a 14,000-square-foot lobby? Large format and thin panels are a different skill from 12x12 ceramic. Natural stone and glass mosaics need their own care. Name the tile types and the settings.
• Do you know wet areas? Showers are where callbacks and lawsuits come from. Membranes (Kerdi, RedGard, Hydro Ban), mud beds, pre-slope, flood testing, linear drains. One bullet with a shower count and "zero leaks" answers the biggest fear a contractor has.
• Speed and waste. Square feet a day on a stated tile size, and waste percentage on cuts. A setter who is accurate about pace is easier to schedule than one who claims to be the fastest in the state.
• Standards and safety. ANSI A108 for installation, TCNA Handbook methods, OSHA 10 or 30, silica controls. Contractors on commercial jobs cannot put you on site without the safety card, and inspectors will check the flatness and lippage.

“Everyone writes 'experienced in all types of tile'. I want to know how many showers you have waterproofed, whether you flood test, and what your day looks like in square feet on 24x48 porcelain. That tells me if you can run a bathroom on a hotel job or if someone has to babysit you.”

The job description in a posting says "install ceramic, porcelain and stone tile on floors and walls". Copying it back proves nothing. Rewrite each duty with the material, the method and a number. Seven rewrites from real tile work:

Tile contractors read the skills list looking for product names and methods they use themselves. Group the list by type and use the real names; "waterproofing" alone is vague, "Kerdi and RedGard bonded membranes, flood tested" is not.

• Tile and stone: porcelain, ceramic, large format (24x48 and up), thin porcelain panels, marble, travertine, slate, quarry tile, glass and stone mosaics, subway and handmade tile with irregular edges.
• Wet-area systems: bonded sheet and liquid membranes (Schluter Kerdi, Laticrete Hydro Ban, Custom RedGard), mud-bed and pre-formed shower pans, curbless showers, linear drains, steam showers, flood testing.
• Substrates and prep: self-leveling underlayment, cement backer board, uncoupling membranes (DITRA), crack isolation, sound mats, electric floor heat, moisture and flatness testing.
• Mortars and grouts: modified and unmodified thinset, large-and-heavy-tile mortar, medium bed, epoxy, cement and pre-mixed grouts, sealers, movement joints.
• Layout and standards: control lines, laser level, pattern layout, finish schedules and drawings, ANSI A108/A118 and TCNA Handbook methods, lippage and coverage checks.
• Tools: wet saw, snap cutter, angle grinder, hole saws and core bits, mixing drill, leveling clip systems, trowels, grout floats, HEPA vacuum and wet-cutting dust controls.
• Job skills: material takeoffs, daily logs, working with plumbers and electricians, punch-list completion, customer walk-throughs on residential jobs.

Unlike electricians or plumbers, tile setters working as employees do not need a state license in most of the US. A few credentials do carry weight, and contractors know the difference between a real one and a made-up one.

• CTEF Certified Tile Installer (CTI). Run by the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation; a written test plus a hands-on module. It is the credential general contractors and architects ask for on specified commercial jobs. List it with the year.
• Advanced Certifications for Tile Installers (ACT). Hands-on tests in specific areas: large format tile and substrate preparation, membranes, mortar (mud) beds, shower receptors, grouts, and gauged porcelain tile panels. You must hold the CTI (or be a union journeyman) to take them. List each area you passed.
• OSHA 10 or OSHA 30 Construction card. Required on most commercial sites. OSHA 30 if you lead a crew.
• Respirable silica training. Cutting tile makes silica dust, and the OSHA standard requires controls; a training certificate shows you know wet cutting and HEPA vacuums are not optional.
• Union apprenticeship. The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC) runs tile setter and tile finisher apprenticeships through the International Masonry Institute. Journeyman status is a credential; write the local, the trade and the completion year.
• State contractor license. Only needed if you bid and contract your own jobs. California, for example, issues a C-54 Ceramic and Mosaic Tile contractor license; other states have different rules or none. As an employee you do not need one; if you hold one, it shows you can run a job.
• Manufacturer training. Schluter, Laticrete, Mapei and Custom Building Products run installer workshops; list them as training, not certifications.

Most setters start as a helper: mixing, cutting, carrying, grouting and cleaning up while learning to set. Contractors hire helpers on reliability and physical readiness more than on skill, so the resume should prove those two things.

1. 1Get an OSHA 10 card (one online day) and put it in the summary. Many commercial contractors cannot bring you on site without it.
2. 2List any construction, flooring, landscaping, warehouse or moving work with numbers: square feet of laminate installed, pallets moved, days on a framing crew. Related flooring work (carpet, LVP, hardwood) counts a lot.
3. 3Say what you can do on day one: mix thinset to ratio, run a snap cutter, install backer board, grout and clean, read a tape to 1/16 inch, lift 80-pound mortar bags, work on knees all day.
4. 4State the practical facts a contractor needs: driver's license, reliable vehicle, own basic hand tools, willingness to start at 6 a.m. and travel to sites.
5. 5Add any hands-on evidence: a bathroom you tiled at home with photos in a phone album, a community college tile or construction class, a manufacturer workshop.
6. 6Keep it to one page and put availability and start date at the top.

• One page. A setter with 25 years fits on one page if jobs older than 10 years are one line each.
• Order: contact line with your CTI or OSHA card, 3-line summary with tile types and pace, experience with 4 to 6 bullets each, certifications, skills grouped by type, education (apprenticeship first, then high school).
• Photos of your work belong in a phone album or a link, not on the resume. A short line "portfolio of 40 completed showers available on request" is fine.
• No photo of yourself, no date of birth, city and state only. In the UK the document is a CV and the trade card is a CSCS card instead of OSHA; the layout is the same.
• Plain single-column layout, standard font, PDF. Larger flooring contractors and union halls use online applications that strip formatting, so keep it simple. Print two copies for walk-in applications; many tile shops still hire that way.
• Mirror the posting's words once each: "tile setter" or "tile installer", "large format", "waterproofing", "shower pans", "thinset", "grout", "layout", "blueprints", "OSHA 10", "commercial" or "residential". Then run the resume and posting through the cvplex ATS checker to see what you missed.