Animal Shelter Worker Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Animal Shelter Worker resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
Animal shelters provide care and shelter for animals in need. Shelter workers are responsible for providing basic care like food, water, and shelter to the animals under their watch—but they also play a vital role in finding new homes for these pets once they’re ready for adoption.
If you’re passionate about animals and want to make a difference in their lives, an animal shelter could be the perfect place for you to work. But before you start applying for jobs, you need a resume that will show hiring managers exactly how much you have to offer. Here are some tips and an example to help you write a great animal shelter worker resume.
How to Write an Animal Shelter Worker Resume
Here’s how to write an animal shelter worker resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
The best way to make your resume stand out is to use specific examples and numbers. So rather than saying you “managed animal care staff,” you could say you “managed animal care staff to provide care for more than 100 dogs and cats, ensuring all animals received proper nutrition, exercise, and veterinary care according to guidelines set by the American Veterinary Medical Association.”
The second bullet point is much stronger because it provides specific details about what you did and the results of your work. It also includes a quantifiable measure of the scale of your work—in this case, the number of animals you cared for.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a job at an animal shelter, your resume is likely to be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. These programs look for terms related to animal care, like “dog trainer” or “cat behaviorist” in order to determine whether your skills are a match for the job opening. If your resume doesn’t include enough relevant keywords, the ATS might discard your application.
To increase your chances of landing an animal shelter job, focus on including relevant keywords throughout all of the sections of your resume. Here are some examples:
- Animal Care
- Animal Welfare
- Pet Care
- Dog Training
- Dogs
- Animal Behavior
- Animal Training
- Dog Grooming
- Animal Rescue
- Animal Adoption
- Animal Behavior Consulting
- Canine Good Citizen
- Wildlife Rehabilitation
- Dog Behavior
- Animal Rescue Work
- Grooming
- Veterinary Medicine
- Spay/Neuter
- Shelter Work
- Pet Sitting
- Basic First Aid
- Customer Service
- Fundraising
- Social Media
- Veterinary Nursing
- Public Speaking
- Animal Rescue Organizations
- Animal Welfare Work
- Management
- Administration
Showcase Your Technical Skills
Animal shelter workers need to be proficient in a number of software programs and systems in order to do their jobs effectively. This might include familiarity with animal management software, adoption software, and veterinary software. Additionally, animal shelter workers need to be able to use technology to communicate with other members of the animal care team, including veterinarians and animal control officers.
Some of the programs and systems that animal shelter workers are typically expected to be proficient in include: animal management software, adoption software, veterinary software, and animal control software.