You thrive at maintaining safe airways and runways. Takeoff and landing instructions are issued, airways are monitored, and weather condition updates are provided with expert care when you’re on the job.
Does your resume template help display your top skills effectively as you grow your air traffic control career?
Your decisions are crucial to airway safety, so air traffic control jobs have a detailed hiring process to ensure the best candidates are brought on board. You can set yourself up for success using our cover letter writer and air traffic controller resume examples proven effective in 2024.
Why this resume works
- The aviation industry thrives on an uninterrupted business environment supported by safety for passengers, crew, ground staff, and well-functioning equipment. For your air traffic controller resume, show how you supported these outcomes in previous roles to help you pass stringent recruitment requirements.
- One easy way to do that is by highlighting your record of zero incidences of ground or air safety breaches in your career.
Why this resume works
- Aviation recruiters know you need to gain industry-specific experience when applying for a trainee opportunity. However, they expect you to show some practical knowledge of the daily operations of a real-world airport.
- This is an area where your air traffic controller trainee resume can borrow from your research project on automating aviation processes to positively impact workflows and optimize the management of resources.
Why this resume works
- You can make up for what your entry-level air traffic controller resume doesn’t have in real work experience by highlighting your research findings about the impact of optimizing airspace structures and designs, such as reduction in aircraft fuel consumption, which will have recruiters listening to you.
Why this resume works
- We couldn’t understate the essence of laying out your professional experiences in reverse chronological order in your senior air traffic controller resume. Starting with your most recent senior role, this format affords the hiring manager a clear view of your career progression.
- Your narration should showcase upward mobility, evidenced by managerial duties, more impressive dollar-amount metrics, and additional responsibilities as you grow from junior positions.
Why this resume works
- You don’t have much space in your enroute air traffic controller resume to dive into your professional experiences. Bullet points make their resounding entry here.
- Summarize three memorable stints, each in four brief bullet points, ensuring they capture your responsibilities, quantified outcomes, and even tools employed. They should be brief enough not to spill over one page yet punchy.
Related resume examples
Customize Your Air Traffic Controller Resume Based on the Job Description
As a member of the air traffic control team, you’ll likely have many tasks, radars, and data sets to manage to ensure the safest possible flights are provided to passengers. That probably leaves you wondering what the best skills to list on your resume are.
The ideal place to start is by reviewing the job description to see each specific airport’s needs. For instance, airports may use different types of technology like VFH radio systems or mode S transponders, so you’ll want to optimize your listed skills accordingly.
Need some ideas?
15 popular air traffic controller skills
- Weather Radar
- TBFM
- VFH Radio
- Surveillance Radar
- AviMetAWOS
- UHF Radio
- Mode S Transponder
- TAAM
- Airway Safety
- Takeoff Protocols
- Landing Instructions
- Team Leadership
- Emergency Reports
- RTDS
- Ground Traffic Control
Your air traffic controller work experience bullet points
Passenger experience and safety are crucial in air traffic control positions, so the achievements you list from past experiences must be optimized appropriately.
A great way to stand out is to include numbers illustrating what you achieved in each example, such as how you helped improve flight safety ratings or managed takeoff protocols more efficiently.
Here are some great metrics for air traffic controllers to use.
- Taxi in/out time: When passengers are on tight flight schedules, any small reductions in flight takeoff times and getting hooked up to terminal ramps after landing will make a big difference.
- Safety ratings: Managing flight paths and weather is crucial for air traffic controllers, so being able to boost safety ratings is a great sign of success.
- Unit cost per operation: When you can keep airways operating efficiently, you can make significant differences in average unit costs over time.
- Data processing time: Quick data management is essential to help flights avert any harmful airspaces, making this an important metric to show your success.
See what we mean?
- Cut average aircraft delay by 17% through effective coordination and scheduling on Airplane Manager.
- Expanded surveillance coverage by 21% within designated airspace, enhancing situational awareness for controllers.
- Organized a faster response to changing airspace conditions by reducing data processing time by 28%.
- Contributed to a 16% reduction in safety-related incidents by providing proactive safety recommendations based on data analysis.
9 active verbs to start your air traffic controller work experience bullet points
- Organized
- Maintained
- Reduced
- Led
- Implemented
- Conducted
- Launched
- Piloted
- Prepared
3 Tips for Writing an Air Traffic Controller Resume Without Much Experience
- Use knowledge and experiences gained through education
- The knowledge and experiences your bachelor’s degree in aeronautical technology or aviation has provided you with will show you’re prepared for the job. For instance, you could cite how you scored a 97% overall grade on your surveillance radar exams.
- Emphasize transferable skills
- Positions that require data management or efficiency will show transferable skills to the tasks you’ll be doing as an air traffic controller. For example, you could explain how you created Excel spreadsheets to help manage warehouse inventory data 66% more efficiently.
- Consider a resume objective
- A resume objective with key experiences displayed prominently at the top of your resume can help catch a hiring manager’s attention. For example, your objective could explain how you’re eager to apply your findings from a year-long research project in historical airspace weather data that helped you find ways to minimize disruption to flight schedules by 31%.
3 Strategies to Optimize an Air Traffic Controller Resume for Experienced Applicants
- Use reverse chronological order
- Your skills have likely grown a lot since you first entered the air traffic control field. Therefore, listing your most recent experiences first in aspects like weather radar monitoring and using UHF radios will be essential to present your most relevant skill set.
- Keep examples short
- While you probably have a lot of knowledge and experience in takeoff and landing protocols, it’s essential to keep examples brief when hiring managers quickly review resumes. For example, one sentence on how you minimized flight delays by 40% using AviMetAWOS to monitor weather patterns will go a long way.
- Limit it to three or four jobs
- While having a lot of aviation-related experience is great, not all of it will be relevant later in your career. Limit your resume to three or four most recent jobs relevant to aspects like TBFM and airway safety protocols.
Your air traffic control resume should be one page in length. If you’re struggling to narrow down what to include on a concise one-page resume, consider the key needs of the job. For instance, if the airline wants to increase scheduling efficiency, you could focus on abilities using TAAM systems to maintain schedules around weather patterns.
A resume summary can work well for applicants with ten or more years of experience. For example, you could write a few sentences on how you’ve overseen over 50,000 flights in your 14-year career, with less than 1% having any major safety incidents occur during that time.
Optimizing with keywords can be a helpful addition to an air traffic control resume, whether or not it gets passed through an initial ATS check. For instance, including essential skills like surveillance radars or RTDS systems listed in the job description and listing air traffic controller somewhere toward the top will help with any keyword checks and to catch a hiring manager’s attention during quick reviews.
