Stop Resume Mistakes From Holding Your Childcare Career Back
Identify and fix the top errors that keep hiring managers from seeing your true potential.
Common Mistakes That Kill Your Chances
Each mistake includes why it hurts, how to fix it, and before/after examples
- Objective statements are vague and don’t highlight experience
- Hiring managers skim for results, not goals
- ATS often ignores generic objectives
- Replace the objective with a 2‑sentence professional summary
- Mention years of experience and age groups cared for
- Insert key childcare keywords
Objective: Seeking a position as a childcare worker.
Professional Summary: Compassionate childcare professional with 4 years of experience caring for children ages 0‑5, skilled in early childhood development, safety protocols, and parent communication.
- Bullet points read like a job description, not a personal impact
- Hiring managers can’t see measurable results
- ATS scores lower when achievements lack numbers
- Start each bullet with an action verb
- Add numbers or percentages to show impact
- Focus on outcomes like child development milestones
- Supervised children during playtime. - Prepared meals for the classroom. - Maintained cleanliness of the facility.
- Supervised daily activities for a classroom of 12 children, reducing incident reports by 15%. - Planned and prepared nutritious meals, meeting all state nutrition standards. - Implemented a cleaning schedule that improved facility hygiene scores to 98% during inspections.
- Certifications are critical safety credentials in childcare
- Hiring managers may assume you lack required training
- ATS often filters for specific certifications
- Create a dedicated "Certifications" section near the top
- List each certification with issuing organization and expiration date
- Use exact terms like "CPR/First Aid Certified"
Education - Associate of Arts in Early Childhood Education, Community College, 2020
Education - Associate of Arts in Early Childhood Education, Community College, 2020 Certifications - CPR Certified, American Red Cross, Expires 06/2026 - First Aid Certified, American Red Cross, Expires 06/2026
- Inconsistent dates look unprofessional and confuse ATS parsers
- Hiring managers may doubt attention to detail
- ATS may misread employment timelines
- Standardize all dates to MM/YYYY
- Place dates on the right side for readability
- Ensure start dates are earlier than end dates
Work Experience - Childcare Assistant, Happy Kids Daycare June 2019 – March 2021 - Lead Teacher, Little Stars 2021/04 – Present
Work Experience - Childcare Assistant, Happy Kids Daycare 06/2019 – 03/2021 - Lead Teacher, Little Stars 04/2021 – Present
- Irrelevant roles dilute the focus on childcare expertise
- ATS may lower relevance score for non‑childcare keywords
- Hiring managers waste time scanning unrelated duties
- Only keep non‑childcare jobs if they demonstrate transferable skills
- Add a brief “Relevant Experience” heading to separate them
- Highlight transferable skills like communication, organization, and safety awareness
- Sales Associate, Retail Store, 2018‑2020 Handled customer transactions and inventory management.
Relevant Experience - Sales Associate, Retail Store, 08/2018 – 05/2020 Developed strong communication and conflict‑resolution skills while managing a high‑traffic environment, directly applicable to parent interaction and classroom management.
- Use a professional summary instead of an objective
- Quantify achievements with numbers or percentages
- Add CPR and First Aid certifications with expiration dates
- Standardize all dates to MM/YYYY
- Use standard headings (Professional Summary, Work Experience, etc.)
- Save the final file as PDF
- Replace objective with summary
- Add measurable results to each bullet
- Insert certifications section
- Standardize dates to MM/YYYY
- Optimize keywords for childcare
