Truck Driver Resume: Examples & How to Write One
A truck driver resume answers four questions before anything else: what class of license you hold, which endorsements are attached, what equipment you have run, and how clean your record is. This guide covers the numbers carriers actually check and how to present them, with a complete CDL-A over-the-road example.
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What a truck driver resume must include
- License class and state, stated at the top: “CDL Class A — Texas.” A carrier cannot dispatch you without it, and the class determines which trucks you are eligible to run.
- Endorsements listed by name and code: HazMat (H), Tanker (N), Doubles/Triples (T), Passenger (P), School Bus (S), plus a TWIC card if you have one.
- Equipment experience in specific terms: dry van, reefer, flatbed, tanker, 53-foot trailers, and whether you can drive a manual. Automatic-only restrictions should be stated, not hidden.
- Driving numbers: miles per week or per year, on-time delivery percentage, number of states or routes, and years of accident-free driving.
- Safety and compliance facts: clean MVR, no preventable accidents, no out-of-service violations, DOT drug testing completed.
- ELD and dispatch systems by name, because orientation time is shorter for a driver who already knows the platform.
Carriers verify most of this during hiring: your MVR, your PSP report, and your DOT employment history. That makes accuracy more important than polish. A resume that overstates experience gets a driver through the recruiter and then fails at orientation, which costs a week and the job.
How to present miles, safety, and on-time numbers
- Use miles you can source from logs or settlement statements: “2,800–3,100 miles a week” or “approximately 140,000 miles a year.”
- Give on-time delivery as a percentage with a period attached: “99.2% on-time across three years.” A number with no timeframe reads as a guess.
- State safety as events over distance: “no preventable accidents in 850,000 career miles.” That phrase is the one safety managers look for.
- Name the lane type and region: dedicated, regional, OTR, local, or a specific corridor. It tells a dispatcher how you will fit their freight.
- Mention idle time and fuel mileage only if you tracked them, because a fleet that runs fuel scorecards will ask.
- Keep driving roles in reverse-chronological order with dates as month and year, since carrier verification checks exact tenure.
Truck Driver Resume Example
Example resume
A one-page, ATS-safe CDL-A resume with endorsements, mileage, and safety record stated up front. This is the structure our builder produces — switch templates, export PDF or DOCX, no account needed.
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Recommended sections for a truck driver resume
- Summary — 2–3 lines with license class, endorsements, equipment, years driving, and one safety or mileage number.
- Licenses and endorsements — its own block near the top: class, state, endorsements, TWIC, medical card expiration.
- Driving experience — reverse-chronological, with equipment type, lane type, miles, and safety record per role.
- Equipment and systems — trailer types and ELD platforms, grouped so a fleet manager can scan them.
- Work history outside driving — kept short, but useful when it shows reliability, physical work, or attendance.
- Education and training — CDL school, high school or equivalent, and any safety courses or awards.
Truck driver skills keywords
Postings use a small set of terms repeatedly, and matching them is straightforward: CDL Class A, OTR, regional, dedicated, dry van, reefer, flatbed, HazMat, Tanker, ELD, hours of service, clean MVR. Use the posting's exact phrasing where it is true of you, and spell out each endorsement once rather than listing only the letter codes.
- Licenses and endorsements: CDL Class A, CDL Class B, HazMat (H), Tanker (N), Doubles/Triples (T), Passenger (P), TWIC card, DOT medical card
- Equipment: dry van, reefer, flatbed, step deck, tanker, intermodal, 53-foot trailers, automatic and manual transmission
- Route types: over-the-road (OTR), regional, local, dedicated lanes, team driving, drop-and-hook, live load and unload
- Systems: Samsara, Qualcomm, Geotab, Peoplenet, GPS routing, electronic dispatch
- Compliance: FMCSA hours of service, electronic logging (ELD), pre-trip inspections, cargo securement, hazmat placarding
- Safety record: clean MVR, preventable accident record, roadside inspection history, defensive driving, Smith System
ATS notes for driving jobs
- Keep the layout simple and single-column. Many carrier applications run on older systems, and a heavily designed resume is more likely to parse badly.
- Write “CDL Class A” in full at least once instead of only “Class A” or “CDL-A,” and spell out each endorsement's meaning: “HazMat (H).”
- Keep dates in one format and be precise about tenure, because carriers verify employment dates against DOT records.
- Use the posting's job title variant somewhere in the summary: OTR Driver, Company Driver, Tractor-Trailer Driver, or Line Haul Driver.
- Skip photos of your license or medical card. State the expiration dates as text instead.
- Keep the resume to one page. Recruiters screen for license, endorsements, equipment, and record; everything else is secondary.
Common mistakes on truck driver resumes
- Leaving the license class or endorsements out of the top third of the page, which makes even an experienced driver look unqualified at a glance.
- Writing “drove truck” bullets with no equipment type, lane type, or mileage. A fleet manager cannot compare what they cannot see.
- Omitting an accident or violation that will appear on the MVR. It surfaces during the background check; state it plainly and describe what you learned.
- Listing endorsements you do not hold or a TWIC card that has expired.
- Forgetting the DOT medical card expiration date, which is a hiring blocker rather than a detail.
- Filling the page with unrelated jobs while cutting the driving numbers that matter. Keep non-driving history short.
Driving resumes are screened faster than almost any other kind, often in under a minute by a recruiter working a list of qualifications. That screen checks license class, endorsements, equipment and safety record in roughly that order. ShitResume keeps every template on one linear structure, so the PDF a recruiter opens and the text a parser extracts carry your CDL details in that same sequence — and nothing about the builder asks for payment or a login.
ShitResume keeps every template and every export free of charge, and it is local-first: your MVR record, endorsement details and employer history stay in the browser and are never uploaded. No account, no card, no trial clock. Pull into a truck stop with wifi, finish the resume on a break, and export the PDF before your next load.
Skills and keywords for this role
Use the terms that genuinely describe your work — an interviewer will ask about anything you list.
- Credentials: CDL Class A, HazMat (H), Tanker (N), Doubles/Triples (T), TWIC card, DOT medical card
- Equipment: dry van, reefer, flatbed, tanker, 53-foot trailers, manual and automatic transmissions
- Operations: over-the-road, regional, dedicated lanes, drop-and-hook, live load and unload, hazmat placarding
- Systems: Samsara ELD, Qualcomm, GPS routing, electronic dispatch, paper and electronic logs
- Safety and compliance: FMCSA hours of service, pre-trip and post-trip inspections, cargo securement, defensive driving
- Records: clean MVR, no preventable accidents, DOT drug and alcohol testing, roadside inspection history
Frequently asked questions
What should a truck driver resume include?
License class and state, endorsements, equipment types, driving numbers, and your safety record. Put the CDL and endorsements in the top third, then experience with miles per week, on-time percentage, and accident history. ELD systems and lane types are worth naming because they shorten orientation.
How do I show a clean driving record on a resume?
State it directly: “clean MVR” and “no preventable accidents in 850,000 career miles.” The carrier will pull your MVR and PSP report anyway, so the resume line is for the first screen, not verification. Do not omit an accident or violation that will appear on those reports.
Should I list every route or load I have driven?
No. Group your experience by equipment type and lane type — dry van, reefers, OTR, regional, dedicated — and give representative numbers. A recruiter is comparing qualifications, not reading a logbook, and a long list of routes hides the equipment and record facts they need.
Which endorsements matter most on a truck driver resume?
It depends on the freight, but HazMat (H), Tanker (N), and Doubles/Triples (T) expand the load types you can be dispatched on, and a TWIC card matters for port and terminal work. List every endorsement you hold with its code, and remove any that has lapsed.
Should a truck driver resume include non-driving jobs?
Yes, when they fill out your work history or show reliability, physical work, and attendance. Keep them to one or two lines each and put driving experience first. Carriers verify employment history going back several years, so the dates need to be accurate.
How long should a truck driver resume be?
One page. Recruiters screen for license, endorsements, equipment, and record, and a second page rarely adds anything they check. If you have decades of experience, summarize the oldest driving roles in a single line rather than expanding them.