Every yoga teacher has to start somewhere, but how can you get a job if you have no experience? What do you put on a resume for your objective, work history, and skills? How do you stand out from the crowd and find a good fit? I’m here to answer these questions and more with my beginner yoga teacher resume tips.
I’m Anna Passalacqua, a Co-Founder, Director, and Teacher at Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapy. I am a certified yoga teacher and yoga therapist myself and I regularly work with yoga teachers who are training to become yoga therapists.
Keep reading to find my advice for writing a great yoga teacher resume, no experience needed. I’ve also included a yoga teacher resume sample and tips for furthering your career. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents:
Even a beginner yoga teacher’s resume can include many of the same things as an experience yoga teacher’s resume, including:
In addition to these more concrete items, I recommend trying to describe yourself and your personality to help you find the right job. If you’ve been to enough yoga classes, you’ll know that there are some you’d like to join and others that aren’t a good fit. It’s the same for both the students and the teachers!
For example, don’t be afraid to mention your age as a descriptor of yourself or include a photo. Some studios are looking for more youthful energy to teach a fast-paced, athletic crowd. Others need someone who can be more patient, understanding, or approachable to vibe well with their audience. Just be sure that if you do include a photo, it’s a high-quality shot that shows what you look like in action when you’re teaching—not a headshot or a selfie.
Finding the best possible match between yoga teacher, students, and studio is critical. Most yoga teachers are paid based on the number of students they teach. The better the match, the more likely you are to attract and retain students while also enjoying your work.
Writing a yoga teacher resume can feel daunting if you haven’t gotten a job as a yoga instructor yet. Some of the most important things to include are the style of yoga you want to teach (whether or not you have job experience teaching it yet) and the audience you want to serve. You can also highlight the training you’ve received so studios know what you’ve learned and where you’ve trained.
Learn more about how to create an impressive beginner yoga teacher resume with no experience below.
Yoga studios need to understand what kind of yoga class you’d be interested in teaching. If there is a specific style of yoga you’d like to teach, such as Vinyasa Yoga, Yin Yoga, or hot yoga, be sure to name it. If you have any specialized knowledge in something specific like chair yoga, toe yoga, or face yoga, you can share that as well.
You should also describe what the yoga classes you teach are like (or what you want them to be like if you haven’t taught yet). You can discuss the yoga style, target audience, and key techniques. For example:
As mentioned above, focus on identifying who you want to teach, help, and serve. What would be a fun class for them (and for you)? What would a useful class look like? What draws you to want to serve this population? For example:
You may think a beginner yoga teacher resume has no experience on it, but job experience isn’t the only thing that matters. Training is another kind of experience, and employers like to see what you know and that you’re eager to learn.
Be sure to list any relevant training you’ve received on your resume, such as 200-hour or 500-hour yoga teacher training. If you’ve completed a lot of training, be sure to highlight this as well.
In general, the yoga training you’ve received will be more important than any college education, yoga credentials, or yoga certifications. Employers want to know where you’ve trained, what you’ve learned, and who you want to work with. Getting a bachelor’s or master’s in yoga is far from the norm, though you should include it if you have it.
As a new yoga instructor, you’re stepping into a field with countless established yoga philosophies already. It’s more important to show that you’ve learned from others than that you’ve formed your own yoga pedagogy.
This isn’t to say that you can’t have your own ideas and beliefs about yoga, but when you’re just starting out, being one in a million isn’t as important as showing you’re someone who is eager to learn and willing to work hard. Generally, employers like someone who is humble enough to acknowledge that they still have more to learn and are willing to do so.
One of the key components of a resume is the objective section. It’s a short summary of the professional goals you’re looking to achieve in a new position, as well as the relevant experiences and skills you’ve developed toward those goals that make you a good candidate for the role you’re applying for. Appearing at the top of a resume, it’s an important introduction of yourself and what you’re looking for.
While not every resume has an objective, for a yoga teacher resume with no experience it’s a great opportunity to describe yourself and the reasons why you’d like to become a yoga teacher. Why do you want to teach a certain style or specific audience? What kind of yoga classes do you teach or do you want to teach? What makes you qualified to do so?
A yoga teacher resume objective will change a little depending on the job you’re applying to, but the key facts you should include are:
When writing a beginner yoga teacher resume, deciding which skills to include can be intimidating. What types of skills should a yoga teacher have? What types of skills should you highlight over others?
A good tip for helping you think about your skills is to make a list of hard skills and one of soft skills.
Hard skills are specific, measurable technical skills. These are most often learned on the job or through formal education or training. They tend to be directly related to a person’s ability to perform a particular job effectively.
For yoga teacher resumes, hard skills are incredibly important. Examples include:
This section is your chance to display any and all hard skills. Only the most important ones should be named in your objective or expanded on in a cover letter, while your skills section allows you to give a full list of your yoga teacher skills on a resume.
Soft skills are interpersonal skills related to dealing with people or situations more generally. While they can be just as important to your job performance, they are less specific to a particular job and instead can apply to many different jobs.
People don’t just go to yoga instructors to learn specific yoga styles or techniques, but also for their presence in classes and their teaching style too. While the general opinion on whether or not to include soft skills varies, for beginner yoga teacher resumes, soft skills may help indicate the type of teacher you’ll be.
Examples of soft skills include:
Many people may think they have a yoga teacher resume with no experience, but they’re overlooking job experiences they’ve had outside of yoga. While these won’t speak to your hard skills as a yoga teacher, they can help show the soft skills you’ve developed.
Talking about any previous customer service jobs you enjoyed or how much you like helping people are good options to help round out a beginner yoga teacher resume. Even just showing that you like people and enjoy working with them can do wonders in a job search.
Below you’ll find a yoga teacher resume sample for someone at the start of their yoga career. Feel free to use this example to help jump start your own resume!
If you’re looking to expand your skills, become a more desirable job candidate, and gain techniques to help people use yoga for specific physical and mental health conditions, then yoga therapy may be right for you. Yoga therapy is a steadily growing and specialized career path within the field that offers a wide range of job and career opportunities.
Although yoga in general can be restorative and healing, yoga therapy is especially fulfilling as you apply different yoga techniques (including asanas, pranayama, or meditation) to help clients heal from specific health issues. If there is a specific population that you want to serve, becoming a yoga therapist can give you the additional knowledge, skills, and techniques to provide specialized help.
In addition to running your own private practice, as a yoga therapist you could find work in a variety of other settings, such as:
Not only does yoga therapy allow for a range of specializations and job opportunities, but a range in salary too. Like many careers, a yoga therapist’s salary depends on a multitude of factors, including experience, skill level, specialization, location, hours, and what kind of job you get.
If you’re interested in becoming a yoga therapist, you’ve already taken the first step by becoming a yoga teacher! The yoga teacher training you’ve already received will give you an important foundation in yoga and fulfill a common prerequisite for yoga therapy training.
Looking for yoga therapy training? At Breathing Deeply, we provide yoga therapy training that can be completed in as little as 1 year or less. Our online lessons and coursework can be done around your schedule, and we also offer flexible payment options to meet our students’ needs. More importantly, we offer plenty of opportunities to learn from certified yoga therapists with live Q&A sessions, retreats, and a private online forum for our teachers and students.
Apply today to start training as a yoga therapist. New classes are starting soon!
Brandt talks about common questions applicants have about the Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapy Program. Tune in to get the full program details.
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