Any hotel hiring manager knows that good housekeeping is essential for success. Any mistake is sure to get noticed by guests, so your resume needs to be just as flawless as a freshly-made bed. In fact, your resume should be like a freshly dressed down room in more ways than one: clean, tidy, organized, and with everything in its place.

But knowing all this doesn’t make you an expert housekeeper, it takes skills and experience. When it comes to housekeeper resumes, we’ve got plenty of experience to share. That’s why we’ve created this guide to take you through every question you may have and help make sure your resume is absolutely immaculate.

This guide will show you:

• Helpful examples of what an excellent housekeeper resume looks like
• How to optimize your resume for ATS (and why it’s so important)
• How to put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager to target your resume perfectly
• How your housekeeper resume should be formatted
• The proper length of a housekeeper resume
• Which hard and soft skills belong on a housekeeper resume
• How to optimize your experience section with action verbs for maximum impact
• Which achievements you may want to include and how to write them
• Whether you should include a resume objective or summary with examples of how to write both
• How to create an effective housekeeper resume with little or no experience
• How to make your housekeeper resume stand out from the competition
• Why a resume builder is an essential tool

Obviously there’s a lot to cover, but we’ll make it simple as we go. Let’s start with some inspirational examples.

Housekeeper resume template examples:

As with most things, the hardest part about creating a housekeeper resume is usually getting started. You may have decades of experience working as a housekeeper, but will have rarely seen a resume that reflects all of that experience. That’s why we’ve chosen to start off with some useful template examples.

Below, you can find a few examples to get you inspired. But don’t forget to also take away some ideas. Start creating a list of what you think works and doesn’t work about these examples. That way, when you start, you’ll already have a nice list of ideas to get you going.

[Examples]

How to write a housekeeper resume that will get you hired

You’ve seen what a great housekeeper resume looks like, now it’s time to create your own. We’ve got a lot of tips for you below, but before you start writing down your experience, skills, etc. - you need to learn a few fundamentals about good resume-writing.

Start by considering who will be hiring you

The foundation of a great resume is understanding who it’s for. After all, you wouldn’t set up a room for a romantic honeymoon the same way you would for a big family getaway. So don’t make your resume one size-fits-all and ignore the person who’s going to be reading it.

Despite what you might think, in most cases your first audience will be a computer algorithm.

Why your housekeeper resume should be ATS optimized

If you’re applying for a housekeeper position at a large hotel chain, there’s an extremely good chance the first review of your resume will not be by a human. If you’re only applying to work with individual clients in their homes, this won’t apply. But for everyone else, making sure your resume is ATS-optimized will be essential.

But what exactly is ATS? It stands for Applicant Tracking System. It’s essentially a computer program that uses artificial intelligence to scan your resume for keywords and experience. Its goal is to weed out unqualified applicants so hiring managers aren’t overwhelmed. There are dozens of them out there and each one works a little differently. That said, there are things you should do to optimize for the most common types out there.

Ensuring your resume makes it past ATS to a hiring manager comes down to these tips:

1. Make absolutely sure your resume is in an ATS-friendly format. Generally PDFs and DOCs are the file types most ATS’ work best with. In other words, if your resume is in another file format, it probably won’t make it through.
2. Use a resume builder that’s ATS-optimized. Not all PDFs are created equally. The way the data is structured on them makes a big difference when ATS try to scan them. So work with a resume-building tool that’s designed to make their work easy.
3. Write your skills and experience to match those listed in the job description as closely as possible. These days the AI driving ATS is pretty smart but it’s still not perfect. If you phrase your skills in a way it doesn’t understand, your resume might still get rejected. So when the job ad asks for experience repairing torn linens, you should list “Experience repairing torn linens.”
4. Ensure you meet the minimum requirements. If the job requires a minimum of 5 years experience in housekeeping, then you won’t likely make it past ATS with 2. In those cases, it’s best to save yourself the time and apply somewhere else.

Put yourself in the recruiter or homeowner’s shoes

Once your resume makes it past ATS, it still needs a human to like it. That could be a hiring manager, recruiter at a major hotel chain or a homeowner. What you need to do is understand these people and their needs so your resume can match them perfectly.

The first step is to carefully study the job ad. What kind of housekeeper are they looking for? For example, if the ad is from a homeowner who mentions that the housekeeper they hire must be extremely careful, because they’ve had furniture damaged in the past, try to find ways to show how careful you are on your resume.

Think of it this way - your goal is to make it as easy as possible for them to say “yes, let’s hire this person.” If something is easier to do, a person is more likely to do it. This extends to making sure your resume is easy to read both in the font and size as well as how it's written. Just imagine you’re a busy homeowner or hotel hiring manager and you’ve been working all day and now you’re reviewing resumes. Your resume should be a breath of fresh air, not another grinding task.

If you’re wondering how it’s possible to do that, don’t worry! The rest of this guide will show you exactly what you need to do.

How should a housekeeper resume be formatted?

Getting the formatting right is more crucial than it seems. Poor formatting means information is in the wrong place (meaning you’re creating headaches for the person reading your resume). Your resume should be like an immaculately made up room: everything in the right place.

That means using reverse chronological order. In other words, put your most recent work experience at the top and your oldest at the bottom. This follows the general rule that you should put the most important information on your resume towards the top. That’s why we recommend starting with an objective or summary (more on how to write those below).

How long should a housekeeper resume be?

The first question most people have about their resumes is an easy one for housekeepers. A single page should be all you need. Even with decades of experience, you should try and boil all of your skills and work experience down to a single concise page. Remember that homeowner or hiring manager? They certainly don’t want to read through multiple pages to choose the right housekeeper.

Which sections should you include?

The rule of thumb for any information or section on your resume is asking yourself “does this make my resume better?” If the answer is “no” or “I’m not sure” then you should probably remove it. To get a well-crafted housekeeper resume that’s a single page, you need to choose just the right content to include. So consider which sections make sense, based on your experience. That said, these are the most common ones for housekeeper resumes:

• A resume summary or objective
• Work experience
• Hard skills
• Soft skills
• Certifications or training
• Education
• Languages
• Volunteering

Which skills should you include on your housekeeper resume?

Skills are critical for a housekeeper resume, particularly if you’re applying at a private home. Hotels will generally have the ability to train you for any skills you don’t have, but a homeowner is not going to be willing or able to do the same. That’s why it’s critical you clearly show that you have the specific skills requested in the job ad.

In other words, the best skills to include are the ones requested for the job. But that said, there are some general in-demand hard and soft skills for housekeepers. Let’s run through those lists:

The best hard skills to include

• Knowledge of OSHA safety guidelines
• Languages
• The ability to lift over 30 pounds
• Deep cleaning, carpet cleaning, spot cleaning
• Sewing and fabric repair
• Sanitization of surfaces
• Ordering and managing cleaning supply stocks
• Floor polishing

The best soft skills to include

• Customer service
• Communication
• Time management
• Attention to detail
• Reliability and punctuality

Why you should back up your skills with examples

Listing skills will certainly help get you past ATS and make it more likely you’ll get interviewed or hired, but examples take your skills to the next level. Whenever possible, try and include examples, which demonstrate that you really have these skills. This particularly applies to soft skills, which tend to be a bit more vague. For example:

“Punctual”

“No late arrivals in 3 years working as a Housekeeper for New Rochelle Hotels”

The latter example will make the person reading your resume feel they can be confident in you and your skills. Keep in mind, sometimes the best way to go about this is to list your skills in a short section and then provide examples in your work experience.

How to optimize your experience section

Your work experience is going to be the core of your housekeeper resume. It’s where you need to show that you did more than the bare minimum in your previous work. Again, focus on listing concrete accomplishments or responsibilities. The more specific you are, the better it will sound. For example, compare these two samples:

“Responsible for cleaning rooms.”

“Responsible for daily cleaning of 30 rooms”

The differences are subtle but important. By specifying “daily” and the number of rooms, what you did becomes more clear. But more importantly, it makes you sound detail oriented, which is a critical skill for a great housekeeper.

Action verbs to use

Besides being as specific as possible, utilizing action verbs also makes you sound more active in how you describe your work experience. So, instead of writing

“Required to arrange rooms to look presentable”

Try writing something more like

“Arranged rooms to look impeccable for guests”

Now it sounds less like “they made me do this” and more like “I did this well.” Here are some action verbs you should consider including:

• Cleaned, arranged, organized, collected, conducted, managed, operated, swept, waxed, mopped, reported, examined, disposed, tidied, monitored, documented, etc.

How to include achievements on your resume

Plenty of what we achieve in our lives has nothing to do with our jobs. But sometimes those achievements can demonstrate that we have job-relevant skills. That’s where an achievements section comes into play. It’s the ideal place to include highlights that help demonstrate who you are as a person and a housekeeper.

The rules for adding achievements on your resume are the same as those for describing your work experience: be specific and use action verbs. Let’s look at some examples to see what that looks like:

“Head cheerleader at Fremont High School”

This may show you have leadership, but ultimately an achievement from high school isn’t going to make you look very professional.

“Organized a charity fundraiser to help a colleague with medical expenses”

This example shows that you’re generous and get along well with your colleagues as well as highlighting the fact that you are organized.

Certifications to include on a housekeeper resume

An excellent way to show that you go above and beyond the basics as a housekeeper is to get certified. Much like the specificity mentioned above, certifications clearly demonstrate that you really possess a specific skill. If you’re applying for a position you might not have enough experience for, they can also even the playing field.

Here are some certifications you may want to consider including:

• Certified Guestroom Attendant
• Certified Environmental Services Executive
• Mold Awareness Specialist 

Should you include a resume objective or summary?

The purpose of a resume objective or summary is to start off with some context. But, each has a specific role to play in your resume. An objective is generally just a single sentence or so and focuses on explaining who you are and what you aim to achieve with this resume.

A resume summary, on the other hand, is a paragraph designed to provide more information and context, which wouldn’t fit easily elsewhere. Often, this kind of information will go onto a cover letter, but if you feel you need to explain more and don’t have the option of including a cover letter, a summary is ideal. In particular, resume summaries are good for explaining gaps in your working history or why some unconventional experience of yours might be relevant.

How to write a resume objective

A resume objective should get right to the point. It needs to be dense with information and without any mistakes. Here are some examples to illustrate this:

“I am a cleaner who would like to be hired as a hotel housekeeper.”

There are a few issues here. While the length is okay, there’s not a lot of useful information here. This example doesn’t really add anything substantial to the resume. In addition, it speaks in the first person, which is not how resume objectives should be written. Let’s look at another version of that objective.

“Certified house cleaner with 4 years experience looking to apply skills to a housekeeping position at the Brushstrokes Hotel.”

While this example is a bit longer, it makes up for that by being information dense. Right away it tells a reader that you are certified, experienced, changing from home to hotel housekeeping, and that you tailored your resume for this specific position (more on why that’s important later).

How to write a resume summary

A resume summary should follow many of the same rules as an objective. Despite being longer, it should be concise, packed with useful information, and well-written. Here are some examples to illustrate what that should look like:

“Based on my extensive housekeeping experience I believe I am an ideal candidate for this position. In particular, my work at the Miami Beach Resort and Imperial Hotel show that I am diligent, hardworking, and thorough. Thank you for considering me for the position.”

This example also makes the mistake of speaking in the first person. But worse, it rambles on with vague language about being an ideal candidate. Instead of providing the reader with new information, it points them to parts of the resume they were going to read anyways. Now let’s see a better version:

“A Mold Awareness and Guestroom Attendant Certified Housekeeper with previous experience at resort properties, looking to work in the luxury accommodation space at the Regent Hotel after a year absence from the workforce to care for a relative.”

Right away, this summary tells you that this candidate is serious about their work with their certifications. It then explains their work history gap and that they want to move into the luxury housekeeping field. Lastly, by mentioning the specific hotel where they’re applying, they make it clear that this isn’t a cookie-cutter resume they sent to a dozen places.

How to write a housekeeper resume when you have limited (or no) experience

Those resume objectives and summaries are compelling, but what about someone just entering the housekeeping field with little or no experience? In these cases, the key is to find ways to show you have the relevant skills. This could be through certifications (you can even just mention that you’re actively pursuing a certification) or through framing your past work experience around housekeeper-relevant skills.

Just remember that it’s easier to teach specific skills than it is to teach attitude. If you show that you’re hardworking, detail-oriented, and have great customer service skills, you might be a better candidate than someone with housekeeping experience, but lacking those skills.

How to target your education and professional experience for each application

As we’ve mentioned throughout this guide, one of the best ways to improve your chances of getting hired is to target your resume for each application. Mentioning where you’re applying and ensuring your resume precisely matches the requirements laid out in the job ad will make a hiring manager or recruiter’s job ten times easier. It’s a bit of extra work, but the benefits far outweigh the costs, so always be sure to target your resumes.

How to make a housekeeper resume stand out?

Of all the advice contained in this guide, the best way to make your housekeeper resume stand out is to use great design. Most of the resumes you will be competing with are dull Word documents. Handing in a resume with excellent design, that makes it easier to read will have hiring managers viewing your application as a relief from the rest of the pile. But to do that, you need the right resume builder.

How Resumebuild.com resume builder tool can be utilized for an easy resume setup

With so many elements you need to get right on your housekeeper resume, you need all the help you can get. One thing you shouldn’t be worrying about is getting the formatting just right, or making sure your resume can be read by ATS. That’s why you should be using a user-friendly resume builder like the one we’ve created at Resumebuild.com. 

By allowing you to choose between a huge selection of expert-curated resume templates, it’s easy to find a design that will make your resume stand out. Then, an easy-to-use resume manager makes it simple to keep track of tailored resumes for all the positions you’d like to apply for.

Now, the next time you need to apply, all of your previous work is ready for you to update. So instead of digging through your computer for that old resume file, sign up for Resumebuild and create a 21st century resume.