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CDL A Truck Driver Must-Have Resume Skills and Keywords

Are you interested in improving your job outlook and increasing your salary? How can you demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate for a CDL A Truck Driver position? Of course continuing to gain experience working as a CDL A Truck Driver may be your best qualification, but there are other ways you can also develop your skills, like continuing education or volunteer opportunities. More immediately, however, you can be ready for your next opportunity or promotion by educating yourself about the duties, responsibilities, and required skills of a CDL A Truck Driver and making sure your resume reflects your experience properly.

In order to do so, you’ll want to know that both employers hiring for a CDL A Truck Driver and those who list the position of CDL A Truck Driver on their resumes predominantly feature CDL A License and Trucking as the most common and important terms, respectively. But the list quickly begins to diverge with resumes showing Customer Service, CDL and Truck Driver at positions three, four and five, while job listings show a different pattern. Do you know what you would list?

We designed the ZipRecruiter Career Keyword Mapper to help you solve this problem and hopefully improve your resume. Using machine learning tools paired with industry research, our Marketplace Research Team helped analyze millions of job postings and resumes to identify the most important keywords related to CDL A Truck Driver jobs. Our goal is to help you discover opportunities to improve your resume or to help you understand what skills and qualifications you need to be a CDL A Truck Driver or to advance your career into beyond this role.

Top Skills Mentioned in Job Descriptions

Top
10
Job Skills
Employers list the keywords CDL A License and Trucking in 50.74% of CDL A Truck Driver job postings. Having such a significant share of the pie suggests these terms are critical to your resume. Over The Road Experience, Tractor Trailer and Refrigeration are still quite important, but a smaller sliceof the employer CDL A Truck Driver job postings with their combined total of 19.91%. At 16.06%, Pay Raises, Flatbed Truck, CDL, and Military Experience appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top CDL A Truck Driver skills and requirements according to employers.

Top Skills Mentioned in Resumes

Top
10
Job Skills
Job seeker resumes showcase a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of CDL A Truck Driver positions. The top three keywords represent 47.86% of the total set of top resume listed keywords. Look to the Resume Checklist below to investigate how CDL A License, Trucking, and Customer Service match up to employer job descriptions. CDL, Truck Driver, and Tractor Trailer represent a very decent share of skills found on resumes for CDL A Truck Driver with 25.77% of the total. At 26.37%, Forklift Experience, Tanker Truck Driver, Auto Delivery, and Over The Road Experience appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top CDL A Truck Driver skills and qualifications found on resumes.

Most Important Skills Required to Be a Cdl A Truck Driver as Listed by Employers and Employees

Here is a simple table of the top 10 skills and qualifications as listed by employers in CDL A Truck Driver job postings since January of 2018, followed by the top 10 skills and qualifications most commonly listed by people who held the title of CDL A Truck Driver on their resumes.
Top CDL A Truck Driver Skills
Skills Required by Employers Share
CDL A License 29.17%
Trucking 21.57%
Truck Driver 13.29%
Over The Road Experience 8.11%
Tractor Trailer 6.35%
Refrigeration 5.45%
Pay Raises 4.52%
Flatbed Truck 4.48%
CDL 3.68%
Military Experience 3.38%
Skills Listed by Employees Share
CDL A License 23.99%
Trucking 13.30%
Customer Service 10.57%
CDL 9.14%
Truck Driver 9.03%
Tractor Trailer 7.60%
Forklift Experience 7.01%
Tanker Truck Driver 6.89%
Auto Delivery 6.77%
Over The Road Experience 5.70%

Cdl A Truck Driver Resume Checklist

Our Resume Keyword Checklist is based upon an analysis of the most commonly found terms within both job descriptions and resumes for CDL A Truck Driver roles. Our algorithm helps isolate phrases and patterns to identify the most frequently recurring and reused keywords from each data source, while correcting for uncommon and outlier results. Various heuristic methodologies are then applied to ultimately create two top 20 lists of the most important and significant skills, certificates and requirements found within CDL A Truck Driver job postings and resumes. We then merge the two lists together and use a combination of statistics and rules-based scenarios to create a list that is audited by the Marketplace Research team, and finally turned into the checklist you see below. Our hope is that knowing this information can help you make your best impression with your next potential employer.
Uncommon Keywords on Cdl A Truck Driver Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Refrigeration
Hooking
Reefer
Trucking
Truck Driver
Over The Road Experience
Military Experience
CDL A License
Employer job listings tend to list Refrigeration, Hooking, Reefer, Trucking, Truck Driver, Over The Road Experience, Military Experience or CDL A License as requirements in CDL A Truck Driver job descriptions; however, job seekers mention them far less frequently on their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for a CDL A Truck Driver role may help you stand out more to hiring managers.
Common Keywords on Cdl A Truck Driver Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Flatbed Truck
Tractor Trailer
Dry Van
Fuel
Hauling
Hazmat
Tanker Truck Driver
CDL
Both employer job listings and resumes from people who’ve held the role of CDL A Truck Driver tend to always include skills and requirements found in this list. Whether you’ve only got Flatbed Truck, Tractor Trailer, Dry Van, Fuel, Hauling, Hazmat, Tanker Truck Driver or CDL in your background and experience, make sure to highlight the term prominently on your resume. As a job seeker you’ll be competing with many others who are bound to have as many as you (or more!) of these common resume keywords highlighted in their application for a job as a CDL A Truck Driver.
Uncommon Keywords on Cdl A Truck Driver Job Descriptions
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Customer Service
Auto Delivery
Employer job listings infrequently list Customer Service or Auto Delivery as important skills or qualifications in CDL A Truck Driver job descriptions. Nevertheless, job seekers mention them much more commonly in their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for a CDL A Truck Driver role may go unnoticed or even discounted by hiring managers.

FAQs about Cdl A Truck Driver Skills and Resume Keywords

What are the most important CDL A Truck Driver job skills to have on my resume?

The most common important skills required by employers are Flatbed Truck, Tractor Trailer, Dry Van, Fuel, Hauling, Hazmat and Tanker Truck Driver. These skills and requirements are just as likely to be mentioned by employers as well as on resumes of people that held a job as a CDL A Truck Driver, suggesting that having these keywords on a resume are important for success as a CDL A Truck Driver. Additionally, employer CDL A Truck Driver job descriptions list Refrigeration as a desirable experience, even though Refrigeration appears 6.86 times less on resumes, suggesting that it's worth considering including this skill if you possess the experience.

What are the least important CDL A Truck Driver job skills to have on my resume?

Although you'd probably love to load up your resume with every possible keyword you can, employers tend to look for the things they specify in the job description. Our analysis suggests that highlighting too prominently terms like Customer Service and Auto Delivery may be something to reconsider. These two terms appear 0.49 and 0.47 times less often than in job descriptions for a CDL A Truck Driver role. This indicates that highlighting either of these keywords on your resume may not be a great way to get noticed by a potential employer.

How do I make sure my resume has all of the right keywords for a CDL A Truck Driver position?

Unless your resume has a good density of the following skills and experience listed, you may not be considered for the role of CDL A Truck Driver. Make sure to include a strong showing for the following keywords on your resume:
  • Flatbed Truck
  • Tractor Trailer
  • Dry Van
  • Fuel
  • Hauling
  • Hazmat
  • Tanker Truck Driver
  • CDL
Additionally employers frequently list the following as desirable qualities in a CDL A Truck Driver candidate, but they are far less common on most resumes:
  • Refrigeration
  • Hooking
  • Reefer
  • Trucking
  • Truck Driver
  • Over The Road Experience
  • Military Experience
  • CDL A License
Finally people who held the position of a CDL A Truck Driver and list it on their resume are adding these terms that are less likely to be noticed by employers. You may want to consider downplaying these terms on your CDL A Truck Driver application:
  • Customer Service
  • Auto Delivery

Before applying for a Cdl A Truck Driver job

At ZipRecruiter, we understand better than anyone the importance of using the right keywords to describe your experience — it’s crucial to attracting the right employers! We built our business on the ability to effectively match job seekers with employers using AI-technology that understands your resume and how likely you are to be noticed by a potential future employer. Having a ZipRecruiter profile that showcases your most relevant skills and abilities can help you get recruited into a new role as a CDL A Truck Driver. Get started on your journey with a new ZipRecruiter Profile today!