A sheet metal worker resume gets read by a shop foreman or a field superintendent.
Give both readers the same split up front: what you can fabricate and what you can install.
Build the page around that split — a summary that names your lane, experience written as production instead of duty lists, and credentials a shop can verify — then borrow the template below.
What should a sheet metal worker resume include?
A sheet metal worker resume is a proof-of-production document.
The person reading it matches it against work they need done: a fabrication shop reads for output — layout, forming, assembly — while a mechanical contractor reads for what you have hung, sealed, and closed out in a building.
Every block on the page should make one of those two matches faster.
The blocks, in the order that works for both readers:
- Header. Name, city and state, phone, email. No photo, no full street address.
- Summary. Two or three sentences naming your lane — shop, field, or both — the products you work on, and your proof: apprenticeship progress, journeyman status, or a run of work you can speak to.
- Work experience. Reverse-chronological, with each role tagged shop or field, written as outcomes rather than duty lists.
- Certifications and licences. Its own block: apprenticeship completion, journeyman status, welding or other cards, and any licence exactly as the issuing board styles it — this is the part of a resume a shop can verify, so accuracy matters more than polish.
- Skills. A tight list split into fabrication and installation, so both groups get read.
- Education and apprenticeship. Program, sponsor, and progress to date — short, because your work history carries the page.
The summary formula, written out: lane + products + proof.
"Sheet metal worker with time on both sides of the trade — layout, forming, and assembly in the shop; hanging and sealing on commercial fit-outs.
Second-period apprentice with [union local or open shop]."
One honest line in that shape tells the reader which lane to read for first, and it replaces the objective statement, which tells them nothing.
Name the products explicitly throughout — duct, fittings, casings, flashing, hangers, sealing — because the product words are the keywords a foreman matches against the work.
Cut whatever answers no reader's question: objective statements, an itemized list of every duty you have ever performed, "references available on request," and high-school detail once you have trade time behind you.
Two boundary notes before the template.
If the work you are after is servicing and repairing the systems the air moves through — not making and hanging the metal — you are writing an HVAC resume, and that guide covers the service-side document.
And if you want the role itself — where the work sits, union versus open shop, and what it pays — step back to our sheet metal worker guide.
How to describe shop and field experience
Shop and field experience are read by different eyes, so they are written differently.
Lead with the lane the shop you are applying to buys, and write every bullet in one shape: strong verb, product, task, outcome.
Shop fabrication.
The shop is buying output: what you turned flat stock into, and how little rework it needed.
Bullets should show the shape of the work — reading shop tickets and drawings, layout, cutting and forming, seams and joints, assembly, and keeping fit-up tight to the drawing.
Field installation.
The contractor is buying close-out: what you hung, connected, sealed, and handed over.
Bullets should show setting hangers and supports, connecting duct to equipment, sealing joints, repairing sections in place, coordinating with the other trades on site, and closing punch-list items.
Two rewrites show the difference.
"Responsible for duct fabrication" becomes "Laid out and formed rectangular duct and fittings from shop tickets; assembled and sealed sections to the drawing."
"Helped install ductwork" becomes "Hung branch duct on a commercial fit-out, set hangers and supports, and sealed joints for inspection."
The first version of each hides the lane; the rewrite names the product, the task, and the finish.
If you have worked both lanes, keep them visible: tag each role shop or field, or group the bullets under those two sub-headings, so a reader who scans for one lane finds it in the first lines.
Quantify only what you can defend when a foreman asks — a crew size, a building type, a run of work — and leave off anything you would not say out loud.
Apprenticeship experience follows the same rule, with one addition: name the period and the sponsor, and list the tasks you have actually been put on rather than the whole trade.
"Apprentice sheet metal worker, [program name] — second period," followed by bullets for the fabrication and installation work you did, reads honestly — and the progression from period to period is itself an outcome worth claiming.
Coming from manufacturing or another construction trade, the same rule applies in reverse: lead with the product words that carry over, because that is the vocabulary the reader is matching.
Choosing a lane is a separate question
The sheet metal worker resume template you can copy
The template below is the full skeleton, ordered for a worker with trade time.
Replace the bracketed placeholders, delete any line that does not apply to you, and keep the certifications block high enough that a shop finds it on the first screen.
[NAME] Sheet Metal Worker — [Shop Fabrication / Field Installation / Both] [City, State] · [Phone] · [Email] SUMMARY Sheet metal worker with [number] years in [shop fabrication / field installation]. Layout, forming, and assembly on [duct, fittings, casings]; hanging, sealing, and close-out on [building types]. [Journeyman status / apprenticeship year] — [union local or open shop]. CERTIFICATIONS AND LICENCES [Registered apprenticeship — program or sponsor, progress to date] [Journeyman card — issuing board or local, styled exactly as issued] [Welding or other certification — issuer] [State or city licence, if held — issuing board] EXPERIENCE [Contractor or shop name] — [City, State] — [Month Year] to [Month Year or Present] [Job title] — [Shop / Field] • [Verb] + [product] + [task] + [outcome] • [Verb] + [product] + [task] + [outcome] • [Verb] + [product] + [task] + [outcome] [Earlier role, same shape — most recent first] SKILLS Fabrication: [layout · cutting and forming · seams and joints · assembly · reading shop tickets and drawings] Installation: [hangers and supports · connecting to equipment · sealing · repairs in place · site coordination] EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP [Registered apprenticeship or trade program] — [credential or years completed], [sponsor]
Format notes for the final pass:
- Aim for one page; run to two only for long, varied histories, and compress the oldest roles to a line each.
- Send a PDF named for you and the document — not a generic "resume.pdf".
- Use one consistent date style throughout, with no unexplained gaps.
- Keep the layout simple — clear headings, no photos, no text boxes or graphics that scramble when a system parses the file — and no salary history.
- Mirror the posting's own words: if the ad says "fabricator" or "duct installer," the summary carries the same phrase.