How To Write A Yoga Teacher CV | OriGym

Looking for advice on how to write a yoga teacher CV? Whether you’re an experienced yoga instructor or completely new to the industry, we’re about to explain everything that you need to know.

We’ve covered how to structure your CV, what to include and a couple of common mistakes to avoid!

Before we start, why not make your CV stand out by adding a Level 4 Diploma in Teaching Yoga to your list of qualifications? Or, for more tips on advancing in your career, check out our guide to making money as a Yoga Teacher!

Yoga Teacher CV Structure

If you want to write a professional looking yoga instructor CV, having a good structure is absolutely essential.

The number one thing to remember is that employers and hiring teams receive tons of applications for any given role, so even if you meet all of the requirements, a poorly structured CV could still stop you from getting your dream job.

When an exciting job opportunity is advertised, employers can become inundated with so many applications that they only have time to give each CV a quick skim read before narrowing down the candidates that really stand out.

If your yoga teacher CV has a poor structure and the employer has to read the full thing just to find your relevant qualifications or work experience, you can pretty much forget about your chances of them reading your yoga CV, never mind offering you a job.

So, what do you need to do?

When we share our top tips for writing a brilliant yoga CV, we’ll talk in more detail about why having clear and concise sections is the key to a good yoga teacher CV.

But for now, here’s what a good structure should look like:

1. Contact Information
2. Personal Summary
3. Work Experience
4. Industry Related Qualifications and Licenses
5. Education
6. Hobbies and Interests
7. References

This is obviously a general structure for you to use as a guide, so don’t sweat it if you can’t think of many relevant interests or non-yoga related hobbies that will really add to the value of your CV.  

As long as your CV has clear sections that are easy to understand, you’re already on track to typing up a brilliant yoga teacher CV. 

Want to make sure that you have the best yoga CV out of all the other applicants? Find out exactly what makes a good yoga teacher here!

CV Format For Yoga Instructor

Now that you have our recommended structure in mind, you’ll need to think about formatting, too. 

For us, one of the main aspects of any good CV is that it's super easy to read and really simple to find all of the relevant information.

This is why formatting and structure are so important!

Avoiding large blocks of text and ensuring that your yoga professional CV is easy to navigate with spaced out sections and clear titles for each section will make it as easy as possible for the employer to quickly glance over your CV if need be.

So with the above sections in mind, our advice is that each of the above titles (e.g. ‘Contact Information) should be in a slightly larger font, written in bold, or underlined, to clarify that this is the heading for a new section.

In terms of text size, we’d recommended using a 16pt font for your titles, and 12pt for the main body of text.

And if possible, use at least 1.15 line spacing between sentences and always ensure that there is a clear gap between each section.

How To Write A Yoga Teacher CV: What To Include

Now that we’ve covered how to structure your CV, what are you actually going to include in each section?

We’re about to use our recommended structure above to break down exactly what you should cover in a yoga teacher CV if you’re based in the UK.

Want to know what your options are outside of applyign for full-time yoga jobs? Once we're done here, clcik here to read about how you can write a yoga business plan and become you're own boss!

#1 Contact Information

This one should be fairly self-explanatory, so we’ll make it quick!

A good yoga CV should always start with your contact information, that should include your:

• Full name
• Phone number
• Email address

If you like, you can include your location within this section, too. 

This doesn’t need to be your full address and postcode, as it's highly unlikely that an employer will reach out to you via post.

However, if an employer expresses a preference for local candidates, it might be worth including the fact that you live in the local area.

One other piece of information that can be a nice touch to a contact section, is to include your qualified status, for example ‘Level 3 Yoga Instructor’.

So an example contact section might look something like this:

Ken Adams

07123456789

kenadams@gmail.com

Wavertree, Liverpool, United Kingdom

LEVEL 3 YOGA INSTRUCTOR 

#2 Personal Summary

This is one section that is often overlooked by a lot of people, who jump straight into their qualifications and work experience, without taking the time to talk a little bit about themselves.

But a personal summary is actually really important as a lot of employers will use this short section to determine whether they want to carry on reading your CV!

So, what should you include in this section to keep the employer interested?

Your personal summary section should be almost like your own personal sales pitch, providing an overview of yourself and why you are the ideal candidate for the position that you’re applying for.

It should be a couple of lines long, starting by stating who you are and what kind of job you are looking for.

You should then go on to talk about what you can bring to both the role and the company, discussing the skills and specific qualities that make you the perfect person for the position.

For that reason, our best advice for writing a good personal summary is to review it for every job that you apply for.

Applying to work in a hot yoga studio? Talk about why you want to become a Bikram yoga instructor in particular!

Even if you only intend on applying for ‘yoga teacher’ jobs, there can still be some slight differences in the role requirements or job responsibilities.

Picking up on these details and pointing out that your skillset is a perfect match for the position, is a brilliant way to write a good yoga CV that really stands out.

Our advice is to have a read of the job description and highlight all the key qualities that they are looking for in a candidate.

You should then use a PEE paragraph structure to talk about the qualities that you possess and how they compare to those included in the job description.

Here’s a quick definition of a PEE paragraph from TutorFair:

“The Point, Evidence, Explanation method (PEE) is great for organising paragraphs around your ideas and gives your argument some direction (and if you are anything like me, any help with focusing your ideas is never a bad thing).”

Relevant to how to write a yoga teacher CV, you should start each sentence in your personal summary with:

• Point: a statement about yourself or a quality that you possess
• Evidence: an example of a time you used a particular skill or showed a certain quality
• Explanation: a brief description of how that evidence backs up your point

So, instead of doing what almost every applicant does, writing:

“I’m a reliable individual” or “I am passionate about yoga”

You could say:

“I am a reliable individual as demonstrated by my impressive attendance and punctuality rate in my current job role”

This advice can be particularly useful for anybody who wants to know how to write a yoga teacher CV when they don’t have any relevant work experience!

You might not have the experience of teaching a class yourself, but you can still show you have the same skills by providing evidence of times where you have led a group task, spoke in front of a large group of people, or given a presentation!

#3 Work Experience

Speaking of work experience, that’s exactly what you should include in the next section of your yoga teacher CV.

Even if you’re looking for your first role as a yoga teacher, this is still arguably the most important section of your CV!

Within this section you should talk about your professional track record, covering your previous jobs and the roles and responsibilities that came with them.

You can also use this space to highlight any of your achievements, perhaps a positive performance review or a particularly difficult challenge and how you overcome it.

Even if you don’t think that your current job or previous achievements are in any way relevant to working as a yoga instructor, there are still plenty of ways to draw parallels between your past and potential job roles.

Job requirements such as keeping the studio clean, greeting students, and organising bookings might seem like they are specific to working in a yoga studio, but in reality they are not dissimilar to the kind of tasks you perform as a waiter, working in retail, or as a receptionist.

If you've ever worked in a job where you had a sales target, you can easily link this to how you would go about getting new yoga clients on board. 

Plus, professional achievements in general can really showcase how much of a brilliant employee you can be and therefore impress whoever is reading your yoga instructor CV!

You can also illustrate your commitment to your career by discussing the steps you have taken towards professional development.

Whether that’s hosting your own yoga event as an innovative way of getting new yoga clients or creating your own yoga style, sharing any steps that you have taken towards professional development will really benefit your CV!

Want to know more about this? Check out our guide to professional development for fitness professionals here!

Regardless of whether your previous roles are entirely related to yoga or not, one must do for this section is to always talk about your previous jobs in reverse chronological order.

That means, starting with your current or most recent role and then working backwards. 

Even if a job you had a little while ago seems more relevant to your yoga CV than your current job, keep consistent by writing in reverse chronological order, and just include more detail if you think one particular point is more important.

Referring back to a good CV format for yoga instructor applications, ensure that this section is easy to navigate by structuring it in a similar way that you will structure your yoga CV overall.

Include a title and new paragraph for each new position that you talk about, which might look something like this:

July 2019 – present                                                                     Job Role

 

Company 

 

Write about your roles and responsibilities.

Jan 2019 – July 2019                                                                     Job Role

 

Company 

 

About the roles and responsibilities.

When it comes to actually writing about your roles and responsibilities, here’s our advice:

• Use PEE paragraphs just like you did in your personal summary
• Keep each job description concise (you can use bullet points if you struggle to stick to short paragraphs)
• Only include information that adds value to your application. Whilst some of your previous jobs will have provided you with transferable skills, the paper round you had as a teen doesn’t tell the employer much about who you are today!

#4 Industry Related Qualifications and Licenses

Up next, you should talk about any qualifications and licenses that you have which are directly relevant to the job or the industry in general!

If you’ve read our blog post about how to become a yoga instructor, you’ll know that having a level 3 yoga teaching qualification is an essential criteria both for employers and yoga teacher insurance providers.

So it goes without saying that you should talk a little bit about your Level 3 yoga qualification on your CV!

This section can also be a brilliant place to plug any relevant CPD courses or first aid qualifications that you have completed, or even talk about the fact that you’ve completed an advanced level 4 yoga qualification - something that will really help your yoga instructor CV to stand out.

Interested in completing a REPs endorsed CPD to enhance your job opportunities? Our Fitness Business CPD is just one example of some of the brilliant CPDs out there.

If you want your CV to look professional, you can keep things consistent and format your qualifications in a similar way to your work experience.

But this time you should include:

• When you completed the course (month and date)
• Name of the institution
• Governing body
• Course accreditation (REPs or CIMSPA)
• Grade (if applicable)

If you have already organised your own yoga teacher insurance, you should include that in this section, too.

A lot of employers will require that you insure yourself, so this is definitely worth including!

Not thought about insurance yet? We’ve covered everything you could possibly need to know about yoga teacher insurance right here.

#5 Education

Some employers might have certain academic requirements (you’ll usually need at least a C in English and Maths), so it’s worth including some background about your education.

Even if you have a degree that you don’t think has anything to do with teaching yoga, you can still include that too!

Higher education in particular provides tons of transferable skills that the employer might want to know about.

Degrees in business and related subjects in particualr can be a great way to show that you know what you're doing when it comes to marketing a yoga business!

So, how should you set this out? And what exactly should you include?

Here's what to do!

We know we keep talking about consistency, but this is really the best way to put together a professional looking yoga CV!

So, structure this section in a similar way to your work experience and qualifications sections, using clear paragraphs and titles, and sticking to a reverse chronological order.

Each section should look something like this:

Sept 2013 – June 2015                                                                            University Name                                                

Subject / Degree title

Grade

When it comes to talking about your GCSE and A-Level results, you don’t need to go into the full details of every subject you completed and each individual grade you achieved, instead you can simply state:

X GCSE’s grade A* – C (including English and Maths)

Of course, if you did do particularly well in an A-Level or college course that you believe benefits your career as a yoga teacher, for example sports science or even business, then by all means talk about that specific subject!

#6 Hobbies and Interests

You might not think that your hobbies and interests have a place on a yoga professional CV, but if you have an interesting hobby either related to health and fitness, or just something that you think will make your CV stand out, then you should definitely include it!

Being a yoga instructor is undoubtedly an active job, plus teaching a class and talking to students makes it a pretty social job, too.

For that reason, when it comes to using your CV to communicate why you’ll be a brilliant yoga teacher, including a small section on any active and social hobbies that you have can add to your case.

A quick sentence explaining what the hobby is and how long you have committed to it is more than enough.

Be aware not to go into too much detail in order to save space for your professional qualities, and always avoid common ‘filler’ hobbies like shopping or ‘socialising with friends’.

#7 References

Finally, a CV for a yoga instructor should end with a quick reference section.

Your references can be your previous employer, a recent teacher or lecturer, or any suitable individual who will be available for the hiring team to contact directly.

It’s best not to include these people's personal information on every CV that you handout, instead the best thing to do is simply state “References available on request”.

Top Tips For The Best Yoga CV

Now that we’ve covered how to structure your CV and shared some example sections for a yoga instructor CV, there are a couple more things that we thought you should know.

If you’re serious about getting an exciting new job at one of the best yoga studios in the area, you’ll need to do everything you can to have the best CV possible.

Fortunately for you, we’ve seen our fair share of good and bad yoga, fitness instructor, and personal trainer CVs!

From that experience, we’ve acquired a pretty good idea of what works, as well as the common mistakes that you’ll want to avoid completely.

So, here’s our advice!

#1 Update Your CV & Use A Cover Letter

If you really want to impress an employer, then you should review your CV for every specific role and company that you apply for, and include a cover letter, too.

Read the job description and person specification, and adjust your own CV to match what they are looking for.

Use the job advert as an example of what you need to include, almost like a checklist for the skills and experience that you talk about either in the CV itself or in a cover letter.

#2 Keep Your CV To 2 Sides

You might think that a long CV shows that you have tons of skills and experiences that make you perfect for the job, but, if your CV is more than 2 pages long, that doesn’t matter because the chances are the employer will never even get round to reading it.

As we mentioned a little earlier, employers are busy people and they receive plenty of job applications every time they advertise a position, so spending more time than necessary reading an extra long CV just isn’t an option.

To avoid this harsh reality, keep your CV to a maximum of 2 A4 sides long.

#3 No Experience? No Problem!

This is a tip for anybody who is newly qualified and worried that they’re lack of experience will get in their way of grabbing that new opportunity.

But if you don’t have any relevant work experience, don’t worry, everyone has to start somewhere!

You can always list some previous roles and explain the skills which they helped you to develop, and how those skills will help you to succeed as a yoga instructor.

But, you can also make your own experience! 

If you have yoga teacher insurance, there’s nothing stopping you holding some free classes for your family and friends and teaching them about the pros and cons of yoga.

You can then talk about this experience both on your CV, and in an interview.

This shows that you have the skills to teach a good class, and it shows that you’re committed to creating your own opportunities so that you can get where you want in your career.

#4 CV for yoga teachers: Should You Use Colour?

A lot of people think that using colour on a CV will help their application to stand out, however, there is a fine line between attention-grabbing and unprofessional.

If you do want to incorporate some kind of colour scheme into your yoga professional CV, it’s really important that you don’t over do it.

Always keep your text black and on a white background, as this ensures that what you have to say is easy to read - after all, the content itself in terms of qualifications and experience, is the most important aspect of any CV.

Anything you can do to make sure that your CV is well-presented and easy to read, you should do!

If you do want to incorporate one or two colours into your CV, keep it consistent. Overdoing it with multiple colours can look unprofessional and for some people it can be hard to read.

#5 Choose A Professional Font

Similar to what we discussed in regard to colour scheme, you should also prioritise using a professional looking font for your text.

It can be tempting to go for a unique font thinking that it will help your CV to stand out, but the truth is, these unique fonts can be hard to read and they can look a little messy.

Instead, stick to the classics like Ariel or Times New Roman, using a 16pt font for titles and 12pt for the main body.

#6 Talk About Your Own Practice

This is another tip to help out anyone who is writing their yoga teacher CV as a newly qualified instructor.

But whether you have experience or not, there’s nothing stopping you talking about your own yoga practice.

In fact, this can be a brilliant way to back up claims that ‘you’re a passionate Yogi’ - helping you with your PEE paragraphs!

Talk about how long you’ve been practicing yoga, your favourite studios and postures, and what made you want to make a career out of this passion.

#7 Check Your Spelling & Grammar

One huge mistake that applicants make, is skipping out the spell checker and sending out a yoga CV with glaringly obvious spelling or grammar errors.

This is the exact opposite of professional, and can be really off putting for some hiring managers!

Missing out on an opportunity because of such a silly mistake is super frustrating, but fortunately, it’s easily avoided.

The best way to avoid this? Always make sure that you use a software like Grammarly before you hit send!

#8 Reverse Chronological Order

This is something we mentioned in our yoga cv example sections for work experience and qualifications, but here’s why reverse chronological order is important.

As much as your first job working as a waitress might have helped with your confidence and interpersonal skills, your more recent work experience and qualifications are likely the most relevant, and therefore that’s what you want your potential employer to see first.

#9 Talk About The Future

This only needs to be a brief sentence or two, usually best placed at the beginning of your yoga CV in the personal summary section.

All you need to do is briefly talk about your career goals, for example, where you want to end up and why this particular role is the right way to get there. 

You could talk about how this job aligns with your career goals, and therefore, why you are prepared to work hard if you do land the position!

#10 Use Clear Titles

By now you should definitely understand why using clear titles is important for every yoga teacher CV template, but we thought we’d explain why this is so important!

Beginning each new section with a clear title written in bold is the best way to ensure that any employer can quickly scan through your CV.

Employers are busy people and will often receive a lot of applications for certain jobs, if they have to work hard to filter through a big block of text, then chances are, they won’t read it.

#11 Follow Up

Our final tip doesn’t directly help with how to write a yoga teacher CV right now, but it’s still super helpful!

There is nothing worse than constantly sending out CVs to be left hanging, receiving no response from the employer and wondering exactly what you are doing wrong.

If you don’t hear back from the employer a few weeks after sending over your CV, there’s no harm in sending a follow up email to ask for some feedback!

You won’t always get a response, but if you do, you could get some really useful advice about what your CV is missing or what changes you could make to improve your chances in future.

Plus, getting comfortable with follow-up emails and calls will come in handy once you do land a job. Follow-up is an essential part of getting new clients and keeping them too!

Want to know more about this? Head over to the OriGym guide to client retention for some more useful tips.

Before You Go!

By now you should know how to write a yoga teacher CV, a good one at that!

But before you go ahead and get stuck into applying for jobs, have you ever thought about how additional qualifications will help you to land your dream job in the fitness industry?

Don't forget to find out more about our advanced Level 4 Yoga Diploma and how it can help develop your yoga practice and career! Download a free course prospectus for more information on OriGym courses!