Landing a home staging job starts long before the interview – it starts with your resume. Whether you’re applying to join an established staging company or pitching yourself to a real estate firm, your resume is the first impression a hiring manager will have of you. It needs to be clear, relevant, and tailored to the specific role you’re going after.
The good news is that a home stager’s resume follows the same structure as most professional resumes. The difference is in how you frame your experience, highlight the right skills, and show that you understand what the role actually demands. Even if you don’t have years of staging experience under your belt, a well-crafted resume can position you as a strong candidate by drawing on transferable skills from other industries.
In this guide, we’ll walk through each section of a home stager resume – from your professional summary to your certifications – with tips, examples, and common mistakes to avoid so you can put your best foot forward.
Let’s dive into each of these sections one by one so you can craft the perfect home stager resume and land your next staging job. If you’re still in the early stages of your job search, our guide on how to get a job staging homes covers the full process from start to finish
The Most Important First Step
No matter what job you are applying for, you need to start by reading the job description and ensuring you understand it very clearly.
All home staging job descriptions typically specify specifically what the hiring company is looking for. Sometimes it is in clear bullet point form, and other times it can be a little more hidden.
Let’s take a look at the sample job description below:
For this job description found on Indeed, you need to identify the highlights we have added and base your CV on these particular requirements.
You should include in your home staging resume when applying for this job:
- Any experience you have consulting with clients, whether that be in the home staging industry or another industry
- Anything regarding the wide range of home styles you appreciate and understand
- Some form of evidence that you have experience in presenting and communicating professionally
- A comment on any inventory purchasing experience you have, and management experience
- Your attention to deadlines and desire to complete tasks on time
Often, you won’t be able to say you have a high level of experience with all the points listed, but if you can get 60 – 70% of them, that is often enough to get an interview after submitting your CV.
Only once you have a full understanding of what the home staging job description is asking for should you move on to the next section and actually begin writing your CV (before going hunting for your first home staging job).
Sections of a Home Stager’s Resume
As mentioned earlier, every resume typically follows the same format, and home staging resumes are no different.
You’ll want to include the following sections at a minimum.
Professional Summary
The professional summary is the first piece of content on your resume, after the headline and your contact details.
This section is much like a cover letter, but shorter. Typically a paragraph that consists of up to 200 or so words.
Here is an example that can inspire you when writing your own home staging resume:
“I have long held a love of interior design and home staging, and have focused my education around this industry. For the past 2 years, I have been employed as a Home Staging Assistant and am now seeking to advance to a Home Staging Management role. This industry is one I am passionate about, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to bring my skills and experience to [company name] and further grow my home staging career“.
Simple & to the point. Easy!
Work History
Include your most recent three or four roles – there’s no need to go all the way back to your first part-time job. Focus on positions relevant to the role you’re applying for, even if they weren’t specifically in home staging. Retail experience at a homeware or furniture store, working with a real estate agency, or a role in interior design or event styling all demonstrate transferable skills that hiring managers will value.
For each position, list your job title, the company name, and the dates you worked there. Below that, include three to five bullet points describing your key responsibilities, what you learned, and any measurable results you achieved. Wherever possible, tie your accomplishments back to the skills mentioned in the job description – this is where the keyword strategy from later in this guide comes into play.
Education
All that needs to be listed here are two or three bullet points: the educational facility you attended, the year you graduated, and any other formal education you have completed.
For example:
- Sleepy Creek High School (2005)
- Fielding School of Design (2015)
That’s all.
Skills
The skills section of a home staging resume can also be presented as bullet points. Simply two columns of any skills you have that are applicable to the job description you are applying for is enough.
They don’t necessarily have to be strictly home staging skills, either; you can list any skills you have that will help you carry out your duties as outlined in the job description.
Here is a list that we have created for you that may help you choose which skills to list, over and above any home staging-specific skills you choose to list:
- Microsoft Office Suite
- CRM Software
- Adobe Photoshop editing
- 3D staging software
- Website management
- Contract writing
- Digital marketing
- Negotiation
Certifications
As with the skills section of your home staging resume, the certifications section can simply be a few bullet points.
There are a number of home staging certifications available. Here at the Home Staging Institute, our courses award you with the ‘Certified Staging Expert (CSE)’ credential, so you would simply list this on your resume in the following manner:
- Certified Staging Expert (CSE) from the Home Staging Institute
If you don’t yet have a home staging certification to list, take a look at our Professional Course. It is one of the most affordable home staging courses you can take online, and some students complete it in just a few weeks.
If you don’t have a staging certification ready to list on the resume you are preparing today, then at least you’ll have one ready to list for the next home staging job you apply for.
Tips to Enhance a Home Stager Resume for Better Results
Identify & Reuse Keywords
Every home staging job description will have some keywords that stand out.
Identify these keywords, and repeat them back to the recruiter within your staging resume.
For example:
- If the job description states they are looking for someone with experience “pricing and negotiating complex jobs“, then your resume needs to state (using the same words), that you have experience “pricing and negotiating complex jobs“.
- If the job description asks you to share your “relevant education and certifications” you need to include in your resume that “you have completed a home staging certification at the Home Staging Institute in 2022, with a pass mark of 194 out of 200″.
This doesn’t mean you’re copying and pasting the job description into your resume. It simply means that you identify the two or three main points of the description, and use their own words to share how you have experience in these main points.
Triple Check Spelling & Grammar
Write your CV in a tool that offers a spelling and grammar checker.
I personally use Google Docs for all my writing, as it has a built-in spellchecker and can have the Grammarly Chrome plugin installed.
This gives you two layers of defence against silly spelling and grammar errors.
