Modeling resume examples & templates

In short, a modeling resume is a one page document that names the categories you book in, states your current measurements, lists the work you have done with the usage attached, and says who represents you.

However, it travels with two other things and is the least important of the three. A booker looks at your digitals first, your comp card second and the page last, which is why the page has to do what the images cannot: say what clients have booked you for, on what terms, and how reliable you were on the day.

Modeling is also one of the few fields where the offer of work is itself a common route for fraud, so the Federal Trade Commission's guidance on it is summarized here with its source. A resume is useless if the opportunity attached to it is not real.

Resume guide for a modeling resume

How to write a modeling resume

Five sections: contact and representation, statistics, categories and clients, skills, then training. One page, always. List modeling work instead of describing it, and leave out bullets about responsibilities.

Run the finished file through the ATS resume checker if you are also applying for promotional, brand ambassador, showroom or fit work through a company's own hiring system, since those applications are parsed before a person opens them.

Choosing the best resume format for a modeling resume

One page, grouped by category rather than by date, with the strongest category first.

Modeling work does not sort usefully into a timeline. A client hiring for a fit session wants the fit record, and a client hiring for an editorial wants the editorial record, so a chronological list buries whichever one they came for. Group instead: editorial, commercial and advertising, fit and showroom, runway, promotional and live, then anything else.

Inside each group, list by significance rather than recency, and give the client type rather than the brand where a non-disclosure agreement applies. Two strong entries read better than a category padded to six.

Include your contact information

First, never put a home address on a modeling resume. After all, you hand this page to strangers in volume, who email it onward and print it for a casting table.

Also leave off age, date of birth and marital status. Clients ask for an age range when a job requires one, and a number on the page narrows you for nothing in return. Under 18, on the other hand, is different: work permits, hours and trust account rules make age a legal fact, and it belongs in the agency's paperwork rather than on a public page. With representation, the agency's contact goes on the page and yours may not; without it, use a professional email and a phone number you answer.

Make use of a summary

The comp card carries no summary; however, people will ask you for a profile constantly: in agency submissions, on casting platforms, for showroom and fit work, and for brand and promotional applications. Write it once, in three versions.

Right vs wrong: the same modeling summary, twice

Everything on the right, for example, is a booking fact a client can act on. Nothing on the left, on the other hand, distinguishes one submission from the forty behind it.

Outline your experience

Group by category. Then give client type, the kind of job, the volume, and the usage where you know it.

• Instead ofModeled for various clothing brands
  UseFit model, three apparel clients, standing weekly call, 2022 to present
• Instead ofDid a photoshoot for a magazine
  UseEditorial, regional lifestyle title, 8-page feature, 2025
• Instead ofWorked on a big advertising campaign
  UseNational commercial campaign, digital and out of home, 12-month term, North America
• Instead ofLots of experience with online retail
  UseE-commerce, 40-plus days, 90 to 140 looks a day, web and social usage in perpetuity

Write the usage even when it is approximate, because usage is most of the money. After all, the same day rate with perpetual worldwide rights and with three months of social usage are not the same booking.

Your digitals, your comp card and the agreement you are asked to sign

Three objects decide whether a submission goes anywhere, and only one of them is the resume.

Digitals. Also called polaroids, and no longer actually polaroids. They are plain, current, unretouched photographs taken in natural light against a blank wall: front, both profiles and back, in simple fitted clothing, hair down and flat, minimal or no makeup, and a set of close headshots with the same. Their whole purpose is to show what you look like today with nothing added, so an agency can compare you against a brief without discounting a photographer's work.

Digitals cost nothing to make. That is the single most useful fact on this page, and it is where the industry's most common fraud starts.

The comp card. A composite card is a printed card, usually around 5.5 by 8.5 inches, with one strong image on the front and three or four on the back, your name, your agency, and your current statistics. It is a leave-behind for a casting table, not a portfolio. The statistics block is the working part: height, bust or chest, waist, hips, dress or suit size, shoe, hair and eyes, all current. Keep it short, keep it accurate, and reprint it when a measurement changes rather than correcting it by hand.

Model representation agreements and the law

The agreement. Representation terms are written, and in at least one state the terms are now set by statute rather than by custom. New York's Fashion Workers Act took effect on 19 June 2025 and is administered by the New York State Department of Labor.

Under it, model management companies doing business in the state must register with the Department; they may not charge signing fees, deposits or other upfront fees; commissions are capped at 20 percent; a model must receive a deal memo listing total compensation for a job before the work starts; deductions require written approval; a power of attorney may not be required as a condition of representation and may not cover digital replica use, which needs separate and explicit written consent; and a representation agreement may not run longer than three years or renew automatically without approval (New York State Department of Labor, Fashion Workers Act guidance, retrieved 17 September 2026).

However, those are published requirements in one state, not general legal advice, and other states differ. They are useful as calibration: they give you the vocabulary to ask about commission, deal memos, deductions, term length and digital replica consent before you sign. Therefore, for advice on a specific agreement, ask a lawyer.

On the resume itself, all of this shows up in three short lines: who represents you and in which markets, that your digitals and measurements are current as of a stated month, and that your usage terms are negotiated rather than assumed.

Build a snapshot of your key skills

In practice, list eight to twelve entries in two or three groups. Above all, everything here must be something you can do on the day, without preparation.

Fit feedback is the most undersold entry there. A model who can tell a technical designer precisely where a garment pulls, in the vocabulary the fit team uses, becomes a standing weekly booking rather than a day rate.

List your education and training

Finally, keep it short, at the foot, and honest about what it was. BLS gives the typical entry-level education for models as no formal educational credential, with no work experience and no on-the-job training required (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, models, page last modified 27 August 2026), so nothing here is a gate.

In fact, paid training is optional and is never a route to representation. An agency signs a person because of the digitals and the market need, not because of a course, so read any program presented as the way in against the FTC guidance above.

Choose the right layout and design

Similarly, keep it plain: one typeface, 10 to 12 point, name largest at the top, single column, no flourishes. The comp card is the designed object; in contrast, people email, print and read this page quickly.

Modeling job market and outlook

Models is a published Occupational Outlook Handbook profile, and it describes a very small occupation with strong competition and irregular work.

BLS is also unusually plain about the working conditions: many models work part time and have unpredictable work schedules, many experience periods of unemployment, and competition for jobs is strong because most clients have specific needs for each job (same source).

What salary you can expect in modeling

The median annual wage for models was $48,470 as of May 2025, or $23.30 an hour, with the lowest 10 percent earning less than $16.44 an hour and the highest 10 percent more than $63.21 an hour (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, models, page last modified 27 August 2026).

Treat the annual figure carefully. BLS itself states that many models work part time, have unpredictable schedules and experience periods of unemployment, so an annual median describes the occupation rather than a year you should expect. The hourly spread is the more useful number, and the industry medians above show how much of it the kind of client decides rather than the individual.

Even so, three things on the page move you inside that spread. Category, because fit and showroom work recurs weekly against a client's product calendar while editorial pays least and commercial pays most per day and least often. Usage, because a day rate is only half the fee and media, territory and term are the other half. And reliability, which sounds too small to matter and is not: bookers rebook people who arrive on time, fit the measurements on the card and hold a long day, and that is the whole of the repeat business.

Key takeaways for a modeling resume

1. In addition, keep measurements current, dated and honest, because they are a booking specification.
2. Keep digitals plain, recent and unretouched, and remake them rather than reusing old ones.
3. Then group work by category, and write usage as media, territory and term.
4. Name your representation and your markets, or say clearly that you are freelance.
5. A legitimate agency collects when you collect and never charges you upfront.
6. Finally, never put your home address, age or marital status on the page.
7. Say what you have booked and how reliably, because repeat business is the career.

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Modeling resume questions, answered