Becoming A Professional Groundskeeper: Your Guide To Success

Groundskeeping, especially for multi-family apartments, can be a rewarding career. Learn how to become a groundskeeper today.

It’s the responsibility of a trained groundskeeper to maintain the constant upkeep and cleanliness of the buildings, amenities, and grounds they oversee. This job is critical for businesses because the appearance of a property is a customer’s first impression and a customer’s continued satisfaction. Groundskeepers are the reason why apartments and school grounds stay so immaculate.

It’s hard work but it can be rewarding. If you’re interested in getting into this field, you’ll want to attend school to pick up foundational janitorial skills, mechanical skills, painting skills, and interpersonal skills. From there, you may decide to seek out entry-level careers.

Are you ready to get started on your education? Keep reading to learn how you can become a professional groundskeeper.

Education and Training

Groundskeeping doesn’t have many advanced education requirements. You can become an entry-level groundskeeper if you have your high school diploma or a GED.

You may be able to increase your chances of being successful if you attend a community college and receive your associate’s degree. Getting your associates in Facilities Management will train you on common practices and will provide foundational knowledge for housekeeping and janitorial support for commercial buildings, facilities and housing complexes.

Seek Out Entry Level Jobs

Now that you have your education and training, you can start seeking out entry-level jobs. By doing this you’ll gather the experience of maintaining supplies and cleanliness of buildings, amenities, and ground.

In some cases, you’ll work with a supervisor. Someone who has been doing groundskeeping for a while and can show you the ropes.

Helpful Skills to Have

There is more to being a groundskeeper than technical knowledge. To be successful there are several other skills that you should develop.

Communication

You’ll be working with a team of other groundskeepers to keep properties looking beautiful and clean. You must have communication skills to be given assignments, report your own progress, and receive assignments.

Supplies don’t order themselves. You must be able to communicate need to your team or supplier and be able to communicate ways to help the team be more efficient.

Problem-Solving Skills

There are often problems that needs to be resolved quickly in any job. For groundskeepers this may look like a leaky faucet that has left a water stain on the carpet or helping with a last minute apartment clean before a new resident moves in. To resolve the problems, you’ll have to use your problem-solving skills and work efficiently with other professionals to come up with the best solution.

Management

More often than not you’ll be working with a team. There may be times where you’ll be playing the part of a manager. If this happens, you should know how to assess a situation assign tasks to the team that will help you all manage your time wisely and get the job done.

Create Your Resume

By this point, you’ve gathered up quite a bit of knowledge, developed new skills, and gotten your feet wet with entry-level work. You’re now ready to polish your resume.

Depending on how much experience you now have under your belt, you might not be able to fit them all on one page. Read the job description for any job you’re considering applying to and adjust your resume to fit that particular job. Try to keep the resume to a single page highlighting the most important and applicable experiences.

Go Further in Your Career To advance your career you’ll have to do a little bit of networking. That’s where joining a professional organization comes in handy.

Not only will you get the chance to speak to other groundskeepers, but you’ll have access to further educational opportunities in the field too.

Becoming a Groundskeeper

As you can see, learning how to become a groundskeeper is a lot of work. It takes dedication, teamwork, an eye for detail and great training to get started.

We can help you get your foot in the door. Lewis careers offers entry-level jobs that will continue to train and help develop your skills. Go here to explore opportunities we have available.