You have finally graduated, now it is time to showcase your learnings on a resume! Creating and writing your first designer resume could be a stressful task when you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that is required for you to get hired, and at the same time, you keep doubting your capabilities. Keep calm and maybe, comb your hair a little bit.
“Should I create a beautiful masterpiece and pour my heart and soul into it?”. You can-moderately. The purpose of a resume is for your potential employer to get to know you briefly before setting up an interview. You are creative, however, inserting too much 'art and soul' in a resume may look like you are vandalizing the resume. The resume must not only look pleasing to the eyes, but the content of the resume too should also be easy to understand.
Keep calm and maybe, comb your hair a little bit. We have some tips for you.
Yes, we know you are a graphic designer. Full of ideas, full of passions. Create a design that both you and your potential employer are able to ‘follow through’ the information on the resume. A resume that is difficult to read or scan through by the potential employer may lead to a misreading, a misunderstanding, and unfortunately, can easily be dismissed. There could be hundreds of resumes to be viewed per day- make your resume pleasantly readable.
Choose colors that give a purpose to your resume content. Think of the rationale behind each color. Make your colors functional.
There is a saying, “We eat with our eyes.” Perhaps when it comes to resumes, some employers might say, “We also hire with our eyes.” The colors of your design and fonts in your resume play an important role to ‘greet’ the potential employer. We do not want to make a first resume impression with “Oh, my eyes!”
Write a clear and detailed skills section (e.g. Adobe, Figma, Media Production, and UI or UX design). This is where you flaunt (humbly) the software and tools you have used before. Your experiences using certain tools and software could determine the current skills that you have that are needed by the company.
Do not feel discouraged if you feel like you are not competent for having a lack of skills. Be honest about your capabilities and please do not lie about your skills, you are digging your own grave, affecting your work quality, and might lose your employer’s trust.
Provide both hard and soft skills in your resume as these skills are equally important to get hired.
Whoops, hold it right there! That’s an impressive list of skills you have there but does it tick the boxes on the job description. The job description provided by the employer is great guidance for you to highlight the skills that the company is looking for.
Provide a section in your resume or a link to your portfolio for the employers to view your work samples. This is the section where you provide the truth (nothing but the truth) after providing all the awesome details about yourself earlier.
Watch this video on How to make your graphic designer resume stand out.
Zety.com can help you to create a resume step-by-step and assist in formatting your current resume.
Novoresume provides in-depth information that needs to include in your resume for a graphic designer position and other job applications.
Canva offers a variety of free and paid graphic design resume templates.
ResumeGenius offers writing tips for graphic designers.
Pinterest provides many graphic designers’ resume templates ideas to fit your style.
All the best, you are a step closer to your dream job!
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