How to Create a High-Impact Graphic Designer Resume

Creating an effective resume is a crucial first step in any successful job search. For both graphic design and other potential employment positions, you need a concise summary of skills, specialized capabilities and achievements in your resume. But in today’s competitive job market, you often need more than just the basics of a good resume.

One secret to success with professional resumes is touching all of the “traditional bases” and simultaneously setting yourself apart as a unique and exceptional prospective employee. With this article, Artwork Abode explains how a high-impact graphic designer resume format can help you stand out in a crowded field.

Your CV-Cum-Portfolio

When preparing a graphic designer CV, you should view your resume as a tool for showing a portfolio sample — include images that reflect your style and creativity. However, don’t lose sight of the traditional resume elements: start with a conventional one-page text format and include two images of your work on the flip side. Remember that the primary goal of your resume is to land a face-to-face interview that will allow you to show more portfolio samples and talk about your creative abilities.

Plain Text Resume vs Visual Resume

An ongoing challenge in any job search is how to deal with competing demands for different resume formats — for example, Adobe PDF and plain-text versions such as ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). The good news is that fewer contemporary employers want only a plain-text resume.

But what kind of resume layout will impress art directors and other creative professionals reviewing hundreds of resumes? Graphic designers should consider creating a visual infographic resume that includes visual representations of credentials. You must pay equal attention to content and layout in order to catch the eye of discerning art directors — use desktop publishing software like Illustrator or InDesign and save your resume as a PDF file.

Infographics in Your Resume

Using infographics in your graphic designer CV will give you a golden opportunity to demonstrate how you use design to communicate. Perhaps equally important, many prospective employers now expect a more creative resume from applicants. According to a survey by The Creative Group, 20 percent of marketing and advertising executives prefer the infographic resume format.

Make sure to hold yourself to a high standard when you create an infographic resume. Telling your career story in a visual format requires plenty of creative discipline — reviewing new resume tools such as visualize.me and re.vu might help to start your creative juices flowing.

Cover Letters Are Still Important

The importance of one traditional resume requirement — an effective cover letter — has not diminished over the years. The cover letter will serve as your “first impression.” Many job seekers have learned this lesson the hard way.

However, this is an easy potential resume mistake to fix before it happens — spend quality time on each and every cover letter. The cover letter is by far your best tool for personalizing the resume and also showing that you can communicate concisely in a business letter.

Always address your resume cover letter to the name referred to in a job posting. If a name is not included, take the time to call the employer to see who the letter should be addressed to — this research can also provide additional valuable insights about your prospective employer.

Float Your Resume on LinkedIn

Social networking is valuable in any job search strategy — in particular, don’t overlook the power of LinkedIn’s 225 million members to help you land the graphic design job of your dreams. Recruiters and headhunters continue to favor LinkedIn above all other social media sites for connecting with new recruits.

Establishing and updating your LinkedIn profile is just as important to your job campaign as your resume. Of course, once you make a possible job connection, you’ll want to have your high-impact graphic designer CV ready to send at a moment’s notice — and don’t forget a personalized cover letter!

Create a Strong Social Media Presence

You can’t afford to “leave any stone unturned” in your aggressive campaign to launch the next step of your career. Social media gives you the potential to “put your name in lights” by tweeting, creating profiles on sites like about.me and publishing examples of your work on popular design blogs. In an Artwork Abode survey, 16 percent of advertising executives referred to online or social profiles as a preferred resume format. Of course, with Twitter you will need to boil your resume down to 140 characters or less!

Need Help With the Visuals for Your Resume?

What does your resume say about you and your ability to help a prospective employer? For any creative profession such as graphic design, your resume is often treated as a condensed portfolio of your work.

Artwork Abode can help you in your search for visuals such as infographics. Even if you are not currently looking for work, there’s a good chance that some of your friends are — please pass this article along via social media buttons.

Artwork Abode wishes you only the best in your job search. Don’t forget to let us know how you feel about our resume ideas by leaving a comment.