The purpose of a graphic designer resume
If you are graphic designer about to prepare your resume, graphic skills are no substitute for content. Think about it…if you were a sculptor you wouldn’t just ship a statue as proof of your abilities…instead, along with your written resume, you would include photographs of your best works, preferably those winning exhibition awards. Similarly, a graphic designer resume is not poster art overly illustrated with images, but should rely more on written history of education, training, employment, freelance experience, testimonials by satisfied clients, and other verifiable details. Then you would include your portfolio, either in print or digital, to validate your background presented in the resume and cover letter.
The main goal of your graphic designer resume and cover letter is to showcase your creativity and to convince the employer that you are suited to the job. Potential employers, whether corporations with art departments, schools hiring teachers, or galleries looking for curators, look for artistic designers with portfolio projects which go beyond traditional resumes. Even if you are an early career applicant and don’t have a demonstrable employment history or necessary specialized technical skills, having a good graphic designer resume with formal training and perhaps freelance experience as well as a portfolio will give you the edge over all your competitors. It will also help you get a job where you’ll have to use those skills every day and earn a living doing it.
So, why do you need to make a graphic designer resume?
The main reason is because a great resume and cover letter demonstrate to a prospective employer that you have the ability to turn your ideas into a real product or service. While a portfolio of work may be impressive, it will be meaningless if you can’t make a living with it…so rather than the starving artist surrounded by awesome designs, it’s important to show that you were able to earn a living while creating impressive designs that established your reputation and were sought after by various clients.
It is important to note that while the majority of skills needed by a graphic designer may be basic, they can be quite specialized depending on the area of expertise. In other words, as a commercial illustrator you may rely on basics, but as a cartoonist, animator or web artist you have highly specialized skills. Make sure you emphasize those skills in writing, even before the recruiter gets to see the physical evidence in your portfolio or examines links to websites.
If you’re a designer and want to impress potential clients, you need to make sure your graphic designer resume covers as much ground as possible. Not only should you include your design portfolio, but your technical training and education as well. For example, if you’re a graphic designer who has worked for a particular company, you should include a line or two about how you developed their product. If you’ve worked with companies like IBM or Cisco, you can mention the types of applications you’ve worked with or the technologies you’ve designed. If you know something about a specific company’s product or service, you should include this as well in your graphic designer resume’s cover letter.
Job search is exciting
In order to give yourself an advantage when looking for a job as a graphic designer, you need to make sure you put effort into your whole search process which includes graphic designer resume, cover letter and background research on the company you are approaching. You can do this by creating a cover letter which is similar to other resume cover letters, but with a personal touch. You might even want to include a section at the end where you talk about why you’re interested in the company and what kind of experience you have that would fit in well with their company. This can be very valuable information for future employers to know. It demonstrates that you have true interest in their company, not just acquiring any job that pays.
When you take care of the details, you’ll find that things will go smoother and quicker for you, so don’t let it pass you by. Make sure to include all the pieces of the puzzle and your graphic designer resume will be as well-designed as possible. Creating a graphic designer resume takes a bit of practice and time. So, the best advice for you is to create and refine several versions until you can read it objectively and see what the recruiter will recognize and incorporate their feedback in each successive iteration.