We had the amazing opportunity of having Adele come visit us and share her honest, straight shooting and effective tips on resume development. She introduced herself by mentioning her big career background and working in the industry within different roles and trying to figure how to showcase her skills when she didn’t have specific experience in an area she was trying to pursue.
And so, Adele shared with us her build of a “skills based” resume, which was dynamically memorable. She walked us through each individual component of a resume and explained what to “do” and “not do”.
So it begins,
People want to know what you are capable of. The level and experience and duration of working in the industry is important for hiring leaders especially if it’s not within the industry. How do you focus on that and showcase that you have really good marketable skills but you may not have the experience in what they are looking for.
Resume example:
Jane Smith
Web Designer and Developer
Profile needs to be short. Ex: 5 years of experience as a designer, 2 years experience in digital. Hiring leaders want to get a sense of who you are. Nobody, especially since texting became so prevalent, knows how to read anymore, people do not want to read a long resume anymore they really want little snippets about what you do. It needs to be concise straight to the point with quick navigation through key words searched.
Objective is important to be able to state what you want as an objective on your resume.
Example: I want a junior developer job, I want to be a graphic designer, I am suitable for a freelance web development role.
I want you to know what you are offering your client. Make your objective relevant to the person who is reading it wants you to do, rather than what you want to do.
Example of and objective don’t: I want to work in sports. Then why don’t you send it to a sports company, otherwise its not relevant because I already know you can’t work in our organization because we are not athletes.
What is a “do” for an objective is being able to leverage the skills working at other places is whatever brand you may have worked on. Whether you were a barista, whether you worked in another country if the brand is relevant and they know who they are talking about that. Adele listed it as, “past clients” or “past brands” or “brand experience”. List those brands and you do not need to tie them to the project that you worked on with that brand.
Ex: H&M. If you worked at an H&M as a retailer you do not need to mention you worked retail on the cash. You may say here are the clients, here are some of the brands I know, because your knowledge of the brand is what is going to be relevant.
Q: What happens if they ask you ‘oh, I see you worked on H&M, what did you do?’
A: Oh you have to tell them. We’re talking about a resume and not an interview. You have to be absolutely honest all the time, a lot of clients call in saying “who do you know who has retail experience” “in what way?” “Well, retail experience”. The clients are talking about design and development. In my personal experience I have worked with Longo’s for a really long time, it is a big client of mine, I staff Longo’s all the time. They say anybody whose got retail experience understands what our needs are. They don’t care if they worked in produce or stocking shelves, ‘we know that they know what’s going on at the retail level, and they know the speed at which they need to move.
It is not relevant to have to put the job title here, which is why we like the “skills based” resume. You say “I worked Tim Horton’s ‘top retail brand in Canada’”. List the brands, hopefully you know them, if not, do not list those brands. So if you’ve got experience working at an automotive company cleaning cars, you may say you have automotive expertise, because you do understand your way around a car.
Projects you have worked on are really important. To me if you’ve worked together as a team and you’ve created projects in school in a post grad program you can list those projects. I want to know what specifically you have experience working on like, banners, microsites, apps, large websites. If it is a large build that you’ve worked on for tv or big organization then say “large build”. Keep in mind what is and topical right now. App development right now is big, even if it is just the design portion.
List tools and languages. List the level of skills you have such as rudimentary skills or senior level skills with a list of tools and languages.
The top half portion of your resume is a snapshot of:
What have you done?
What is the role you are looking for?
What kind of clients and projects have you worked on
What are your tools?
It tells the recruiter or hiring manager what you offer and it will put you in the maybe yes or no pile based on the top half of your resume.
Resumes submitted by a designer need to be showcasing the design esthetic or design presence you may have.
Tie your resume to your LinkedIn profile. Match it up. Update your resume and you profile. LinkedIn has more content than your resume it presents that you are like personal interests and elaborated description of work you have done.
LinkedIn is highly important. Make sure the summary and interests are written. The summary can be 2000 characters and should be treated as a gold mine for keywords. Key things that are searchable are in the summary Professional profile picture is vital. Keywords that are searchable. Professional headline could be the job you are looking for. It is important to look professional in your profile picture. People need to be able to find you.
Interests need to list anything that you want to come up within a search, so anything design: architecture, development, digital, technology etc. do not treat it is as an online dating profile with words like long walks on the beach, dog walking, good dinners. Interests that have to do with work is proper. Think of the employer or client search criteria.
Be honest of what you are offering. If you have no experience make sure you are applying for junior level based job postings rather than senior level. You need to do some self-examination and understand what you are offering, if you have good technical skills, web person, digital than you are going to get a job.
Resume needs to be perfect! It shows your attention to details.
Online portfolio is key. Show variety. Even if it is just a few pieces it still shows your key skills.
Online links need to be working. Check that all links work!
Hierarchy is so important. If you are looking for digital/web roles make sure that is at the top portion, specific skills like HTML5 and CSS3 and jQuery. The bottom portion can state your specific skills in print.
Last section of the resume is listing your previous employees/work experience. If you have done work for a family member, or sibling or friend, do not say that is what you did, if this is a professional job that you did, be honest about it. State the following, “I worked for an organization and I did their web design from start to finish”. You do not need to state that you are related because it’s a negative thing, it takes away from what you did when in fact you offered professional services, you may have done it for free but you do not mention that.
Company name, job title and dates. Writing 2 years is not enough information on a resume it is actually vague, which dates? Those are important. If you did not work in the industry and you had success working for a few years at the same company like a barista, list it, we want to know you’ve had staying power. It shows commitment. State your advancing position such as junior designer to senior level. If you have only worked outside of the industry, and you have nothing to do with what you do now then you have to get creative about how to present this. No addresses needed. The interview process will be asking about the location of places you have worked.
Show initiative with design. If you see a website you believe needs redesigning. Redesign it and put it in your portfolio. When asked if you showed the client, be honest and say you did not
Keep in touch with people. Referral programs exist in certain agencies or companies. These referral programs have a monetary deal.
Make sure your social media sites are appropriate. No drunk photos on Facebook.
Go freelance if you can. Especially when you are starting out. It is full time, however it is not permanent. Write up all your costs and get your GST. Freelancing allows you to go on vacation or go back to school. Continuing to learn is very important to future employers, it shows your interest in your future.
Interviews that occur these days, often there are clients asking “who do you think is going to do the best job digitally right now” most people are just blank “what brand do you think has their message out or has good presence digitally/online?” Do some research figure out what you like. If you are a truly digital person saying you like “Pinterest” will not suffice. Stay up to date on everything that is going on digitally and be prepared to talk about it. It does not need to be stressful. Have a blog and talk about what you are interested in within design.
“Six seconds is spent on a resume” – Adele Wooton
Follow-up emails should be detailed. Detailed in the sense that it does not just thank you. Talk about something that occurred during the interview. Do follow ups that are relevant to the person receiving it.
*Trick* Do not apply immediately for a job posting. Give it a few days, you will come up on top of the list of submissions/applications.
Creative Niche posts jobs and roles that are currently “hot”. Looking at these jobs will help us know how to repurpose our skills to be able apply for current jobs in the industry.
Thank you Adele! This was indeed a detailed step-by-step crash course on resume development. The honesty and quick guide through a resumes key important categories was beyond helpful and I am eternally grateful. Adele was very memorable with her spunky energy and “to the point” presentation. I value your tips and will keep them in practice. J
Design is in Session 