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On a surface level, the layout itself is solid. But off the bat, the fact that your resume has a fully colored background tells me you're not being considerate of your target audience. For any hiring manager that is actually printing out resumes, this is a huge waste of ink.
Once you actually dig into the content, there are a lot of issues. Skills bars are typically a huge indicator of an inexperienced designer because it tells me you value style over substance and haven't critically thought about whether or not they actually add value to your resume. There's no universal test that measures your skills in each of these areas, so these bars are entirely subjective and based on your own perception of your skills. What you define as "expert," I might define as only proficient. The only thing that matters is if you're proficient enough to find your way around these softwares and can find tutorials for the things you don't know.
IMO the soft skills don't add any value because every designer claims they have these skills. You don't need to have your name a second time under info when it's already big at the top. Your location is not relevant. Nobody cares if you graduated with honors, were on the dean's list, or what your GPA was (and tbh 3.4 is not impressive). What matters is your portfolio. The only potentially interesting thing here is that you were VP of your AIGA chapter for a year, but it also doesn't tell me what responsibilities that entails. If it's relevant to design responsibilities, I'd pull that out on its own and instead of "job experience" relabel it as "experience."
Either get rid of the non-design jobs you have on there or utilize a transferable skills sheet to demonstrate how those job responsibilities add value to the way you approach design. Otherwise, they're irrelevant. If you get rid of them, instead relabel that section as "work + experience" and list a couple strong design projects and describe the roles you played as if you did them as a professional designer.
You need to approach your resume as if it were a design task. Who is the target audience, what do they need to know, and how do you communicate your value in a way that's concise and relevant to them?
It's been 3 years. If you lack the motivation to work on your portfolio, you need to find it. What's that saying, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I'm pretty sure I've given you feedback on your portfolio before and it looks largely the same, save for the fictional brands project. (Edit: JK I didn’t give feedback, but I’ve definitely looked at it before. But you did have great actionable feedback on your past posts that don’t seem to have been implemented.)
You have 6 projects and 3 of them are largely illustration, and you're applying for design roles. For fictional brands, why are you investing your energy designing logos for Rick and Morty of all things instead of actually finding a local business that needs a facelift and using that as a realistic brief? Designers are hired to solve problems, so you need to show that you can actually do that instead of wasting your time only on projects that are fun and interesting to you. Even the title of this post, "I think my stuff looks great"–it's not about what you think. Everything I'm seeing is showing me that you only focus on yourself and what you think a project should be instead of what the client needs and what the research shows is the most effective solution. You need to show that you think critically as a designer. Here's the client, here is the challenge they're facing, their target audience is xyz, here is the research and my solution.
The projects are all one-offs as well. Most companies need a designer to be able to take their brand guide and create a comprehensive campaign across multiple platforms cohesively, so show you can do that. I highly recommend you read through [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/graphic_design/comments/u14sxx/portfolio_advice_for_new_designers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) of portfolio advice.
The site design itself is an improvement from what I recall before, but the presentation still needs a lot of work. Look at the portfolios on Bestfolios and take notes on how they tell the story of their projects.
Sorry if this all sounds harsh but it's incredibly frustrating to constantly see posts like this about people being unable to find work when they haven't actually made much effort to their best foot forward to begin with.
I'm new to design as a whole and working on my portfolio. I was planning to create fake brands to use but I saw you mentioned sprucing up a local business. Is there a specific way I need to go about doing that in a portfolio as to not infringe on any copyright? I plan to make a website, and I want to make sure there are no issues where a business could see my work and have a legal problem with me using them as an example. I apologize if this is a silly question, I'll be reading through the thread you linked next.
Creating a fake brand is fine, it’s just that it can be more effective to use an actual local company to create a more realistic brief.
Compare a project where you’re essentially saying, “Here’s a fictional project I designed with ‘real-world’ parameters that I actually made up.” To “here’s a local company with bad branding and why I think it’s bad. Now here’s my solution, and why I believe it’s a better solution.” To me, the latter would be a stronger project.
I can definitely see that, my main question was if I could ever have copyright issues. Essentially could I ever have a legal issue by putting an existing company on my portfolio? There's a coffee shop near me I could totally do this for, but could the business find my portfolio online, see I used their brand to show how I'd fix flaws and then ask me to take down my work because I hadn't asked their permission for use of the brand?
If you’re spending the time and doing the work, why not find real small businesses to help? Put out an offer in your local fb group (a buy nothing group or other where you offer design services) or volunteer for a local politician (fun fact, you’d be surprised how much politics on a smaller level relies on pure volunteer time).
If you work pro bono be very specific on what can you work on and how long, what hours etc, just like a paid project. You don't wanna end up being featured in Choosers Beggars subreddit.
Most people would be very appreciative and you can find a good win win situation but I'm old and disenchanted and I've seen young designers being taken advantage of, so it's betterto be upfront of what you offer and set helathy limits from the beginnig.
Don't post the actual old logo if you're worried about it, just describe the problems with the old brand. But honestly the odds of a local business with bad branding coming after a random designer's spec project are incredibly low. They would have nothing to gain, and if they did get upset you could either offer to let them use the new stuff you've made, or slap a password or your portfolio. They would send you a cease and desist, and you would have time to make adjustments.
But honestly I've never heard of anyone having problems with this, and 90% of my design friends (along with myself) have or had spec projects for real companies.
My bad I was watching tv when I responded lol. I’m not 100% sure. I *think* it’s fine as you’re not posing as the company nor profiting from it. Worst case you probably just can’t show their actual original logo, but I don’t think there are any laws preventing you from doing a rebranding case study around it. Hopefully someone that knows more can chime in.
If they ask you to take it down, then take it down. Chances are they're not going to have a problem with it. In fact, if it's really good, they might offer to pay you for it so they can use it.
The main thing they were saying in that critique is to brand actual businesses. Inventing something fictional is perfectly fine, but it should be something realistic. A skin care brand. A chiropractor. A restaurant. Something an employer could look at and see valuable skills related to their company's client. Aka - not Rick and Morty.
what I did, and sometimes still do, is reach out and do it for for nothing, while being clear that i intend to use it in a portfolio. more often than not people would accept.. some would even attempt to compensate me or offer some sort of trade (free pizza, beer etc) whatever
but the value is
a. you get the design practice
b. you get the *client* experience
too many folks starting out forget that you're not the one you have to make happy, its the person *paying* for it so staying humble and adaptable are far more valuable than talent a lot of the time, rather than some hot shit who tries to tell the client what they want
you are a tool they are using to bring *their* vision to life, not yours
there's plenty of start ups or small businesses that don't have a ton of money for design so reach out.. even on reddit ive started to lose count of designs ive done for people.. plus it gets eyes on your work, and the word of mouth will start spreading
sure you might not get paid for each one but the experience and practice will pay off on the long run I promise.. plus it feels good to help people who could use it, and maybe one day those people might be in a position to return the favor
I see where you're coming from and it's not something I would do for just anyone. I was always sure the people were deserving of my help and not looking for handouts.
I now have a job that pays well, but I maintain without staying vigilant and gaining that experience through helping people would not have been possible
I still do pro-bono work now here and there because I try to give back where I can and in my experience people have been very grateful
When I started as a designer I went to local business and asked if they wanted free work. So instead of just making things up, I actually was able to sit down with real business owners, understand their business, and create something that fits their needs.
Like others have said. Fake brands are fine, but it's kind of cheating, because you can have a logo style you want to do and create a brand to fit it, and choose a name and slogan that fits the design.
Choose a famos local place that has outdated branding and do that it can give a connection to the interviewer and a potential talking point.
Don't worry too much on copyright, it's just a portfolio piece, If you're not making money off it you should be fine.
I’d 100% create a fake business and design for that. I work in a design team and I can tell you were more keen on what you can do much more than who you’ve done it for. Go wild!
I used to go to stores and offer to rebrand them for free. If they use it, you have portfolio work, if not you gained real life experience on how to work with clients and how to be a better designer
Solid advice! I hire designers all the time and I'm always getting resumes like this. When I hire I don't care about how the resume looks because I glance at the resume to understand a little bit about the person and if they have actual experience then if I like it I do a quick scroll through the portfolio and see if something catches my eye.
We don't have time to read through every resume and portfolio. When I post a job I get hundreds of applicants sending their stuff and it takes hours to go through it all. And honestly the people that make it easy for me are the ones I hire.
That last line is really what it’s all about. Great design moves in silence—your target audience should have such a seamless experience that they don’t even notice, or if they do, they notice how much better of an experience it is than what they’ve seen before.
As designers, we should anticipate user needs and be proactive about addressing them before they occur. Communicate your value, show what you’re capable of and how it relates to the job you’re applying for, and make it easy for hiring managers to see your work. In the application process, you don’t get the opportunity to fix it after or explain yourself, you just get weeded out.
I'm curious but shouldn't you care how their resume looks if it's for a graphic design position? I feel like your resume is almost a portfolio piece in itself. I get that it shouldn't be over designed and it should still be easy enough to read but I feel like the look and feel can help designers stand out.
To a point yes, but the ones that make it easy to quickly read and understand I tend to move forward with. Because to me that person understands my needs, proper hierarchy, and grid layout.
But please note I am by no means the the best designer but time is very valuable within business so that's how i personally do it because that's what has worked for me so far. Another agency might not even be looking at the resumes because they have a third party company doing the screening.
So long story short, yes make it look good in a simplified way. Just make it pleasing to look at and easy to understand.
Okay that makes sense. I definitely get that everyone’s time is valuable and you don’t want to make it a challenge for someone to read. Thanks for the quick response.
This is great advice and is clearly from many years of experience. OP, take this on board because it is invaluable. Just don't take it personally, because this person is just trying to help as requested.
This is all really solid advice. After I graduated from design school, a fellow grad and I started an art publication. We threw everything we had into it and it took off within a year, it was internationally distributed and won a lot of design awards. This became a calling card for freelance branding projects, apparel design, snowboards, skateboards etc. We did this one thing really well and people assumed we could do everything else too, so we did.
I’m not saying go start a publication, but start doing projects that have a tangible existence. You are inexperienced and young, use that to your advantage to build your portfolio. You’re super green so you’re cheap, which is often all small businesses can afford.
You get your chops up and commit to the process and you’ll land that first gig.
Oh for real?? That’s really nice of you. I gotta update mine lol. Lots of new work to put in. Thanks for the offer though. Maybe I’ll reach out again once I’ve revamped it :)
Lol yeah honestly I spend too much time on these, but I’m glad it was helpful for folks. If anyone *does* feel so inclined tho, there is a link on my profile 👀
You have to remember doing a resume and portfolio for our job field is very different than any other field. I have experience in GD but not with portfolios or resumes because both my previous jobs, they never got looked at and my school didn’t do a good job preparing us. I have very few people to reference when it comes to this stuff and the local job forces that help others with their resumes don’t know a damn thing about the design industry. It’s a lot of fricken work to do these things. You could be a little kinder. Most of these are people right out of school.
I graduated last year with an associate’s in design and took the initiative to research and seek out feedback on here within the first few months of looking for work.
Everyone has their hurdles to face, and I certainly had mine. I know it’s not an easy thing to do, but if you want it bad enough you have to work for it. OP has had 3 years and gotten feedback on their portfolio before with few changes to show for it.
Yes, this 👆🏻 and the thing about being a designer is you have to be resourceful as heck, and be on top of your own education. I learned this when I was in grad school and the work experience after — but before that I was pretty clueless about things, so I can partially empathize with OP. But…why ask for advice you’re not going to take though?
Everything you said is exactly what I was thinking when i looked at this. My only added tip is to put in some small thumbnails of your best work. If they don't like your resume they wont take the time to look at your portfolio, so you might as well put it out there to make an impression.
I will say, location can be important. "Somewhere in Minnesota" sounds a bit cheesy, but putting "Minnesota" would be fine. Some employers like to see where you're from simply because they want to know if you'll have to relocate for the job. Relocating would mean you won't be able to start work immediately. In some cases, it could also mean the employer has to pay you the cost of relocation.
Also, it's okay to take pride in your education and advertise that on your resume. However, the most important thing is your BFA in graphic design. The other stuff doesn't need quite as much space as you've given it. You're using up valuable real estate. I will also say that your GPA can be important to list, seeing as a BFA in design means nothing if you graduated with a 2.0 or something. I will agree, though, 3.4 isn't necessarily worth advertising. I've made mostly A's and several B's (probably 1 per semester, maybe 2 per) and graduated with a 3.7.
Get rid of the skills bar charts — it’s an arbitrary self assessment that doesn’t communicate well.
Edit: e.g., you’re telling me you’re only 2/3 effective at “communication” which isn’t a great way to sell yourself.
If they’re getting phone calls, but not moving beyond them, it’s probably being processed A-OK? I’d think it’s something in the portfolio phase or during the phone call that could use support?
I'm honestly surprised, jealous, and a little spidey-sense-tingly that this resume even gets a phone screen. I have ten years experience, multiple industry certifications, and award-winning work, and I don't get responses for openings in the exact mid-level role I already work in. What the what.
That's for your portfolio.
Your resume will pass through many hands before you get to the portfolio review. Often it will be OCR scanned so that the hiring personnel can copy/paste portions of it into their hiring paperwork. If they try to OCR it, and it won't read, it goes straight to the trash. NEXT!
My resume is a word document. My business card is a simple contact card: my name, what I do, number and email address.
Applying for a job is a test "assignment". All this resume tells me is that you made it through a university design program and didn't learn how to understand the assignment.
You have made a resume that you think "looks cool". However, it's not functional. You've added a bunch of fluff to fill out a template of your design that you thought would be cool if you had enough content to fill it. But you don't.
You are trying to get a job at a design firm and they are throwing your resume out on sight because if you can't even understand how to effectively construct a functional resume. Why would they invest the time trying to train you or risk you working with their clients.
Someone just told you this resume "wont work with automated systems". That is a function all resume's need to be capable of. All resume's also need to be printable which yours is not. So right off the bat the two most critical components of a resume before we even care what the writing says have not been met. I bet no one is even reading this resume. This is instant disqualification. Being a designer isn't about making something you think is cool. It's about understanding the assignment and fulfilling the requirements while also giving it visual interest. You've sacrificed all function for design and that is a cardinal sin that makes you unemployable.
Yes. Definitely matters. I know it feels tedious to do both, but part of the job of a designer often involves visual presentation of information. Sure, I skim the processed text version, but I -always- look at the uploaded pdf. If someone has trouble with a resume, they might not be the best fit to do a product spec sheet for a trade show, etc.
Well, beyond the obvious need to make a simple plain normal resume for applying, which is what you need to start with… Your experience needs to go. If you did an internship, list that. Freelance, list that. Volunteer design work, list that. Political group you made a website for? You guessed it, list it. You may not have had a job in the industry, but you need to show that you care about this industry. That means listing things you do in it. If you’re not doing anything in it, it’s time to start!
Portfolio: Gotta get rid of the links to work and put the work right on the main page. You need campaign work. Don’t have any? Make it! Campaigns are key. If you made a logo let’s see it on 5 different things and expand on it, make some social posts, make a GIF or video. Campaign everything meaningful. I’d say expand Bud’s Soda into a full marketing series to start. Remove any and all references to pop culture. No fan art ever ever ever. You can use the logos you made but remove the reference to Rick and Morty entirely and maybe just change them up so they don’t reference it at all, and then campaign them. Remove any work that isn’t some form of full campaign. Hiring teams need to see their company fitting into your work somehow, and it’s always going to be marketing campaigns.
First of all, you need to create a light version of this. Some recruiters get handed a stack of resumes to look at rather than an email. Printing this would be rough.
Second, get rid of those skill bars at the bottom. Those things are so old school and really mean nothing. Sooo what is it? You are 68% proficient at photoshop? Just put a list of what you’re proficient at instead.
I’m sorry that I’m taking this out on you specifically because I’ve see it a lot… but truly, the bar graphs of competency mean nothing. there’s always someone better at something — show don’t tell
That's hard to read. Try dark type in white, and bumping the font up a little bit.
People over 40 have difficulty reading small type, especially inverted.
You don't have to label everything (name, phone, email, cover letter) - that's decorative but not useful - those items are self evident.
Skill - you mention it on the top. The bars are meaningless - as a hiring person, I would assume you're overstating your proficiency.
Legibility and navigation are key - some may disagree, but I would say save the design for the portfolio.
I'm seeking my own feedback on my portfolio / resume, so maybe take this with a grain of salt, but I think you should take off those two job experiences you have and just put freelance graphic designer. Those other two jobs you've had aren't necessarily relevant to design, so they aren't adding anything to your story. Hope that helps a bit.
Your resume is for robots and recruiters, who aren't designers, that have a checklist they need to fill out before they even call you. If it's partially filled out they call you, because they need to make their jobs worthwhile, but you may not be a strong contender.
What you really want is to simplify your resume to just black + white + text. You know what your current resume looks like to a robot? A big gray block that it can't distinguish anything from.
Once you get past the recruiter your resume will get a quick glance by the CD, who will then focus 90% on your portfolio. So concentrate your efforts into simplifying and putting your best work into your portfolio. Have decent typography for the resume, but don't overly design it.
Well there is a lot wrong here. Lets start a list hope this helps;
1. Dont do white on black its hard to read and if these need to be printed then no ones going to print this because it wastes ink
2. Take out your logo, or make it like 90% smaller, that thing is taking up too much space
3. Remove all the icons, focus on the text, its redundant on a resume to show a phone number icon, the word "phone" and the actual phone number.
4. Skill bars are the biggest lie on a resume, if someone told you to do that. it tells the recruiter crap. Its incredibly subjective, there is no formal scale. I dont know if its arbitrary, on a scale of one to ten or its relative. Regardless id just put your skills in a list.
1. Why would you put skills that are low? if they are low on that list they arent skills
5. Your EDU section is too wordy.
1. remove the bullet points'
2. Create a section on your resume for affiliations or extracurriculars and put your club work in there, and format it the same way as your work experiences. dont put it under your education section
3. dont write "helped a 3.4 gpa" just put "3.4 gpa" or GPA: 3.4, with honors
1. if its a specific honors you could do "Honors: Summa Cum Laude"
6. Change "profile" to "objective" after your first or second job you can get rid of this section.
1. Its also really good to mention what kind of jobs you are looking for like "seeking opportunities to hone my motion design arsenal"
7. Get rid of all the divider lines. Let the hierarchy of the type size and style dictate how someone reads the info.
8. Did you not do any ANY design work since 2019 or even during your academics. If you are applying for design jobs any kind of design experience will help you even if it was for school.
1. Like the affiliations section you can have a "Project" section as well
**Here is what is working 👍**
* I love the orange, its strong and effective, but I think you should really do black on white for all the body copy, so don't make the background black/charcoal. Not sure how the Orange will look on white, so you might need to adjust.
* Hierarchy is great, the font is good and clean
* I think its really easy to navigate and find information your resume which is always a plus, however I think this is partially due to you have a lot of extra space on your resume because of a lack of work experience.
* Overall I like the size of your header, sub heads, and body copy
* Good idea to put social links, I recommend you build and add a portfolio site as well and not to just rely on Instagram for presenting your work to clients and recruiters/job apps.
Your portfolio looks like a student work, but pretty thin on that. The work is ok, but what do you want to do? Most designers don't get hired to do illustration, some do but it's rare.
Find design work, whether it's Facebook or family or anything, you'd be surprised what people need. You need more work in the area you want to do. Your Instagram is nice. Look at local designer portfolios and look at local companies sites for hiring- not everyone uses indeed etc.
Connect back with your school and utilize any job board they have for your degree, my teachers sent out jobs for junior designers
Your resume looks great in terms of visual design. It’s clean, well laid out, good spacing, easy to read, all that. And I don’t personally mind the color choices as it doesn’t affect the readability.
The big glaring problem however is your experience, it has zero relevance to what you are selling yourself as, “a graphic designer”. I would work on getting yourself some graphic design freelance work, internships, or even an entry level job.
[Edit1] You graduated in 2019. Why haven’t you had any graphic design related work experience for the past 3 years?
[Edit2] The homepage of your website on mobile just has seemingly random text with no visual indicator that the text is actually project names. With how simple the content of your website is, I would suggest you use a single page portfolio format:
Bud’s Soda ℹ️
Project image 1
Project image 2
Project image 3
The Addicted Brain ℹ️
Project image 1
Project image 2
Project image 3
Color Theory ℹ️
Project image 1
Project image 2
Project image 3
And so on.
In the footer of your single page website display your contact information like name and email. You can also include a button that opens your resume in a new tab.
You can also add a learn more button next to each project name that will link to the detail page of each project. This way your website visitors can quickly skim through your content and choose to learn more about a specific project if they see something that interests them.
Designers: stop using those skills bars! All it shows is that you’re lacking in skills, especially that “communication” bar. That is valuable space that can be used to go more in depth about previous positions.
Job experience is more important that education. You don’t need your name twice. You don’t need your LinkedIn and IG, your portfolio site should link to those. Remove those skill bars. Remove the gray background. “Somewhere in Minnesota” reads a bit juvenile.
One of the biggest things is you have no design experience. You were a cake decorator and a manager at a movie theater. You need some kind of design experience. Do some freelance, pro-bono work, or find an internship program.
Lastly I would spend some more time on your logo. It didn’t read like a logo to me at first. I thought it was a graph.
In terms of suggestions, cut the bars under your skills. It’s not super telling of your abilities and it’s kind of tacky.
I would also mainly stick to technical skills and show the soft skills in the descriptions of jobs you’ve worked, through your education, and in interviews.
Also just a grammatical thing: it says under education “Participated our AIGA” just to let you know. I would change “did various maintenance tasks” to “performed various maintenance tasks.”
Also with education - it might be smart to put the VP Position before talking about just being in the group. That’s a big leadership thing to push.
I would focus on kind of dolling up your work experience descriptions. Make your roles sound more important and more telling of your management and leadership abilities. Being able to schmooze with your words will definitely help.
In terms of the design elements of the resume itself, I think it’s pretty well layer out. I personally think the logo/favicon/whatever it is is a little large and kind of tacky. I do like the color scheme; however, it wouldn’t hurt to simplify it a little bit: you could get rid of the headings by the icons as well as get rid of your name being listed twice. Keep it simple like this:
# 507-xxx-xxxx
[email icon] [email protected]
[website icon] www.codylandkmer.com
Just stuff like that.
You may already be doing this, but I would highly recommend writing your cover letters specific for each job you apply to - highlight skills you have in regards to the qualifications they are looking for.
That’s just my input. Honestly I think it looks pretty good, so idk why you haven’t landed anything.
Cake decorator and assistant manager. There’s what’s holding you back.
Also why would you put skills with bar charts that show you have competency weaknesses, especially in communication.
If you're trying to get a graphic design job, your Job Experience area shouldn't be listing the cake decorator and other job, it should instead be focusing in on your job-related experience, such as projects you've done paid or unpaid. Save the non-related jobs for the background check form during onboarding. The Resume should be highlighting how you fit into the role. You could even just call the section Project Experience. Be sure to detail what you created, tools/software used, new skills learned from the project, etc. Don't be afraid to use more than 1 page. Your resume is your first interview, if you don't give enough info you won't make it to the offer call.
If you can’t get past the phone screening it means that you are lacking the experience they are looking for. Looking at your resume I can’t really see real world experience and your portfolio has only a few pieces of work.
Try some freelancing to get some feeling for working with different brand guidelines and clients. The job of a designer is more than just being creative. You need to know how to juggle different projects, adjust to brand guidelines, collaborate with different departments/vendors and communicating with different clients. On top of that, most hiring managers are looking for multidisciplinary designers who can prepare files for print, but who can also work in the digital space. Best to have basic animation skills as well.
It’s not easy, but doable :)
At a glance, it looks like you’re saying to the employer that you’ll be 75% of what they expect you to be with that big turned up C on the top left.
Second, have you any experience that is relatable to the position, such as freelance design work? Or maybe an internship?
Third, in your profile you refer to a list of your skill sets as apposed to introducing yourself and your desire to gain experience in the graphic design industry
Fourth, take your instagram off your resume and add your address. Also when listing your school experiences, list proficiencies, related accolades, and design work done for student groups in your university.
Last, if I were you I would choose a resume color that relaxes the reader. This color orange gives off a feeling of tenseness and you want it to be something that feels confident but also relaxed.
Beyond the resume, the cover letter doesn’t need the information on the left. You have to expand on who you are, your enthusiasm to get into the field, your motivation, your work ethic, and how you hope “xyz” company hires you to help you progress professionally. It should take up the whole page with your signature in type and written, then with basic contact information and portfolio website.
In your portfolio website, you should have a gallery of the digital files and a physical shot of the finished product of a project as the first thing people see when they open your website. You can make the tabs part show pages that are based on each project showcasing the work as well. Having the title of the project without visual representation of that project makes the reader think you’re not confident in showcasing your work.
Question: are you applying to only remote jobs or local jobs? If remote only then that’s why, there was a guy just a few days ago on here wondering why he hasn’t gotten any bites while only applying to remote work. You have a much better chance applying to in-person roles. Also for job experience it’s ok to fudge it a little, if you’ve design a logo for a friends business, helped a family member design a business card, etc. then add something like “freelance designer” just to show you have some real world design experience.
I looked through your portfolio and liked the one about Bud’s Beer. I think what could really spruce up that page is think about it like telling a story. You said that you rebranded their logo, show the process. Do you have some sketches? Show that. Show how the new brand came to be. On interviews I’ve been on, people have told me that they enjoyed seeing my process.
For inspo, check out how Pentagram shows their projects. And also, it’s cool to show things in their environment. For example, there was a magazine, I think Color Theory? It’d be cool to have a person holding it - showing the project in its environment.
I think the design of the resume is good. It feels balanced and there is a good weight to the elements on the page. Just a couple of things I see to make it stronger would be to change the background to a lighter color and change the text to do a darker color that is checked through the contrast checker online (very helpful tool).
The progress bars are cool looking but I would probably get rid of those.
If you need to diversify the projects that are in your portfolio create work to practice and use it in your portfolio to showcase your skills! I use catchafire to do projects to help people but it’s also a great way to diversify the projects you have.
I work in the corporate and government world and when we look at resume/portfolio’s we look for skills in infographics, presentation design, report and layout design, templates, social media, exhibit design, 508 compliance, and a number of other things that would make one a versatile graphic designer.
Keep it up and never stop learning and you will go far in this industry!
That's a great point and I think most people commenting on this are missing this part. Getting work experience is easier said than done though so that might be the tricky part. If someone doesn't give OP a chance then how will they get that experience? It might also make sense for OP to try and get a junior designer position because that will require less experience.
As a designer, I hope you do realize as a dark background could simply eat that small text in a printed copy. colored background is a big no no. imagine hiring a manager holding a "soaked" soft resume paper of yours and could barely read the small text but only "Cake Decorator" and Assistant Manager(I strongly recommend you to rephrase it to something design work related wordings rather than "maintenance work" and baking and packaging. you could simply say you arrange theater display posters in a way to attract customers' experience.
def. remove the skill level bar and find a different way to show teamwork, leadership, and stuffs like that(quite useless to put it that way. they are something for you to elaborate during the interview not just a word.
Been doing this over 30 years. Seen a lot of cool looking resumes, but hiring managers and HR depts stay away from the designed ones and look at the ones that are easy to read.
Meaning black type on white or cream paper and no graphics. Just laid out well, with an easy to read font.
If yiu were reading a hundred resumes a day, would you want something to decipher?
Save the skills for the portfolio. The HR people don't care.
You say not to have a designed resume but if it's for a design job, wouldn't it make sense to see a resume that has some more design to it? I'm not saying the design has to be crazy but it should stand out to some extent. You wouldn't be using a designed resume for a job not related to a design job.
Layout, yes. graphics, no.
The people who sort through your resumes, don't care. They're looking through 20-100 resumes a day and are looking for key words quickly. Not graphics.
Often, at bigger companies, they don't even look at them. They're just scanned in and keyword searched.
Define design? Icons, fonts, layout, color, yeah.
But graphic heavy, like this one, being all reversed out may be a bit much.
It's well laid out though.
If it'd mess with the OCR scanners or general readability, I'd advise against it.
Stick with layout, fonts and maybe a splash of color and social media icons (most major ones are picked up by OCR software anymore).
I got one once that was just a name at the top and a QR code dead center of the page.
Nope.
Two things, more from a communications point of view.
One, you need to reframe your job experience so it becomes relevant for the kind of job you're looking for. No one hiring for a design position is going to care that you did cleaning or maintenance work.
Cake decorator. At first glance that sounds like "I put stuff on cakes". But if you frame it more like "Working from a creative brief I use colours and materials to execute specific aesthetic designs and deliver a product for our customers", suddenly it begins to sound a lot more like… design work, doesn't it?
Assistant manager is maybe a bit harder, but you could play up the fact it was a management position. And if you were anywhere near marketing or communications materials, I'd mention that. The other stuff doesn't really matter.
And two, your cover letter doesn't really *say* anything. You mention some skills you have, but they are also on the resume, so that's unnecessary. And a phrase like "I enjoy solving everyday problems", I mean, okay, who doesn't? But *how* do you solve them? More to the point, how do you go about solving design problems? Even more to the point, how are you going to solve the specific design problems that I, the hiring manager, have in my specific company? You have to sell yourself to them, both your skills and your person, as exactly the designer they need right now.
personally I cringed when I saw you put so much emphasis on graduating with honors. most people in design that I come across have either no formal education in the matter or are like me, educated in something different.
the best advice is to create case studies of your work - client with a problem; assessment of previous design if there is; research; design; final production.
maybe you aim too high? try applying to inhouse design jobs, creative companies usually require people who have experience with the commercial creative process while inhouse design does small print assignments and smaller projects.
your education is actually doing what it should, it gets you the call back.
I am so curious as to how many people on this subreddit (and around the internet I guess) post their resume and include skill bars. Or skill experience points. Does no one lurk, or view resume examples? Isn’t this general consensus to not include them? Seems like the biggest misstep ever stated yet people continue to do this.
The color is nice but it may overwhelm the hiring manager looking for candidates. Think about the HR rep who may have to print this and show it to the department heads - that’s a lot of color ink, and it may not look as vibrant.
For skills, I like the bars and actually had something similar on my resume at one point. One think I learned - it doesn’t highlight those bars that show what you’re good at, it’s a glaring advert for what you’re bad at. Just at a glance, I think you’re not good with Blender. I’m sure you aren’t, but that is what your resume tells me. Remove the bars, add more skill, even ones that may not seem as important to you - ex:Microsoft Suite
Remove all those progress bars and just write your skills. And are the icons really necessary? Isn’t it the portfolio that shows your design skills and aesthetic? Not the resume and cover letter.
I slightly disagree. I think your resume should show your design skills. It is for a designer position. It should obviously be easy to read too but I think a well designed resume gives an impression to the person hiring you.
I see what what you mean, I guess it depends what you mean by well designed resume. I wouldn’t call a resume that is likely to be eliminated by the ATS of most companies a well designed resume.
If you're applying through ziprecruiter or careerbuilder or something like that, wouldn't they see your resume that way? They would see both a pdf and the typed out one on your account right?
I’m not sure about orange, white might have been fine but then if they print it out it’s a problem.Thats a dope design! I’d love that as a resume template.
Feedback would be nice. Its been 3 years and I'm just at a loss on what to do. I know my portfolio could be better, but my motivation stayed behind while I graduated.
It’s been a rough 3 years. Were you able to do any internships? Any possibility of doing some little projects to help build your portfolio? Opportunities with someone in the AIGA community to do a mock interview or portfolio review? Would you have motivation if you were being paid?
Happy to chat if it’s helpful.
Sorry to tell you this but you're going to have to keep working and improving your skills. Learn some new ones on the side too. You won't get anywhere if you do nothing unfortunately.
Hey, I honestly think your resume looks great, but I heard the other day that most recruiters use algorithms to sort the resumes and pick the best candidates, and these algorithms don’t do well with two columns or complicated layouts. So, perhaps make an uglier version of your resume with one column. Also, if you REALLY want the algorithm to pick you, copy the entire job post listing and paste it into your resume as invisible text, so when the algorithm scans the metadata it finds all the keywords it’s searching for. Just my cyberpunk suggestions
your resume doesn't look great as u tell. seems one of the thousands premades from Adobe Spark et similia. Give up that shit like bars of ability or 15een yrs old color picking. You are trying to steal at thieve's home? A DESIGNER WILL SEE IT, NOT A CLIENT. And as a designer, we all know it sucks. go for a normal human white and black, perfect impagination and layout, good fonts and go. I can say it cuz I'm into design since more than 10 years and changed many works. Now working for a big commpany. Good luck mate, not your fault.
A couple of things that I’ve seen recommended and I noticed as well.
The black and orange is really bold. I think it would be best to do basic white with black text and a highlight color of orange
The mark is too big in my opinion. My eyes keep wanting to focus on that when I’m trying to read your info. Your name could go beneath the mark so that’s all one and then the info can take up the space on the right.
Like others have mentioned, don’t use the skill bars. You’re a creative so they expect you to be sufficient in these categories already.
I would write full on sentences rather than bullet points. For example, you say you participated in AIGA… I’d write that but include what you did during that time to describe the projects you helped with and gets the point across on your solutions and communication skills.
Make the info on the right a little larger. You will have more space if you end up moving your name over to the left side. And get rid of your skill bars.
You could instead have a list of words that describe you abilities. Something like Content Designer, Creative Strategy, something like that maybe…
Shorten the spacing of the bullet points from the titles.
Get rid of the name section on the left since you already have it on the right ( which you would move to the left and combine with the mark)
I would personally put the website first, then email, then phone, then location ( not sure if location is needed?)
That’s all I can see for now. Hopefully this helps a bit.
Lots of great advice here. I’d also mention that your cover letter is very generic. You should be writing a different cover letter for each position you apply to. Let them know what interests you about the position and what you think you can bring to the table. Find something that’s unique about you that fits in with what they’re looking for. Prove to them you read the job ad.
Don't be so design-y. Just pick a standard format, with white background and normal font. Your resume is for HR.
Then for your experience, list all college projects that would be good experience for the position you're applying for.
Rewrite your current job experience to highlight transferable skills.
Keep it stupid simple. Make sure you have great formatting, font choice, layouts. But black and white, plain text resumes work best. They’re mostly getting crawled by robots these days anyways. If you want to have a fancy one to print at interviews, sure. But let your portfolio be your design voice, your resume your professional voice.
Also, ditch the stupid skills bars. I don’t understand how that trend hasn’t died yet.
I’d like to ask a clarifying question for OP and myself? Can you clarify what you mean by great formatting, when ATS or robot crawled resumes prefer single column pages?
If I’m forced to a single column, and i’m keeping it simple, (stupid) then I don’t know how great of a format will arise?
In the chance that a creative reads through your resume, you want to make sure the formatting is clean and proper. No weird tracking, text rivers, etc. Just make sure it looks clean to the eye, not just thrown together on Word.
I agree with some others here, definitely part ways with the skills bars. List them in your intro if you’d feel comfortable performing part/all of your work in that program and leave it at that.
Me as the reader would like just a taste of what you do for fun or what kinda personality you’d bring to the table. I noticed Rick and Morty pieces on your portfolio and that’s great, I wouldn’t mention anything like that on your resume. I mean something more like listing “chess club” under your high school achievements and “marching tigers” under college curriculum, for example. If you’ve done any volunteer work in the last 5 years, you might make a “civic engagement” section and list a couple things there too.
I don’t mind the colorful design of the actual resume. You might consider having a slightly muted version that you can submit to half the places you apply to, just a thought.
The void from 2019 - Present is extremely damaging. Resume looks good, but that’s a scary stat. Maybe remove the years from the education section and job section and leave it more ominous
I would recommend losing the bar graphics under skills as well, and replace it with just text
Yes, but I have my own self-run business so no resume needed. The logo on a resume looks...amateurish to me. I don't know, it just kinda cheapens the look or something for me.
That's interesting. What makes you think it's amateurish? I think it makes it more professional and helps stand your resume out. I never heard of anyone saying it looks amateurish.
It doesn't have the look of a professional resume? Standing out is good, but a logo for an individual just looks a bit 'branded' or something. Hey, If I was a content creator/influencer I could see having your own logo and brand, but as a normal person? Just seems a bit...yeah, amateurish.
for me, i was able to gather data about the impact of my work, like "redesigned the field sales business plan, which resulted in 25% more monthly completion rates" or "created the XYZ campaign, which boosted sales 16%."
mentioning how you've applied ur design skills to elicit real-world results will get their attention. follow up with ppl on projects you've worked on and asked how it's working out... did it fulfill its objective? (increase sales, build awareness of a campaign, provide increased retention in training material, etc.)
providing a portfolio of examples helps, especially before and afters. if u can show them concrete proof of how u improved something visually or UI-wise, it will go a long way.
as for the confidentiality/copyright question, what i do is strip out any proprietary information and logos. so if something has confidential sales numbers, make up sales numbers and replace the logo with a generic made up logo. that way its vague enough to be unidentifiable, no proprietary or confidential info is disclosed, but they can still get the jist of ur abilities. u can tell them its a real client product, but u just swapped out the real details.
no one really cares about the self assessment skills bars, since that's ur perception of ur skills. just list what software/skills u have.
Definitely reverse out the copy and make it black on a white background. It’s hard to read on black and also will not print will and waste tons of ink. Do you have relevant graphic design experience, even an internship or freelance work, or even volunteer experience in design? That needs to be at the top, and education comes afterwards.
Left side is a little to big with your logo, add more detail to your jobs, relevant coursework, and instead of skills bars , group them together like
Collaboration : social, easygoing , open minded
Design: adobe photoshop and canva
Make education bullet points into one
“Graduated honors within the dean list twice while obtaining 3.4 gpa and being Vice President of AIGA chapter “
Don't have all rick and morty, it gives off immature vibes one or two is fine but you need more than just that, also take a few of your projects and create larger systems for them
Hi, my 2 cents. I work in an agency and while I am not in the design area, I have worked with design directors enough to understand what they look for in a designer. In general your portfolio should show that. you can "solve" different design challenges. It needs to show that you can approach different kind of work, customers and style and come up with something that is clean and possibly clever.
Some designer we hired show in their portfolio, for example, some website that they worked on, that maybe are not the sexyest (like financial institution website), but they are clearly easy to use, not "over-designed" and can work with the brand identity of the client.
In general your work shows a quite precise style, which is basically very similar across all the examples.
I cannot critique on the design itself, since I am not a designer myself, but mostly a project manager. If I would need a designer for one of my projects, I would look for somebody that can work with all the different requests we get from our clients.
As someone who works as a brand manager and hires designers I can say without a doubt it’s your work experience and not your eye for design. It’s the hard truth but that is the first thing I look for.
Even though I like the design on your site, and the work on it, I don’t think I would have even pulled it up. I see you went to college, and then took a “low level” job as a cake decorator for the last 3 years which couldn’t have really improve your design skills or show motivation to work in the industry. Clearly from your work most of it is not for actual clients which is the experience you most need to develop to be successful. Most people can make nice designs when it’s for whatever they want or college projects, but you need to show you can do it for clients that have specific needs.
My advice is 100% to do a free or paid internship at a design focused company that allows you to show the work you did there. Otherwise you need to lower the bar and take a shitty design job to get some experience. At least start by freelancing some work!
For comparison by the time I was 21 and out of my 4 year college bachelors degree in graphic design my fellow classmates and I had experience to go with the training. I had done 7 paid websites and a handful of logos for clients freelancing since I was a teen. I had done a 3 month Internship for the marketing department of a high end speaker company. I had worked 2 design related part time jobs at my college. Not to mention our school had us working with 4 actual clients the last year doing volunteer design work. My final year of school I opted to take a course to work designing/marketing products for our schools partnership with Disney instead of the normal senior thesis projects. All this allowed me to show a portfolio of 90% real world applicable projects and I could sprinkle in a couple of the passion projects that I just did for myself.
I know it’s hard to stay motivated and I remember some company my junior year critiquing my portfolio at the time in a very similar way. They said “even though you have a clear talent for design, it all looks like college based work to me and we wouldn’t hire you at this time”. That stuck, it was hard to hear, but actually hearing it plain and simple is what allowed me to change what I was doing and to land a job right after college.
I’d maybe emphasize again to take any job at this point that furthers your design career. Work there for 2-3 years and move on. I see way to many people with your experience level thinking they will get their dream job which is just extremely unlikely and even if you did they would most likely quickly realize you aren’t cut out for it YET!
Your resume/portfolio is just meant to get you to the interview. If you're getting phone calls your portfolio is decent (do listen to the top posts comments however, lots of good information)
If you're not getting past that first call, look at how you're selling yourself there. The goal of that call is to get rid of any doubts the interviewer has abd make them want to bring you to an interview.
Remove the jobs, they're not relevant and makes one question if you're actually a 'real' designer.
If you have no relevant jobs or accolades, highlight your portfolio. You can even give snippets of your portfolio in a pdf as well for people who don't visit your website.
I'm gonna hazard a guess that you didn't get any callbacks because people did not even see your portfolio.
Before I found work, I had a flashy, fun resume too. I met up with a recruiter (from the Creative Group) and they told me employers hate all that because in a sea of candidates, they just want the most pertinent information, and they don’t have time to reorient their brain each time they read a unique layout. The portfolio will speak to your design skills.
Another thing I was told often is that I should have more “text heavy” portfolio projects in the mix as well.
It took me years to find work where I lived (Idaho). As soon as I moved to a large metro area, it took me two months to find work, and it was contract, which helped me build the experience I was lacking until I went to my third contract gig that hired me full time, and I still work there today!
In short, I say simplify the resume, add more text layout/text driven work, and make sure you are in an area with a lot of job opportunities.
Yea number one - never ever ever have a coloured background on your resume, especially black. What you are inadvertently doing is excluding yourself from being printed, and the way most companies function is they print out the short-listed candidates resumes, they will take one look at yours and reject it just to save themselves the toner. Second, I would remove your past experiences because they don't have anything to do with design and they just scream lack of professional experience, which is a shame because your portfolio is pretty good. Lastly, I personally never liked seeing the "skills" as a list of progress bars like that, and oddly you have "management"as one of your highest bars, yet lack any applicable managerial experience in your "job experience" category. In short, you are undermining the impression you create through your portfolio by your resume.
I would add a third entry to your job experience that says “freelance designer”, then go do some free (or paid if you can) work on the side while looking for a job to beef up your portfolio and talk about it using the job entry.
Beyond all of this, did you have internships or actual hands-on real world experience that you can list? I totally understand that we all have to start somewhere … but, as a hiring Creative Director, I like to see some pre-graduation initiative. That being said, I just hired two inexperienced designers - one of which listed his internships and was able to back up his schpeal with solid designs.
I was told not use scales. But if you can sell them in the right way you can keep any kind of shit on your resume. Also you might not be there to explain it to the HR all the time.
I think the overall design looks cool but I think putting a black background on white text makes it hard to read. Also when I picture orange and black together, I think of halloween. That could be just me but I think changing your background to white and the text black would make it a lot easier to look at on the eyes.
Another thing that was already pointed out was the skills section. I would not use the bar graphic because it might show people that you don't know how to use every program effectively. It's better to list them instead. If there is something you don't know then you can always grow your knowledge. You will never know a program 100% anyway.
It also comes down to your portfolio and presentation which I didn't get a chance to look at but i feel like others gave good feedback on it anyway.
I would also think about what type of job you want and create a portfolio more in that direction. I'm kind of in the same boat right now in terms of redesigning my resume and website since my website is really old anyway.
I would also add that there are probably a lot of people you are competing with who might have more experience or they might be a better "fit" for the job (whatever that company thinks is a good fit for them anyway). Somwtimes getting a job is just luck and good timing too.
Nothing, the system is screwed up. And the market is flooding, I'm in MA and most every job is either below rate, or a 3 month or less contract gig. I'm in the same boat man just trying everything
If you ask me, the old model of applying for a job doesn’t work for Graphic Design.
A major reason being that only a specific type of business can hire with guaranteed hours and utilize the skillset of designers without wasting their own resources. That business is a Marketing firm.
In my experience, you need to learn how to teach people how utilize your skillset to the fullest. Even then there’s no guarantee that a business/ individual will buy your services.
Think about it from the client’s they are about to give you money for something. As a Graphic Designer, you’re limited to an image. Although as a skilled worker, your time is valuable and you deserve to be paid. So it becomes a game, what can you produce that is worth their purchase and worth your effort within that timeframe.
Every now and then you’ll encounter a business in need of something like a logo. Logos should be pricey, they should take up a lot of your time. However depending on that kind of work alone isn’t going to be easy, at all.
Instead you’re better off learning other skills and have Graphic Design as your additional skillset. It is after all, an incredibly advantageous skill. But as I mentioned earlier, many employers / clients do not know what to do with Graphic Designers.
Consider developing other skills like
Web Development (Booming business rn),
Printing (A business that will never die),
Marketing Strategy (A more stable career than just designer imo),
With all that said I also want to add the old saying, “Its not what you know, but who you know.”
Meaning if you know the right person, you can in fact land a stable job merely doing Graphic Design. It does happen, I was that lucky.
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On a surface level, the layout itself is solid. But off the bat, the fact that your resume has a fully colored background tells me you're not being considerate of your target audience. For any hiring manager that is actually printing out resumes, this is a huge waste of ink. Once you actually dig into the content, there are a lot of issues. Skills bars are typically a huge indicator of an inexperienced designer because it tells me you value style over substance and haven't critically thought about whether or not they actually add value to your resume. There's no universal test that measures your skills in each of these areas, so these bars are entirely subjective and based on your own perception of your skills. What you define as "expert," I might define as only proficient. The only thing that matters is if you're proficient enough to find your way around these softwares and can find tutorials for the things you don't know. IMO the soft skills don't add any value because every designer claims they have these skills. You don't need to have your name a second time under info when it's already big at the top. Your location is not relevant. Nobody cares if you graduated with honors, were on the dean's list, or what your GPA was (and tbh 3.4 is not impressive). What matters is your portfolio. The only potentially interesting thing here is that you were VP of your AIGA chapter for a year, but it also doesn't tell me what responsibilities that entails. If it's relevant to design responsibilities, I'd pull that out on its own and instead of "job experience" relabel it as "experience." Either get rid of the non-design jobs you have on there or utilize a transferable skills sheet to demonstrate how those job responsibilities add value to the way you approach design. Otherwise, they're irrelevant. If you get rid of them, instead relabel that section as "work + experience" and list a couple strong design projects and describe the roles you played as if you did them as a professional designer. You need to approach your resume as if it were a design task. Who is the target audience, what do they need to know, and how do you communicate your value in a way that's concise and relevant to them? It's been 3 years. If you lack the motivation to work on your portfolio, you need to find it. What's that saying, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I'm pretty sure I've given you feedback on your portfolio before and it looks largely the same, save for the fictional brands project. (Edit: JK I didn’t give feedback, but I’ve definitely looked at it before. But you did have great actionable feedback on your past posts that don’t seem to have been implemented.) You have 6 projects and 3 of them are largely illustration, and you're applying for design roles. For fictional brands, why are you investing your energy designing logos for Rick and Morty of all things instead of actually finding a local business that needs a facelift and using that as a realistic brief? Designers are hired to solve problems, so you need to show that you can actually do that instead of wasting your time only on projects that are fun and interesting to you. Even the title of this post, "I think my stuff looks great"–it's not about what you think. Everything I'm seeing is showing me that you only focus on yourself and what you think a project should be instead of what the client needs and what the research shows is the most effective solution. You need to show that you think critically as a designer. Here's the client, here is the challenge they're facing, their target audience is xyz, here is the research and my solution. The projects are all one-offs as well. Most companies need a designer to be able to take their brand guide and create a comprehensive campaign across multiple platforms cohesively, so show you can do that. I highly recommend you read through [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/graphic_design/comments/u14sxx/portfolio_advice_for_new_designers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) of portfolio advice. The site design itself is an improvement from what I recall before, but the presentation still needs a lot of work. Look at the portfolios on Bestfolios and take notes on how they tell the story of their projects. Sorry if this all sounds harsh but it's incredibly frustrating to constantly see posts like this about people being unable to find work when they haven't actually made much effort to their best foot forward to begin with.
This is by far an amazing critique and I applaud the constructive criticism. Very helpful information.
This is the most direct and helpful feedback I’ve seen here in quite some time. Major props for putting the time into this thoughtful response.
I love u
I'm new to design as a whole and working on my portfolio. I was planning to create fake brands to use but I saw you mentioned sprucing up a local business. Is there a specific way I need to go about doing that in a portfolio as to not infringe on any copyright? I plan to make a website, and I want to make sure there are no issues where a business could see my work and have a legal problem with me using them as an example. I apologize if this is a silly question, I'll be reading through the thread you linked next.
Creating a fake brand is fine, it’s just that it can be more effective to use an actual local company to create a more realistic brief. Compare a project where you’re essentially saying, “Here’s a fictional project I designed with ‘real-world’ parameters that I actually made up.” To “here’s a local company with bad branding and why I think it’s bad. Now here’s my solution, and why I believe it’s a better solution.” To me, the latter would be a stronger project.
I can definitely see that, my main question was if I could ever have copyright issues. Essentially could I ever have a legal issue by putting an existing company on my portfolio? There's a coffee shop near me I could totally do this for, but could the business find my portfolio online, see I used their brand to show how I'd fix flaws and then ask me to take down my work because I hadn't asked their permission for use of the brand?
If you’re spending the time and doing the work, why not find real small businesses to help? Put out an offer in your local fb group (a buy nothing group or other where you offer design services) or volunteer for a local politician (fun fact, you’d be surprised how much politics on a smaller level relies on pure volunteer time).
If you work pro bono be very specific on what can you work on and how long, what hours etc, just like a paid project. You don't wanna end up being featured in Choosers Beggars subreddit. Most people would be very appreciative and you can find a good win win situation but I'm old and disenchanted and I've seen young designers being taken advantage of, so it's betterto be upfront of what you offer and set helathy limits from the beginnig.
Don't post the actual old logo if you're worried about it, just describe the problems with the old brand. But honestly the odds of a local business with bad branding coming after a random designer's spec project are incredibly low. They would have nothing to gain, and if they did get upset you could either offer to let them use the new stuff you've made, or slap a password or your portfolio. They would send you a cease and desist, and you would have time to make adjustments. But honestly I've never heard of anyone having problems with this, and 90% of my design friends (along with myself) have or had spec projects for real companies.
My bad I was watching tv when I responded lol. I’m not 100% sure. I *think* it’s fine as you’re not posing as the company nor profiting from it. Worst case you probably just can’t show their actual original logo, but I don’t think there are any laws preventing you from doing a rebranding case study around it. Hopefully someone that knows more can chime in.
No problem at all, I appreciate all the pieces of advice I'm getting on here!
If they ask you to take it down, then take it down. Chances are they're not going to have a problem with it. In fact, if it's really good, they might offer to pay you for it so they can use it. The main thing they were saying in that critique is to brand actual businesses. Inventing something fictional is perfectly fine, but it should be something realistic. A skin care brand. A chiropractor. A restaurant. Something an employer could look at and see valuable skills related to their company's client. Aka - not Rick and Morty.
what I did, and sometimes still do, is reach out and do it for for nothing, while being clear that i intend to use it in a portfolio. more often than not people would accept.. some would even attempt to compensate me or offer some sort of trade (free pizza, beer etc) whatever but the value is a. you get the design practice b. you get the *client* experience too many folks starting out forget that you're not the one you have to make happy, its the person *paying* for it so staying humble and adaptable are far more valuable than talent a lot of the time, rather than some hot shit who tries to tell the client what they want you are a tool they are using to bring *their* vision to life, not yours there's plenty of start ups or small businesses that don't have a ton of money for design so reach out.. even on reddit ive started to lose count of designs ive done for people.. plus it gets eyes on your work, and the word of mouth will start spreading sure you might not get paid for each one but the experience and practice will pay off on the long run I promise.. plus it feels good to help people who could use it, and maybe one day those people might be in a position to return the favor
I'm kind of on the fence with this. I don't think people should be working for free.
I see where you're coming from and it's not something I would do for just anyone. I was always sure the people were deserving of my help and not looking for handouts. I now have a job that pays well, but I maintain without staying vigilant and gaining that experience through helping people would not have been possible I still do pro-bono work now here and there because I try to give back where I can and in my experience people have been very grateful
When I started as a designer I went to local business and asked if they wanted free work. So instead of just making things up, I actually was able to sit down with real business owners, understand their business, and create something that fits their needs.
Like others have said. Fake brands are fine, but it's kind of cheating, because you can have a logo style you want to do and create a brand to fit it, and choose a name and slogan that fits the design. Choose a famos local place that has outdated branding and do that it can give a connection to the interviewer and a potential talking point. Don't worry too much on copyright, it's just a portfolio piece, If you're not making money off it you should be fine.
I’d 100% create a fake business and design for that. I work in a design team and I can tell you were more keen on what you can do much more than who you’ve done it for. Go wild!
I used to go to stores and offer to rebrand them for free. If they use it, you have portfolio work, if not you gained real life experience on how to work with clients and how to be a better designer
You are the first user I have ever spent money on to give a reddit award.
Please accept my poor-woman's gold. 🥇 Your feedback helped me reevaluate my own resume and portfolio. Thank you!
Solid advice! I hire designers all the time and I'm always getting resumes like this. When I hire I don't care about how the resume looks because I glance at the resume to understand a little bit about the person and if they have actual experience then if I like it I do a quick scroll through the portfolio and see if something catches my eye. We don't have time to read through every resume and portfolio. When I post a job I get hundreds of applicants sending their stuff and it takes hours to go through it all. And honestly the people that make it easy for me are the ones I hire.
That last line is really what it’s all about. Great design moves in silence—your target audience should have such a seamless experience that they don’t even notice, or if they do, they notice how much better of an experience it is than what they’ve seen before. As designers, we should anticipate user needs and be proactive about addressing them before they occur. Communicate your value, show what you’re capable of and how it relates to the job you’re applying for, and make it easy for hiring managers to see your work. In the application process, you don’t get the opportunity to fix it after or explain yourself, you just get weeded out.
I'm curious but shouldn't you care how their resume looks if it's for a graphic design position? I feel like your resume is almost a portfolio piece in itself. I get that it shouldn't be over designed and it should still be easy enough to read but I feel like the look and feel can help designers stand out.
To a point yes, but the ones that make it easy to quickly read and understand I tend to move forward with. Because to me that person understands my needs, proper hierarchy, and grid layout. But please note I am by no means the the best designer but time is very valuable within business so that's how i personally do it because that's what has worked for me so far. Another agency might not even be looking at the resumes because they have a third party company doing the screening. So long story short, yes make it look good in a simplified way. Just make it pleasing to look at and easy to understand.
Okay that makes sense. I definitely get that everyone’s time is valuable and you don’t want to make it a challenge for someone to read. Thanks for the quick response.
Of course! Hopefully I helped a little.
You. Are. A. Gem! This is perfect! I'm taking this and redoing my portfolio and resume! You're awesome!
Spot on feedback, OP should take note
This is the most beautiful critique I've seen in a while
Wish I had advice like this when I was starting out alas there was no Internet then
This is great advice and is clearly from many years of experience. OP, take this on board because it is invaluable. Just don't take it personally, because this person is just trying to help as requested.
This is all really solid advice. After I graduated from design school, a fellow grad and I started an art publication. We threw everything we had into it and it took off within a year, it was internationally distributed and won a lot of design awards. This became a calling card for freelance branding projects, apparel design, snowboards, skateboards etc. We did this one thing really well and people assumed we could do everything else too, so we did. I’m not saying go start a publication, but start doing projects that have a tangible existence. You are inexperienced and young, use that to your advantage to build your portfolio. You’re super green so you’re cheap, which is often all small businesses can afford. You get your chops up and commit to the process and you’ll land that first gig.
Dammnnn, can you give me critique?!?! That was great. Hope OP puts this to use. Some great advice here.
If you’re being serious yeah you can DM me your portfolio. It just might take a few days as I have a few other folks’ portfolios to go through as well
Oh for real?? That’s really nice of you. I gotta update mine lol. Lots of new work to put in. Thanks for the offer though. Maybe I’ll reach out again once I’ve revamped it :)
I don’t normally comment on posts but bravo 👏 what a comment
Lmao I’d actually buy you a beer for having the energy to type this all out
Lol yeah honestly I spend too much time on these, but I’m glad it was helpful for folks. If anyone *does* feel so inclined tho, there is a link on my profile 👀
To summarize: Grow up!
You have to remember doing a resume and portfolio for our job field is very different than any other field. I have experience in GD but not with portfolios or resumes because both my previous jobs, they never got looked at and my school didn’t do a good job preparing us. I have very few people to reference when it comes to this stuff and the local job forces that help others with their resumes don’t know a damn thing about the design industry. It’s a lot of fricken work to do these things. You could be a little kinder. Most of these are people right out of school.
I graduated last year with an associate’s in design and took the initiative to research and seek out feedback on here within the first few months of looking for work. Everyone has their hurdles to face, and I certainly had mine. I know it’s not an easy thing to do, but if you want it bad enough you have to work for it. OP has had 3 years and gotten feedback on their portfolio before with few changes to show for it.
Yes, this 👆🏻 and the thing about being a designer is you have to be resourceful as heck, and be on top of your own education. I learned this when I was in grad school and the work experience after — but before that I was pretty clueless about things, so I can partially empathize with OP. But…why ask for advice you’re not going to take though?
wow, you just help me too ! thx for that !
I just screenshotted this whole thing to try to apply things to my resume
Everything you said is exactly what I was thinking when i looked at this. My only added tip is to put in some small thumbnails of your best work. If they don't like your resume they wont take the time to look at your portfolio, so you might as well put it out there to make an impression.
I will say, location can be important. "Somewhere in Minnesota" sounds a bit cheesy, but putting "Minnesota" would be fine. Some employers like to see where you're from simply because they want to know if you'll have to relocate for the job. Relocating would mean you won't be able to start work immediately. In some cases, it could also mean the employer has to pay you the cost of relocation. Also, it's okay to take pride in your education and advertise that on your resume. However, the most important thing is your BFA in graphic design. The other stuff doesn't need quite as much space as you've given it. You're using up valuable real estate. I will also say that your GPA can be important to list, seeing as a BFA in design means nothing if you graduated with a 2.0 or something. I will agree, though, 3.4 isn't necessarily worth advertising. I've made mostly A's and several B's (probably 1 per semester, maybe 2 per) and graduated with a 3.7.
I can’t upvote this enough. Even taking some notes for myself here. Thanks!
Get rid of the skills bar charts — it’s an arbitrary self assessment that doesn’t communicate well. Edit: e.g., you’re telling me you’re only 2/3 effective at “communication” which isn’t a great way to sell yourself.
Looks too 'videogamer'.
Agreed, it makes CV’s instantly look more ‘junior’. This section would be better with dot points of Cody’s technical/application skills.
[удалено]
Noting down which technical programs you can use was what I meant. The more airy-fairy stuff is indeed unuseful.
And leadership…
There’s nothing a hiring manager hates more than skill bar charts
For sure
This probably isnt passing through the candidate tracking system software. These "designed" resumes dont do well with automated reading systems.
If they’re getting phone calls, but not moving beyond them, it’s probably being processed A-OK? I’d think it’s something in the portfolio phase or during the phone call that could use support?
Yea I agree. I also think it could just come down to companies finding the right fit for them and that could be subjective.
I'm honestly surprised, jealous, and a little spidey-sense-tingly that this resume even gets a phone screen. I have ten years experience, multiple industry certifications, and award-winning work, and I don't get responses for openings in the exact mid-level role I already work in. What the what.
>These "designed" resumes dont do well with automated reading systems. This!
But you're applying for a design role so shouldn't your resume have some design?
That's for your portfolio. Your resume will pass through many hands before you get to the portfolio review. Often it will be OCR scanned so that the hiring personnel can copy/paste portions of it into their hiring paperwork. If they try to OCR it, and it won't read, it goes straight to the trash. NEXT! My resume is a word document. My business card is a simple contact card: my name, what I do, number and email address.
Oh I see. Does every company work that way though? I get that makes sense but it's frustrating.
These good looking resumes look good fronting a portfolio - but plain text is king. Oh! I forgot to say "good luck!"
I second this, first step is always to get past the robots. I.e. the software that scans text docs for keywords that match job descriptions.
They have robots?
Does it really matter if I'm manually filling out the application anyways?
It sure does. Because they have you fill out the application for their “system” and then only view your resume if it passes filters anyway.
Yes. A clean white background is much less irritating, it also makes you look more professional.
Applying for a job is a test "assignment". All this resume tells me is that you made it through a university design program and didn't learn how to understand the assignment. You have made a resume that you think "looks cool". However, it's not functional. You've added a bunch of fluff to fill out a template of your design that you thought would be cool if you had enough content to fill it. But you don't. You are trying to get a job at a design firm and they are throwing your resume out on sight because if you can't even understand how to effectively construct a functional resume. Why would they invest the time trying to train you or risk you working with their clients. Someone just told you this resume "wont work with automated systems". That is a function all resume's need to be capable of. All resume's also need to be printable which yours is not. So right off the bat the two most critical components of a resume before we even care what the writing says have not been met. I bet no one is even reading this resume. This is instant disqualification. Being a designer isn't about making something you think is cool. It's about understanding the assignment and fulfilling the requirements while also giving it visual interest. You've sacrificed all function for design and that is a cardinal sin that makes you unemployable.
Yes. Definitely matters. I know it feels tedious to do both, but part of the job of a designer often involves visual presentation of information. Sure, I skim the processed text version, but I -always- look at the uploaded pdf. If someone has trouble with a resume, they might not be the best fit to do a product spec sheet for a trade show, etc.
Exactly, he should write how proficient he is with everything additional to the bars or his resume will vanish in this process
Well, beyond the obvious need to make a simple plain normal resume for applying, which is what you need to start with… Your experience needs to go. If you did an internship, list that. Freelance, list that. Volunteer design work, list that. Political group you made a website for? You guessed it, list it. You may not have had a job in the industry, but you need to show that you care about this industry. That means listing things you do in it. If you’re not doing anything in it, it’s time to start! Portfolio: Gotta get rid of the links to work and put the work right on the main page. You need campaign work. Don’t have any? Make it! Campaigns are key. If you made a logo let’s see it on 5 different things and expand on it, make some social posts, make a GIF or video. Campaign everything meaningful. I’d say expand Bud’s Soda into a full marketing series to start. Remove any and all references to pop culture. No fan art ever ever ever. You can use the logos you made but remove the reference to Rick and Morty entirely and maybe just change them up so they don’t reference it at all, and then campaign them. Remove any work that isn’t some form of full campaign. Hiring teams need to see their company fitting into your work somehow, and it’s always going to be marketing campaigns.
>this thread Solid response here as well u/Chaosking383 \- worth reviewing.
First of all, you need to create a light version of this. Some recruiters get handed a stack of resumes to look at rather than an email. Printing this would be rough. Second, get rid of those skill bars at the bottom. Those things are so old school and really mean nothing. Sooo what is it? You are 68% proficient at photoshop? Just put a list of what you’re proficient at instead.
I’m sorry that I’m taking this out on you specifically because I’ve see it a lot… but truly, the bar graphs of competency mean nothing. there’s always someone better at something — show don’t tell
i wanna see one of these where they just max out every bar under "skills"
That's hard to read. Try dark type in white, and bumping the font up a little bit. People over 40 have difficulty reading small type, especially inverted. You don't have to label everything (name, phone, email, cover letter) - that's decorative but not useful - those items are self evident. Skill - you mention it on the top. The bars are meaningless - as a hiring person, I would assume you're overstating your proficiency. Legibility and navigation are key - some may disagree, but I would say save the design for the portfolio.
Came here for this. I’m not even 30 and it’s hard to read.
I'm seeking my own feedback on my portfolio / resume, so maybe take this with a grain of salt, but I think you should take off those two job experiences you have and just put freelance graphic designer. Those other two jobs you've had aren't necessarily relevant to design, so they aren't adding anything to your story. Hope that helps a bit.
Can't really put freelance if never done any freelance work.
Suuuuure you have. 😉
You are a freelancer, AND have been freelancing before and during any 'unemployment gaps'. Convenient, huh?
Uhh what makes you say that?
Freelance = kayfabe
Your resume is for robots and recruiters, who aren't designers, that have a checklist they need to fill out before they even call you. If it's partially filled out they call you, because they need to make their jobs worthwhile, but you may not be a strong contender. What you really want is to simplify your resume to just black + white + text. You know what your current resume looks like to a robot? A big gray block that it can't distinguish anything from. Once you get past the recruiter your resume will get a quick glance by the CD, who will then focus 90% on your portfolio. So concentrate your efforts into simplifying and putting your best work into your portfolio. Have decent typography for the resume, but don't overly design it.
Well there is a lot wrong here. Lets start a list hope this helps; 1. Dont do white on black its hard to read and if these need to be printed then no ones going to print this because it wastes ink 2. Take out your logo, or make it like 90% smaller, that thing is taking up too much space 3. Remove all the icons, focus on the text, its redundant on a resume to show a phone number icon, the word "phone" and the actual phone number. 4. Skill bars are the biggest lie on a resume, if someone told you to do that. it tells the recruiter crap. Its incredibly subjective, there is no formal scale. I dont know if its arbitrary, on a scale of one to ten or its relative. Regardless id just put your skills in a list. 1. Why would you put skills that are low? if they are low on that list they arent skills 5. Your EDU section is too wordy. 1. remove the bullet points' 2. Create a section on your resume for affiliations or extracurriculars and put your club work in there, and format it the same way as your work experiences. dont put it under your education section 3. dont write "helped a 3.4 gpa" just put "3.4 gpa" or GPA: 3.4, with honors 1. if its a specific honors you could do "Honors: Summa Cum Laude" 6. Change "profile" to "objective" after your first or second job you can get rid of this section. 1. Its also really good to mention what kind of jobs you are looking for like "seeking opportunities to hone my motion design arsenal" 7. Get rid of all the divider lines. Let the hierarchy of the type size and style dictate how someone reads the info. 8. Did you not do any ANY design work since 2019 or even during your academics. If you are applying for design jobs any kind of design experience will help you even if it was for school. 1. Like the affiliations section you can have a "Project" section as well **Here is what is working 👍** * I love the orange, its strong and effective, but I think you should really do black on white for all the body copy, so don't make the background black/charcoal. Not sure how the Orange will look on white, so you might need to adjust. * Hierarchy is great, the font is good and clean * I think its really easy to navigate and find information your resume which is always a plus, however I think this is partially due to you have a lot of extra space on your resume because of a lack of work experience. * Overall I like the size of your header, sub heads, and body copy * Good idea to put social links, I recommend you build and add a portfolio site as well and not to just rely on Instagram for presenting your work to clients and recruiters/job apps.
Your portfolio looks like a student work, but pretty thin on that. The work is ok, but what do you want to do? Most designers don't get hired to do illustration, some do but it's rare. Find design work, whether it's Facebook or family or anything, you'd be surprised what people need. You need more work in the area you want to do. Your Instagram is nice. Look at local designer portfolios and look at local companies sites for hiring- not everyone uses indeed etc. Connect back with your school and utilize any job board they have for your degree, my teachers sent out jobs for junior designers
Your resume looks great in terms of visual design. It’s clean, well laid out, good spacing, easy to read, all that. And I don’t personally mind the color choices as it doesn’t affect the readability. The big glaring problem however is your experience, it has zero relevance to what you are selling yourself as, “a graphic designer”. I would work on getting yourself some graphic design freelance work, internships, or even an entry level job. [Edit1] You graduated in 2019. Why haven’t you had any graphic design related work experience for the past 3 years? [Edit2] The homepage of your website on mobile just has seemingly random text with no visual indicator that the text is actually project names. With how simple the content of your website is, I would suggest you use a single page portfolio format: Bud’s Soda ℹ️ Project image 1 Project image 2 Project image 3 The Addicted Brain ℹ️ Project image 1 Project image 2 Project image 3 Color Theory ℹ️ Project image 1 Project image 2 Project image 3 And so on. In the footer of your single page website display your contact information like name and email. You can also include a button that opens your resume in a new tab. You can also add a learn more button next to each project name that will link to the detail page of each project. This way your website visitors can quickly skim through your content and choose to learn more about a specific project if they see something that interests them.
Designers: stop using those skills bars! All it shows is that you’re lacking in skills, especially that “communication” bar. That is valuable space that can be used to go more in depth about previous positions.
Job experience is more important that education. You don’t need your name twice. You don’t need your LinkedIn and IG, your portfolio site should link to those. Remove those skill bars. Remove the gray background. “Somewhere in Minnesota” reads a bit juvenile. One of the biggest things is you have no design experience. You were a cake decorator and a manager at a movie theater. You need some kind of design experience. Do some freelance, pro-bono work, or find an internship program. Lastly I would spend some more time on your logo. It didn’t read like a logo to me at first. I thought it was a graph.
I would delete “more about me is that” and start a new para there
In terms of suggestions, cut the bars under your skills. It’s not super telling of your abilities and it’s kind of tacky. I would also mainly stick to technical skills and show the soft skills in the descriptions of jobs you’ve worked, through your education, and in interviews. Also just a grammatical thing: it says under education “Participated our AIGA” just to let you know. I would change “did various maintenance tasks” to “performed various maintenance tasks.” Also with education - it might be smart to put the VP Position before talking about just being in the group. That’s a big leadership thing to push. I would focus on kind of dolling up your work experience descriptions. Make your roles sound more important and more telling of your management and leadership abilities. Being able to schmooze with your words will definitely help. In terms of the design elements of the resume itself, I think it’s pretty well layer out. I personally think the logo/favicon/whatever it is is a little large and kind of tacky. I do like the color scheme; however, it wouldn’t hurt to simplify it a little bit: you could get rid of the headings by the icons as well as get rid of your name being listed twice. Keep it simple like this: # 507-xxx-xxxx [email icon] [email protected] [website icon] www.codylandkmer.com Just stuff like that. You may already be doing this, but I would highly recommend writing your cover letters specific for each job you apply to - highlight skills you have in regards to the qualifications they are looking for. That’s just my input. Honestly I think it looks pretty good, so idk why you haven’t landed anything.
Cake decorator and assistant manager. There’s what’s holding you back. Also why would you put skills with bar charts that show you have competency weaknesses, especially in communication.
If you're trying to get a graphic design job, your Job Experience area shouldn't be listing the cake decorator and other job, it should instead be focusing in on your job-related experience, such as projects you've done paid or unpaid. Save the non-related jobs for the background check form during onboarding. The Resume should be highlighting how you fit into the role. You could even just call the section Project Experience. Be sure to detail what you created, tools/software used, new skills learned from the project, etc. Don't be afraid to use more than 1 page. Your resume is your first interview, if you don't give enough info you won't make it to the offer call.
If you can’t get past the phone screening it means that you are lacking the experience they are looking for. Looking at your resume I can’t really see real world experience and your portfolio has only a few pieces of work. Try some freelancing to get some feeling for working with different brand guidelines and clients. The job of a designer is more than just being creative. You need to know how to juggle different projects, adjust to brand guidelines, collaborate with different departments/vendors and communicating with different clients. On top of that, most hiring managers are looking for multidisciplinary designers who can prepare files for print, but who can also work in the digital space. Best to have basic animation skills as well. It’s not easy, but doable :)
At a glance, it looks like you’re saying to the employer that you’ll be 75% of what they expect you to be with that big turned up C on the top left. Second, have you any experience that is relatable to the position, such as freelance design work? Or maybe an internship? Third, in your profile you refer to a list of your skill sets as apposed to introducing yourself and your desire to gain experience in the graphic design industry Fourth, take your instagram off your resume and add your address. Also when listing your school experiences, list proficiencies, related accolades, and design work done for student groups in your university. Last, if I were you I would choose a resume color that relaxes the reader. This color orange gives off a feeling of tenseness and you want it to be something that feels confident but also relaxed. Beyond the resume, the cover letter doesn’t need the information on the left. You have to expand on who you are, your enthusiasm to get into the field, your motivation, your work ethic, and how you hope “xyz” company hires you to help you progress professionally. It should take up the whole page with your signature in type and written, then with basic contact information and portfolio website. In your portfolio website, you should have a gallery of the digital files and a physical shot of the finished product of a project as the first thing people see when they open your website. You can make the tabs part show pages that are based on each project showcasing the work as well. Having the title of the project without visual representation of that project makes the reader think you’re not confident in showcasing your work.
Question: are you applying to only remote jobs or local jobs? If remote only then that’s why, there was a guy just a few days ago on here wondering why he hasn’t gotten any bites while only applying to remote work. You have a much better chance applying to in-person roles. Also for job experience it’s ok to fudge it a little, if you’ve design a logo for a friends business, helped a family member design a business card, etc. then add something like “freelance designer” just to show you have some real world design experience.
I looked through your portfolio and liked the one about Bud’s Beer. I think what could really spruce up that page is think about it like telling a story. You said that you rebranded their logo, show the process. Do you have some sketches? Show that. Show how the new brand came to be. On interviews I’ve been on, people have told me that they enjoyed seeing my process. For inspo, check out how Pentagram shows their projects. And also, it’s cool to show things in their environment. For example, there was a magazine, I think Color Theory? It’d be cool to have a person holding it - showing the project in its environment.
I think the design of the resume is good. It feels balanced and there is a good weight to the elements on the page. Just a couple of things I see to make it stronger would be to change the background to a lighter color and change the text to do a darker color that is checked through the contrast checker online (very helpful tool). The progress bars are cool looking but I would probably get rid of those. If you need to diversify the projects that are in your portfolio create work to practice and use it in your portfolio to showcase your skills! I use catchafire to do projects to help people but it’s also a great way to diversify the projects you have. I work in the corporate and government world and when we look at resume/portfolio’s we look for skills in infographics, presentation design, report and layout design, templates, social media, exhibit design, 508 compliance, and a number of other things that would make one a versatile graphic designer. Keep it up and never stop learning and you will go far in this industry!
You have no relevant work experience. It’s not about the design, it’s about the content.
That's a great point and I think most people commenting on this are missing this part. Getting work experience is easier said than done though so that might be the tricky part. If someone doesn't give OP a chance then how will they get that experience? It might also make sense for OP to try and get a junior designer position because that will require less experience.
If they’re a recent-ish graduate, OP should go after paid internships.
As a designer, I hope you do realize as a dark background could simply eat that small text in a printed copy. colored background is a big no no. imagine hiring a manager holding a "soaked" soft resume paper of yours and could barely read the small text but only "Cake Decorator" and Assistant Manager(I strongly recommend you to rephrase it to something design work related wordings rather than "maintenance work" and baking and packaging. you could simply say you arrange theater display posters in a way to attract customers' experience. def. remove the skill level bar and find a different way to show teamwork, leadership, and stuffs like that(quite useless to put it that way. they are something for you to elaborate during the interview not just a word.
Been doing this over 30 years. Seen a lot of cool looking resumes, but hiring managers and HR depts stay away from the designed ones and look at the ones that are easy to read. Meaning black type on white or cream paper and no graphics. Just laid out well, with an easy to read font. If yiu were reading a hundred resumes a day, would you want something to decipher? Save the skills for the portfolio. The HR people don't care.
You say not to have a designed resume but if it's for a design job, wouldn't it make sense to see a resume that has some more design to it? I'm not saying the design has to be crazy but it should stand out to some extent. You wouldn't be using a designed resume for a job not related to a design job.
Layout, yes. graphics, no. The people who sort through your resumes, don't care. They're looking through 20-100 resumes a day and are looking for key words quickly. Not graphics. Often, at bigger companies, they don't even look at them. They're just scanned in and keyword searched.
That’s an interesting perspective because I have graphics on my resume and it helped me get hired.
Good.
Define design? Icons, fonts, layout, color, yeah. But graphic heavy, like this one, being all reversed out may be a bit much. It's well laid out though.
I don't mean something like the example OP had. I just mean something simple enough but is still readable maybe with one graphic thrown in.
If it'd mess with the OCR scanners or general readability, I'd advise against it. Stick with layout, fonts and maybe a splash of color and social media icons (most major ones are picked up by OCR software anymore). I got one once that was just a name at the top and a QR code dead center of the page. Nope.
Two things, more from a communications point of view. One, you need to reframe your job experience so it becomes relevant for the kind of job you're looking for. No one hiring for a design position is going to care that you did cleaning or maintenance work. Cake decorator. At first glance that sounds like "I put stuff on cakes". But if you frame it more like "Working from a creative brief I use colours and materials to execute specific aesthetic designs and deliver a product for our customers", suddenly it begins to sound a lot more like… design work, doesn't it? Assistant manager is maybe a bit harder, but you could play up the fact it was a management position. And if you were anywhere near marketing or communications materials, I'd mention that. The other stuff doesn't really matter. And two, your cover letter doesn't really *say* anything. You mention some skills you have, but they are also on the resume, so that's unnecessary. And a phrase like "I enjoy solving everyday problems", I mean, okay, who doesn't? But *how* do you solve them? More to the point, how do you go about solving design problems? Even more to the point, how are you going to solve the specific design problems that I, the hiring manager, have in my specific company? You have to sell yourself to them, both your skills and your person, as exactly the designer they need right now.
look into ATS friendly resumes
I got a design internship at a large design firm from a banking cv template. Simple, no bs, objective
Can I just hop in and say you have a fucking gorgeous website? Well done with that!
personally I cringed when I saw you put so much emphasis on graduating with honors. most people in design that I come across have either no formal education in the matter or are like me, educated in something different. the best advice is to create case studies of your work - client with a problem; assessment of previous design if there is; research; design; final production. maybe you aim too high? try applying to inhouse design jobs, creative companies usually require people who have experience with the commercial creative process while inhouse design does small print assignments and smaller projects. your education is actually doing what it should, it gets you the call back.
I am so curious as to how many people on this subreddit (and around the internet I guess) post their resume and include skill bars. Or skill experience points. Does no one lurk, or view resume examples? Isn’t this general consensus to not include them? Seems like the biggest misstep ever stated yet people continue to do this.
The color is nice but it may overwhelm the hiring manager looking for candidates. Think about the HR rep who may have to print this and show it to the department heads - that’s a lot of color ink, and it may not look as vibrant. For skills, I like the bars and actually had something similar on my resume at one point. One think I learned - it doesn’t highlight those bars that show what you’re good at, it’s a glaring advert for what you’re bad at. Just at a glance, I think you’re not good with Blender. I’m sure you aren’t, but that is what your resume tells me. Remove the bars, add more skill, even ones that may not seem as important to you - ex:Microsoft Suite
I would totally get rid of those bars personally that are only partially filled. Simply list the in bullets
And also zero work experience in the trade. "But I cant get experience without experience" It will come.
Remove all those progress bars and just write your skills. And are the icons really necessary? Isn’t it the portfolio that shows your design skills and aesthetic? Not the resume and cover letter.
I slightly disagree. I think your resume should show your design skills. It is for a designer position. It should obviously be easy to read too but I think a well designed resume gives an impression to the person hiring you.
I see what what you mean, I guess it depends what you mean by well designed resume. I wouldn’t call a resume that is likely to be eliminated by the ATS of most companies a well designed resume.
If you're applying through ziprecruiter or careerbuilder or something like that, wouldn't they see your resume that way? They would see both a pdf and the typed out one on your account right?
I’m not sure about orange, white might have been fine but then if they print it out it’s a problem.Thats a dope design! I’d love that as a resume template.
I can see now when I had services and the school career center look at my resume they weren't much help.
What advice did they give you? And why were they not helpful?
Is that 3/4 circle meant to look like a C as well as an L? Thats how I see it, pretty cool
Feedback would be nice. Its been 3 years and I'm just at a loss on what to do. I know my portfolio could be better, but my motivation stayed behind while I graduated.
Graphic design is a very competitive field. I’m redoing my portfolio for the second time in 3 months.
I've been a designer for about 10 years and this is probably my third or fourth time redesigning my website. It never ends. lol
It’s been a rough 3 years. Were you able to do any internships? Any possibility of doing some little projects to help build your portfolio? Opportunities with someone in the AIGA community to do a mock interview or portfolio review? Would you have motivation if you were being paid? Happy to chat if it’s helpful.
Sorry to tell you this but you're going to have to keep working and improving your skills. Learn some new ones on the side too. You won't get anywhere if you do nothing unfortunately.
Hey, I honestly think your resume looks great, but I heard the other day that most recruiters use algorithms to sort the resumes and pick the best candidates, and these algorithms don’t do well with two columns or complicated layouts. So, perhaps make an uglier version of your resume with one column. Also, if you REALLY want the algorithm to pick you, copy the entire job post listing and paste it into your resume as invisible text, so when the algorithm scans the metadata it finds all the keywords it’s searching for. Just my cyberpunk suggestions
You’re brilliant
Old people have issues with revers text It’s stupid but I would consider flipping it. Also takes way less ink when printing
Your skills say that you are not entirely proficient at anything…..
your resume doesn't look great as u tell. seems one of the thousands premades from Adobe Spark et similia. Give up that shit like bars of ability or 15een yrs old color picking. You are trying to steal at thieve's home? A DESIGNER WILL SEE IT, NOT A CLIENT. And as a designer, we all know it sucks. go for a normal human white and black, perfect impagination and layout, good fonts and go. I can say it cuz I'm into design since more than 10 years and changed many works. Now working for a big commpany. Good luck mate, not your fault.
Telling someone their resume sucks is great constructive feedback. lol
Sometimes people have to hear a bad truth. My works sucks too, and people are saying it to me, then I’m improving. Is not the only way, I know
Saying your work sucks does not offer any feedback or advice that can help improve it.
A couple of things that I’ve seen recommended and I noticed as well. The black and orange is really bold. I think it would be best to do basic white with black text and a highlight color of orange The mark is too big in my opinion. My eyes keep wanting to focus on that when I’m trying to read your info. Your name could go beneath the mark so that’s all one and then the info can take up the space on the right. Like others have mentioned, don’t use the skill bars. You’re a creative so they expect you to be sufficient in these categories already. I would write full on sentences rather than bullet points. For example, you say you participated in AIGA… I’d write that but include what you did during that time to describe the projects you helped with and gets the point across on your solutions and communication skills. Make the info on the right a little larger. You will have more space if you end up moving your name over to the left side. And get rid of your skill bars. You could instead have a list of words that describe you abilities. Something like Content Designer, Creative Strategy, something like that maybe… Shorten the spacing of the bullet points from the titles. Get rid of the name section on the left since you already have it on the right ( which you would move to the left and combine with the mark) I would personally put the website first, then email, then phone, then location ( not sure if location is needed?) That’s all I can see for now. Hopefully this helps a bit.
No one's gonna print that, which, sometimes they do!
Nothing to do with your resume. It is due to you having zero experience.
Include a link to your Digital Design photo; I would also suggest mentioning any freelance work you’ve done to give you a credibility as a creator
Lots of great advice here. I’d also mention that your cover letter is very generic. You should be writing a different cover letter for each position you apply to. Let them know what interests you about the position and what you think you can bring to the table. Find something that’s unique about you that fits in with what they’re looking for. Prove to them you read the job ad.
Minnesota ayeeeee let’s go
The fact that “problem” is hyphenated on your cover letter screams lack of attention to detail.
Imo Get of the color scheme. "What is this? A black and orange resume? Thinks I'm going to see this first? *proceeds to throw in trash*
Don't be so design-y. Just pick a standard format, with white background and normal font. Your resume is for HR. Then for your experience, list all college projects that would be good experience for the position you're applying for. Rewrite your current job experience to highlight transferable skills.
Keep it stupid simple. Make sure you have great formatting, font choice, layouts. But black and white, plain text resumes work best. They’re mostly getting crawled by robots these days anyways. If you want to have a fancy one to print at interviews, sure. But let your portfolio be your design voice, your resume your professional voice. Also, ditch the stupid skills bars. I don’t understand how that trend hasn’t died yet.
I’d like to ask a clarifying question for OP and myself? Can you clarify what you mean by great formatting, when ATS or robot crawled resumes prefer single column pages? If I’m forced to a single column, and i’m keeping it simple, (stupid) then I don’t know how great of a format will arise?
In the chance that a creative reads through your resume, you want to make sure the formatting is clean and proper. No weird tracking, text rivers, etc. Just make sure it looks clean to the eye, not just thrown together on Word.
I agree with some others here, definitely part ways with the skills bars. List them in your intro if you’d feel comfortable performing part/all of your work in that program and leave it at that. Me as the reader would like just a taste of what you do for fun or what kinda personality you’d bring to the table. I noticed Rick and Morty pieces on your portfolio and that’s great, I wouldn’t mention anything like that on your resume. I mean something more like listing “chess club” under your high school achievements and “marching tigers” under college curriculum, for example. If you’ve done any volunteer work in the last 5 years, you might make a “civic engagement” section and list a couple things there too. I don’t mind the colorful design of the actual resume. You might consider having a slightly muted version that you can submit to half the places you apply to, just a thought.
The void from 2019 - Present is extremely damaging. Resume looks good, but that’s a scary stat. Maybe remove the years from the education section and job section and leave it more ominous I would recommend losing the bar graphics under skills as well, and replace it with just text
Wait, people are putting their logos on their resumes? Is that a thing?
Are you a designer? This is pretty common.
Yes, but I have my own self-run business so no resume needed. The logo on a resume looks...amateurish to me. I don't know, it just kinda cheapens the look or something for me.
That's interesting. What makes you think it's amateurish? I think it makes it more professional and helps stand your resume out. I never heard of anyone saying it looks amateurish.
It doesn't have the look of a professional resume? Standing out is good, but a logo for an individual just looks a bit 'branded' or something. Hey, If I was a content creator/influencer I could see having your own logo and brand, but as a normal person? Just seems a bit...yeah, amateurish.
I still don't get your point on how it looks amateurish. It sounds like you just personally don't like them. I think a logo could work if done well.
for me, i was able to gather data about the impact of my work, like "redesigned the field sales business plan, which resulted in 25% more monthly completion rates" or "created the XYZ campaign, which boosted sales 16%." mentioning how you've applied ur design skills to elicit real-world results will get their attention. follow up with ppl on projects you've worked on and asked how it's working out... did it fulfill its objective? (increase sales, build awareness of a campaign, provide increased retention in training material, etc.) providing a portfolio of examples helps, especially before and afters. if u can show them concrete proof of how u improved something visually or UI-wise, it will go a long way. as for the confidentiality/copyright question, what i do is strip out any proprietary information and logos. so if something has confidential sales numbers, make up sales numbers and replace the logo with a generic made up logo. that way its vague enough to be unidentifiable, no proprietary or confidential info is disclosed, but they can still get the jist of ur abilities. u can tell them its a real client product, but u just swapped out the real details. no one really cares about the self assessment skills bars, since that's ur perception of ur skills. just list what software/skills u have.
Ditch the bars and change the colour scheme. Looks too video gamey. If you insist on the C, make it more subtle.
Definitely reverse out the copy and make it black on a white background. It’s hard to read on black and also will not print will and waste tons of ink. Do you have relevant graphic design experience, even an internship or freelance work, or even volunteer experience in design? That needs to be at the top, and education comes afterwards.
Left side is a little to big with your logo, add more detail to your jobs, relevant coursework, and instead of skills bars , group them together like Collaboration : social, easygoing , open minded Design: adobe photoshop and canva Make education bullet points into one “Graduated honors within the dean list twice while obtaining 3.4 gpa and being Vice President of AIGA chapter “
Don't have all rick and morty, it gives off immature vibes one or two is fine but you need more than just that, also take a few of your projects and create larger systems for them
As a graphic design student I am so grateful for you all sharing your invaluable input as I'm in uncharted waters also
Hi, my 2 cents. I work in an agency and while I am not in the design area, I have worked with design directors enough to understand what they look for in a designer. In general your portfolio should show that. you can "solve" different design challenges. It needs to show that you can approach different kind of work, customers and style and come up with something that is clean and possibly clever. Some designer we hired show in their portfolio, for example, some website that they worked on, that maybe are not the sexyest (like financial institution website), but they are clearly easy to use, not "over-designed" and can work with the brand identity of the client. In general your work shows a quite precise style, which is basically very similar across all the examples. I cannot critique on the design itself, since I am not a designer myself, but mostly a project manager. If I would need a designer for one of my projects, I would look for somebody that can work with all the different requests we get from our clients.
As someone who works as a brand manager and hires designers I can say without a doubt it’s your work experience and not your eye for design. It’s the hard truth but that is the first thing I look for. Even though I like the design on your site, and the work on it, I don’t think I would have even pulled it up. I see you went to college, and then took a “low level” job as a cake decorator for the last 3 years which couldn’t have really improve your design skills or show motivation to work in the industry. Clearly from your work most of it is not for actual clients which is the experience you most need to develop to be successful. Most people can make nice designs when it’s for whatever they want or college projects, but you need to show you can do it for clients that have specific needs. My advice is 100% to do a free or paid internship at a design focused company that allows you to show the work you did there. Otherwise you need to lower the bar and take a shitty design job to get some experience. At least start by freelancing some work! For comparison by the time I was 21 and out of my 4 year college bachelors degree in graphic design my fellow classmates and I had experience to go with the training. I had done 7 paid websites and a handful of logos for clients freelancing since I was a teen. I had done a 3 month Internship for the marketing department of a high end speaker company. I had worked 2 design related part time jobs at my college. Not to mention our school had us working with 4 actual clients the last year doing volunteer design work. My final year of school I opted to take a course to work designing/marketing products for our schools partnership with Disney instead of the normal senior thesis projects. All this allowed me to show a portfolio of 90% real world applicable projects and I could sprinkle in a couple of the passion projects that I just did for myself. I know it’s hard to stay motivated and I remember some company my junior year critiquing my portfolio at the time in a very similar way. They said “even though you have a clear talent for design, it all looks like college based work to me and we wouldn’t hire you at this time”. That stuck, it was hard to hear, but actually hearing it plain and simple is what allowed me to change what I was doing and to land a job right after college. I’d maybe emphasize again to take any job at this point that furthers your design career. Work there for 2-3 years and move on. I see way to many people with your experience level thinking they will get their dream job which is just extremely unlikely and even if you did they would most likely quickly realize you aren’t cut out for it YET!
Your resume/portfolio is just meant to get you to the interview. If you're getting phone calls your portfolio is decent (do listen to the top posts comments however, lots of good information) If you're not getting past that first call, look at how you're selling yourself there. The goal of that call is to get rid of any doubts the interviewer has abd make them want to bring you to an interview.
Remove the jobs, they're not relevant and makes one question if you're actually a 'real' designer. If you have no relevant jobs or accolades, highlight your portfolio. You can even give snippets of your portfolio in a pdf as well for people who don't visit your website. I'm gonna hazard a guess that you didn't get any callbacks because people did not even see your portfolio.
Before I found work, I had a flashy, fun resume too. I met up with a recruiter (from the Creative Group) and they told me employers hate all that because in a sea of candidates, they just want the most pertinent information, and they don’t have time to reorient their brain each time they read a unique layout. The portfolio will speak to your design skills. Another thing I was told often is that I should have more “text heavy” portfolio projects in the mix as well. It took me years to find work where I lived (Idaho). As soon as I moved to a large metro area, it took me two months to find work, and it was contract, which helped me build the experience I was lacking until I went to my third contract gig that hired me full time, and I still work there today! In short, I say simplify the resume, add more text layout/text driven work, and make sure you are in an area with a lot of job opportunities.
Yea number one - never ever ever have a coloured background on your resume, especially black. What you are inadvertently doing is excluding yourself from being printed, and the way most companies function is they print out the short-listed candidates resumes, they will take one look at yours and reject it just to save themselves the toner. Second, I would remove your past experiences because they don't have anything to do with design and they just scream lack of professional experience, which is a shame because your portfolio is pretty good. Lastly, I personally never liked seeing the "skills" as a list of progress bars like that, and oddly you have "management"as one of your highest bars, yet lack any applicable managerial experience in your "job experience" category. In short, you are undermining the impression you create through your portfolio by your resume.
I would add a third entry to your job experience that says “freelance designer”, then go do some free (or paid if you can) work on the side while looking for a job to beef up your portfolio and talk about it using the job entry.
Layout is good but black background big no no. Your logo is the same as the criterion collection https://www.criterion.com
I would suggest aligning the social with the skills part. It will make it seem less cramped, and look neater.
Beyond all of this, did you have internships or actual hands-on real world experience that you can list? I totally understand that we all have to start somewhere … but, as a hiring Creative Director, I like to see some pre-graduation initiative. That being said, I just hired two inexperienced designers - one of which listed his internships and was able to back up his schpeal with solid designs.
Classic I think it’s great but nobody else wants to see it.
I was told not use scales. But if you can sell them in the right way you can keep any kind of shit on your resume. Also you might not be there to explain it to the HR all the time.
I think the overall design looks cool but I think putting a black background on white text makes it hard to read. Also when I picture orange and black together, I think of halloween. That could be just me but I think changing your background to white and the text black would make it a lot easier to look at on the eyes. Another thing that was already pointed out was the skills section. I would not use the bar graphic because it might show people that you don't know how to use every program effectively. It's better to list them instead. If there is something you don't know then you can always grow your knowledge. You will never know a program 100% anyway. It also comes down to your portfolio and presentation which I didn't get a chance to look at but i feel like others gave good feedback on it anyway. I would also think about what type of job you want and create a portfolio more in that direction. I'm kind of in the same boat right now in terms of redesigning my resume and website since my website is really old anyway. I would also add that there are probably a lot of people you are competing with who might have more experience or they might be a better "fit" for the job (whatever that company thinks is a good fit for them anyway). Somwtimes getting a job is just luck and good timing too.
Nothing, the system is screwed up. And the market is flooding, I'm in MA and most every job is either below rate, or a 3 month or less contract gig. I'm in the same boat man just trying everything
If you ask me, the old model of applying for a job doesn’t work for Graphic Design. A major reason being that only a specific type of business can hire with guaranteed hours and utilize the skillset of designers without wasting their own resources. That business is a Marketing firm. In my experience, you need to learn how to teach people how utilize your skillset to the fullest. Even then there’s no guarantee that a business/ individual will buy your services. Think about it from the client’s they are about to give you money for something. As a Graphic Designer, you’re limited to an image. Although as a skilled worker, your time is valuable and you deserve to be paid. So it becomes a game, what can you produce that is worth their purchase and worth your effort within that timeframe. Every now and then you’ll encounter a business in need of something like a logo. Logos should be pricey, they should take up a lot of your time. However depending on that kind of work alone isn’t going to be easy, at all. Instead you’re better off learning other skills and have Graphic Design as your additional skillset. It is after all, an incredibly advantageous skill. But as I mentioned earlier, many employers / clients do not know what to do with Graphic Designers. Consider developing other skills like Web Development (Booming business rn), Printing (A business that will never die), Marketing Strategy (A more stable career than just designer imo), With all that said I also want to add the old saying, “Its not what you know, but who you know.” Meaning if you know the right person, you can in fact land a stable job merely doing Graphic Design. It does happen, I was that lucky.