Elevating Your Resume Design
(This post is a follow-on to my previous post, Actively design your resume. If you want more suggestions, check it out)
If you are one of the many who write their resume like it’s a record of things that happened in your life, you might want to reconsider your strategy.
Your resume is your elevator pitch, after a quick scan your audience should be able to
- get a sense of who you are and specifically, what your brand is,
- have an idea of what what your core skill set is,
- tell what you have accomplished, and how your accomplishments are tied to the interest of those reading your resume, and
- determine if you’re relevant to them
Write with a purpose
A resume should be written with a purpose — to get you something or somewhere. After all, that’s why you have a resume,right? Put your designer hat on and ask yourself
- what problem am I trying to solve,
- who are my audience, and
- how can I make this a great experience for them?
For most people, your goal is pretty simple. You want to get your audience excited to the point that they want to reach out to talk to you (assuming your profile is in the vicinity of what they’re looking for). To that end, I have some thoughts to share, and hopefully this helps you shape your resume and elevate it to pay dividends.
- Contents first. Designers tend to spend too much time thinking about making their resume look nice. Yes, it’s important, but no matter what your UI design choices are, you should design it to accentuate and highlight your contents, so pay attention to your content strategy
- Be picky. You have lots you can say, but don’t put 80% of what you can say on your resume — they only add noises and obfuscate your signals. It’s addition by subtaction. Choose wisely.
- Demonstrate growth and progression. Your resume should demonstrate personal growth over time. Instead of showing how you have had 3 jobs over the last 7 years, illustrate how you’ve taken on more responsiblity, show how you have taken on more challenging projects, and/or how your impact has increased. A growth mindset is super attractive to hiring managers
- “Portion” your write up accordingly. Along the line of demonstrating growth, you probably want to allocate more of your digital ink to the more recent job than the one you did 3 years ago. I recently reviewed a resume where the candidate had 3 bullets for a job he held 3 years ago, but only 1 for the last two jobs he held. Not a red flag, but it makes you a little suspicious why
- Show that you know who you are. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Good designers know who they are and understand what they are not. Highlight your strengths and help crystalize them in the mind of your audience, and this self-awareness adds to that positive perception you work hard to cultivate
- Words matter. How you write matters. Just like you should tell great stories in your portfolio case studies, your resume should do the same with carefully chosen words, phrases, and sentences. Paint a picture of who you are with how you write. Exude confidence in your writing and that will help get you attention
- You don’t have to list every job you’ve ever held. If you have been working for a while, don’t feel like your have to list the jr. UX researcher position you held 7 years ago. Chances are, the space can be better allocated for some other contents
- Don’t look like everybody else’s resume. Most of us are guilty of using the same template (I don’t mean just visual style, contents too) that 95% of the population is using. That’s ok, it’s not the end of the world. However, do find a way differentiate and make it memorable. Include something unique that makes it you, not one that your audience sees and quickly forgets.
- Don’t use acronyms without explaining them. Assume nothing. Write for everyone. If you use acronyms, explain what it is. You shouldn’t assume everyone knows what your “Improve our TLA metric by 82% after workflow redesign” means
For more articles like this from me, check out /stevenmadesigns.
PS — I teach a 1-day UX Design bootcamp. I’d love it if you can help me spread the words: You can find my current schedule here. Thanks in advance!
