Desire to stand out

The easiest way to attract the employer’s attention and encourage him to invite a designer for an interview is to make a bright and memorable resume. Immediately, we note that there are many conflicting opinions regarding this approach – not all companies accept such a “non-standard”. It is tough to create an appropriate and high-quality portfolio. Moreover, it takes a lot of time (and possibly money) to develop it. But at the same time, a creative approach to presenting yourself significantly increases the chances that your resume will “shoot”. Although in the field of design, this will be incredibly difficult.

Only truly creative individuals will take such a step – the bores will confine themselves to the standard form of presentation. Oddly enough, they will also find their place under the sun, among their kind of recruiters (and there are also enough of them). Your goal is to get an interesting job, so the approach to creating a Resume should also be appropriate. And it has many advantages:

• By sending out an original resume that features your own design style, you can filter out the wrong companies. If the employer does not understand and appreciate the ideas, it is unlikely that you would work together in the future.
• If you have a little work experience, this will allow you to talk about the existing design skills – the employer does not need a track record, they need a real result.
• Such a resume will say about the presence of imagination and a sense of style much louder than indicating them in the column “personal qualities.”
• As the observations show, employers are much more likely to hire bright individuals who can think outside the box rather than technically savvy and experienced nerds (if you do not consider lawyers, accountants, and other positions where this is important).
• A creative resume is one of those few professional jobs that a designer can ultimately do the way he sees it. If it comes out worthwhile, it will once again declare the applicant’s independence.

How to highlight yourself among hundreds of other creative applicants?

How to make your resume creative?

This question is asked by many, and of course, there is no single correct answer to it. It’s quite difficult to give any good advice about the creativity itself – except how to watch as many examples as possible and draw inspiration from them. It is worth looking for the most non-standard platform or presentation method – it can be dry, but stylishly designed infographics, a picture in the form of a page from a social network, a screenshot from a favorite game, a resume in the form of a dating site questionnaire, an animated video – we will consider the most successful examples further … At the same time, do not forget about interestingness and humor (preferably professional), which, however, should not take more than 10-20% of the total amount of information.

We also note other practical tips from venerable designers who helped them write a creative resume and get the coveted job in the best companies in the USA and the world:

• An original Resume, even with tremendous experience, shouldn’t be big. The time a recruiter will spend on studying, it cannot exceed 2-3 minutes! If this is a presentation, it should not exceed ten slides. It would be best if you got down to business right away – those who opened your resume are aware that you are looking for a job.
• Always keep in mind the employer’s image for whom the resume is being created, try to present his thoughts. Ideally, when studying a resume, the recruiter should have a strong feeling that you are not looking for a job, but want to work with him.
• Remember to keep your original resume a little provocative – it will generate interest, make them study it more thoroughly.
• The file must include a link to a standard formal resume and links to professional social networks.
• Any means are suitable for promoting an original design Resume – from using your pages in social networks to articles on your friends’ thematic resources. If you can get praise or, for example, retweets/reposts from your eminent colleagues, it will be great.

And the last thing – do not listen to friend’s (and mom’s) opinions – they are not the target audience of your portfolio, and you are not selling them, but yourself. Therefore, listen only to your own intuition.

HR managers will find it much more convenient to use the familiar format, and therefore the original resume should become a kind of part of the creative portfolio, complementing the usual story about yourself.