14. Employ the Tools for a Dynamic Job Search

Creating and maintaining your arsenal of resources.

As a designer seeking employment, your most valuable resource is a well-conceived portfolio that tells a compelling story about your capabilities and your brand—but it is by no means the only tool in your arsenal. Yes, most prospective employers will primarily focus on your book of work, but they also want to see how you handle more traditional touchpoints: your resume, cover letter, business card, and even social media. Remember, not everyone who reviews your portfolio will have design sensibilities; your overall presentation should include a range of components so you can tell your story to any audience in whatever language they’re accustomed to and comfortable with—whether it’s that of business or design.

Your portfolio is essentially your resume, but additional touchpoints can strengthen the bridge you’re building between you and a prospective employer. Each offers another opportunity for your audience to learn about your brand through signature engagements (portfolio, website) and a series of small but meaningful interactions (business card, thank-you note) that will connect you to your viewer, whether it’s a creative director in need of specialized skills or a lone HR manager tasked with weeding out all but the most desirable candidates. Frankly, when you’re looking for a professional design job—whether it’s full employment or contract work—you’ll be expected to produce collateral materials that are more creative and engaging than people seeking other kinds of work. How you create and use even the most traditional touchpoints speaks volumes about the type of designer you are. So, just as you have worked hard to put together a portfolio that tells the story of your brand, you’ll need to think seriously about how your touchpoints support the narrative you’ve created and “pass the test” (see Chapter 6).

Don’t be afraid to rethink standard conventions and reinvent your approach, as long as you demonstrate your design thinking and reinforce the personal brand you’ve established. Just don’t wait until the last minute to create the materials you’ll inevitably need. With all of the feelers you’ll be sending out, you should be ready for a call at any time. A recruiter who sees your digital portfolio online might request a resume by email. Your friend’s supervisor may want a few of your business cards to hand out in the design department. An interviewer may ask you to leave behind your list of references. You shouldn’t have to panic, scramble, or risk handing over something that looks like it was just thrown together. Remember, design everything.

You’re entering a highly saturated job market, and everyone is clamoring for the attention of prospective employers. A hiring manager receives dozens of applications for every open creative position—that adds up to a lot of time spent looking at resumes. And, like it or not, someone who has a pile of resumes to wade through tends to begin by looking for easy and obvious reasons to rule out the majority of them, so he or she can focus on just a few desirable candidates. Before you begin designing your resume, think about the following:

Does the information warrant inclusion?

Take into account the content of your portfolio and your other touchpoints. Is the award-winning project you featured in your portfolio mentioned in your resume? Does your resume reference a skill that isn’t displayed in any of your portfolio projects? When your resume and portfolio complement each other, they work together to give your audience a full picture of who you are, without bombarding them with details. As a rule of thumb, your resume should be no longer than a single page if you graduated within the last five years and two pages if you’ve been in the workforce for more than five.

Do you get to the point?

A few hiring managers or art directors may want to spend quality time going over each resume they receive, but the reality is that most of them are busy. After an initial impression and before they plunge in to get the details, they’ll glance over your document to identify the highlights—you should make it easy for them to do that. Find a way to visually feature what’s important and minimize the time your audience spends pinpointing what you’ve done and where you’ve been.

Your readers will expect to review an inclusive but well-organized catalog of your activities, so make sure your content is straightforward and simply stated. Remember, as a designer, your portfolio of work is really a resume that shows what you can do, so you can use the traditional resume as a tool to communicate information that your book of work (or the “About Me” section of your website) doesn’t: employer names, locations, dates, and other practical details.

Avoid buzzwords and repetition whenever possible. Terms like “people person,” “detail-oriented,” and “responsibilities include” will tend to bore your audience, who probably just read a dozen other resumes populated with the same platitudes. Buzzwords like “synergy” and flowery adjectives are more distracting than helpful. If you want to stand out, look for fresher words to describe your expertise. “Action verbs” not only communicate what you’ve done but also evoke an emotion, sense of purpose, or sense memory in the reader. Sentences and phrases that employ dynamic terms such as “generated,” “initiated,” and “managed” precisely describe your experience to your viewer.

Keywords are key. The first person to review your resume might not be a person at all. Employers, especially larger ones, often use computer programs and algorithms to scan resume text for words they’ve deemed to be relevant to the job requirements. To boost your odds of making the initial cut, use the job description as your guide and weave in the employer’s keywords wherever possible (as long as the terms accurately describe your abilities, of course).

Ditch the objective. Unless you can come up with something very unique and specific to a particular position, a stated “objective” tends to restate the obvious: you want to be considered for the job. Anything else can come across as fluff, and employers tend to skip over it, especially when they’ve already seen too many generic or self-focused pronouncements. Instead, consider leading with a carefully crafted, professional summary that highlights your most impressive and pertinent qualifications and justifies why you deserve further consideration. Your summary is also a good place to incorporate keywords that do not mesh easily into the other details of your resume.

Show, don’t tell. You’ll prove your worth by emphasizing results rather than responsibilities. Use hard numbers when you can. Can you mention how many client accounts you’ve handled? How much revenue did a project you worked on generate for the firm? Did you develop a concept that was adopted for use in additional materials? Boasts about being “effective,” “hard working,” and “proficient” are pointless unless you can back them up with specifics. Quantify your contributions—thinking in terms of metrics emphasizes your value and results-oriented outlook.

Ask for help. Work with a writer, editor, or someone in your school’s writing center who can help you develop a strong resume, give you useful feedback, or serve as another set of eyes to avoid grammar mistakes and other errors that can be easily overlooked. Not all designers are strong writers (we have other wicked skills), but your resume and supporting documents should be as professional as the other tools in your arsenal.

Practice good design. The design of your resume should not outshine the projects in your portfolio; it should embrace them. A resume that is consistent with your portfolio and your other touchpoints reinforces your ability to build a cohesive identity that promotes your personal design style. The layout of your resume should have lots of white space to improve readability and create focus for the viewer. Accentuate what’s important by using a bold typeface, an engaging color, or a prominent line to direct your viewer’s eyes to something you want them to notice. Keep it simple and professional.

Proofread, proofread, and proofread again. Double-check your contact information. Triple-check your spelling, especially when it comes to the proper names of organizations, departments, people, and job titles. Are your dates of employment accurate? Does the information match what’s on your website, your social media profiles, and other applicable touchpoints? Nothing ruins a good first impression like typos and misspellings. Even though you’re applying for a job in design, where images and artistry reign supreme, employers still want employees who know their “its” from their “it’s.” So make it your business to know the difference yourself and proofread your resume more than once, run a spell-check, and have a friend or colleague read it over before you create the PDF and send it out.

Design skills. List your skills; start with the strongest and work your way down.

Technology skills. List by name any specific technology or software that you have mastered or are familiar with. Be honest; an interviewer may ask you to demonstrate your skill. If you combine your design and technology skills in a single section, mention your design skills first. Don’t leave out any additional marketable qualities you may have, such as speaking a second language, or a non-design-related talent or skill.

Professional and/or work experience. List design jobs, freelance projects, and internships (most recent first). If you have little or no professional experience, list all your jobs together. Use en dashes between dates, not hyphens! Employers will look for continuity in your career and other activities over time. Gaps and overlaps are not necessarily perceived as negative, but you may be asked about them later—so be prepared with an answer.

Extracurricular. Include your design-related skills and other talents and passions that ignite your interest. Your volunteer work can provide an extra glimpse of your personality and enhance your brand identity. Never include references on your resume—keep a separate list handy. If the interviewer wants references, she’ll ask.

Infographic. Through illustrations and graphics, the infographic resume offers your viewer an instant snapshot of your skills and experience. As a plus, this format provides an immediate opportunity to see how you use design to communicate. An infographic resume will be held to the same design standards as the rest of your identity—your design should never overshadow the information you’re presenting. Traditional and infographic resumes can be saved as Word or PDF documents to be emailed upon request or uploaded to a website.

Video. An increasing number of job seekers are using video resumes to give prospective employers a better feel for their personality, presence, and cultural fit with the organization. Thirty- or sixty-second videos can highlight your most compelling attributes and experience and offer a glimpse of how you might be an asset to the organization that is hiring. And you can post a video to your website, social media channels, and YouTube, and link to it through your resume and LinkedIn profile.

Producing a video that shows off your creativity provides an ideal opportunity to put your motion or video skills into action. If you’re an illustrator, for example, you can create an animated short that focuses on how you would be the right person for the job.

Give your video resume the same amount of care and attention that you gave your portfolio stills in terms of composition, background, lighting, and picture quality. If you make an appearance in the video, be sure to dress professionally and do the recording in a quiet place. These kinds of details matter—many hiring managers use video resumes as an initial filter, so if yours doesn’t grab attention, get to the point, and convey professionalism, your viewer is likely to hit the stop button and move on.

Twesume. Condense your job-seeking objectives into 140 characters and use your Twitter account (#twesume) to spread the word that you’re looking. Employers want to know what you can do, so make sure your twesume is short and delivers the necessary information only. A tweet can quickly spread the word that you are searching for a job, and a message that is descriptive (“Web designer seeks freelance work in Chelsea NY”) or creative (“Newly launched animation pro rockets toward fulfilling relationship with a Houston-based ad agency”) will entice readers to view your resume. Include a link to your website portfolio, your Twitter, or other social media pages.

Draft a basic cover letter you can use as a template, and tailor it to each job posting you respond to.

Personal information.

If you’re mailing a traditional printed resume and cover letter, use the letterhead that you’ve designed that reflects your personal brand. If you’re emailing a cover letter, be sure to display your contact information in a prominent, easy-to-identify location so the employer doesn’t have to search for it if she wants to reach you.

Employer information.

In a traditional business letter, this is known as the “inside address,” which is that of the recipient. In a job search, you won’t always know exactly whom you’re reaching out to. When you’re sending an email, list the employer’s contact info if you have it. If not, leave this section out.

Salutation or greeting.

If you know who your contact person is, it’s important to use the appropriate salutation or greeting at the beginning of your cover letter or note. Many companies don’t list a contact person when they post jobs, because they don’t want to be directly contacted by overeager candidates. If you know the name of your contact person at the company, leave off the salutation and start with the opening paragraph of your letter (email) or use a general salutation such as “Dear hiring agent” or “To whom it may concern.”

Body text.

The body of your cover letter tells the employer what position you are applying for, why the employer should call you in for an interview, and how you intend to follow up. These ideas should be conveyed in three (or no more than four) separate paragraphs of one to three sentences each.

Paragraph one. Why are you writing? (This is a good place to mention where you saw the job posting or heard about the opening.)

Paragraph two/three. What value can you offer the employer? (Be specific: mention a particular project that connects to the opening or professional experience that connects to the company.)

Final paragraph. How do you plan to follow up? (Will you call in a couple of days? Send an email? Wait for someone to contact you?)

Signature closure.

Close your letter in a professional manner. If you plan to use an original or clever phrase, make sure it’s polite and respectful. In a traditional printed letter, leave a space for your handwritten signature and add your full name directly below the space. If you’re sending an email note, type your name under the signature line and include your contact information (email signature) beneath that.

Signature.

Sign your letters, in either mailing or emailing format, to personalize your cover letter.

Graphics. An email note is not the place to show off your programming or design expertise. Emails overstuffed with embedded images, hyperlinks, and multiple attached files can be flagged by a company’s security filter and never reach your recipient. Or, if your email takes too long to open, the recipient may lose patience and simply move on.

Before you identify your professional references, ask yourself the following questions:

Is this person discreet?

You should be able to trust your reference’s judgment. You don’t want to lose your current job, for example, because someone lets it slip that you’re on the hunt. Unless your search is out in the open, be mindful of whether the individuals you approach are likely to blow your cover. The creative industry has a surprisingly active grapevine, so think before you ask.

Is this person familiar with you and your work?

Select people who understand the type of work you are doing and jobs you seek. It should be a person you have worked with in the past (professor, mentor, art director) and one who understands the type of person you are. The last thing you want are job references who tell the hiring manager they don’t really know you that well or can’t recall much about your work.

Have you asked this person to act as a reference for you?

I frequently get calls from recruiters who want my insights and recommendations about a current or former student. Sometimes I don’t know the call is coming, because I was never asked to be a reference. If I had been asked, I would have given some advance thought to how I would answer questions and refreshed my memory of that candidate by reviewing his or her most recent work online. Before you add someone to your list, ask in advance for permission via a phone call or email, and when the time comes, give your reference notice that someone may call. Also find out how your reference prefers to be contacted.

Build your list of references.

Ask three to five people to serve as your job references, get their contact information, and create your list. Once they’ve agreed, you don’t have to contact them again until you reach a point in the interviewing process when they might be contacted.

Give your references a heads-up as soon as you know they might be contacted. Let them know who will be reaching out to them and how, and give them a time frame, if you have one. You can also share relevant details about the position you’re applying for, including the job title, company name, and main responsibilities. It may be helpful to provide your references with a link to the job posting.

Keep your job references informed about the outcomes. Whether you get the job or not, send a note thanking each reference for the time and effort expended on your behalf. A little goodwill goes a long way. You may need that person to vouch for you again, in either this job search or the one a few years down the road.

When you’re looking for work, social media can be an effective personal branding tool, but only if you use it properly. Deliberate intent and forethought count, and can help you avoid unintended negative consequences such as jeopardizing your current job search, current job, or future career prospects.

Setting up your profile.

When you set up a professional online profile on any social media platform, use a picture of yourself—not the sun setting over the Grand Canyon or the hamster who owns your heart. I meet a lot of people and can’t even begin to remember everyone’s name. It doesn’t help to find a baby picture or a puppy if I’m trying to connect to a face and recall who someone is. And please keep your private persona private. Sure, you had a great time at Burning Man, but there’s no need for a current or future employers to see your tutu before they know anything else about you. Pay attention to your social media privacy settings, and use your Twitter account wisely.

Any profile or page you set up on social media should reflect the brand identity you’ve developed. Make your page(s) attractive to visitors. You might assume that designers naturally create compelling imagery across platforms, but many do a surprisingly mediocre job with their headshots and other photos. If you’re serious about branding yourself using social media, use high-quality images.

Curate your content.

When you’re job hunting, everything you publish online should support your career goals. Want to attract cutting-edge companies? Don’t clutter your profile with designs from your more conservative clients. Instead, show a mix of work that appeals to a diverse audience. Looking to work at a legal or financial firm? Don’t post risqué projects. As with a digital portfolio, put only your best and most recent work on social media platforms. Your retweets and shares should also be consistent with the image you want to project. Create a blog and become a subject matter expert on a design-related topic or anything at all.

Stay up to date. Take the time to post and publicize recent projects you’ve completed, awards you’ve received, and your participation in industry-related events, conferences, and webinars. It’s important to actively take part in the ongoing conversation on social media—especially if you want to work in technology.

Create a LinkedIn account. The most prominent and widely used professional networking site is LinkedIn, which was specifically developed for the world of business. It may not be as flashy as some of the other platforms, but many recruiters and human resources managers today use it to find talent. Here are a few tips to get you noticed:

• Upload a flattering and good-quality headshot.

• Make your summary catchy and persuasive.

• Use relevant keywords to describe your abilities.

• Include links to your portfolio website, blog, and other relevant social media platforms.

Additionally, explore all of the available social media platforms, both up-and-coming and well-established networks, and create a presence on any that can help further your career goals or promote your professional brand. Once you’re established, check back frequently to see if you’ve had any activity or contact from a potential employer. You wouldn’t want someone to leave a note that you don’t discover until weeks or months later, long after the position was filled by someone else. The best social media sites for your professional brand vary by the position you seek. If you’re a graphic designer or photographer, for example, consider joining Instagram. Web designers can position themselves as industry experts by creating a YouTube channel and uploading tutorials and tips. You can also livestream via Periscope to give followers a behind-the-scenes look at your creative process.

I don’t know whether it’s my strong print background or if I just like to be wowed, but when I see a designer put a little more effort into the design and printing of his or her business card, that designer becomes more memorable to me. In Chapter 3, I shared with you the relevance of your business card content, but I want to stress that the business card is more than a tool for communicating your contact information. The type of printing you choose, for example, can enhance the impact of your card. Even when you are promoting yourself only through a website and a digital portfolio, the business card is the only tangible presentation touchpoint of your brand. You can’t hand a URL link to someone you bump into at an event, but you can hand them a business card with a URL link on it. Your card doesn’t have to include a lot of bells and whistles, but I recommend you design something into your card that causes the reader to pause and pose a question, “What is this paper stock?” or “What technique achieved that effect?” Always keep a small supply of business cards with you—you never know when someone will ask for one.