Resume

How to create a strong design resume.

Overview

The first step to design recruitment is to tailor your resume to the specific role(s) you are applying for. This can be structured a bit differently from a normal resume, and how it looks is particularly important.

When applying for design roles in tech, what is the difference between product designer, UX designer, and interaction designer?

These titles are basically the same. The exact definition may change per company, but all of these require similar skillsets in research, interface/experience design, and visual design.

At Google, for example, roles under the UX umbrella are interaction designers, visual designers, motion designers, UX researchers, UX writers, and even UX engineers. Each of these roles are more specialized to a particular aspect of the UX process and have varied day-to-day responsibilities, which is typical for larger companies. Smaller companies may require their designers to take on all of these responsibilities.

Appearance

While it’s standard practice to use the template offered by the CPD for most professional roles, this is not the case for design roles. Your resume should look unique and showcase your visual design style.

Don’t be afraid to include color, but make sure to still keep it clean, readable, professional.

Here are some examples of successful design resumes.⁠

To take it a step further, try matching your resume design with your portfolio colors and fonts for maximum cohesion.

Figma is great for customizing your own resume. If you are short on time, sites like Canva have many available templates for you to choose from; however, not all of them are made for professional purposes, so as a general rule try to avoid including these elements:

Pictures of yourself

Any type of loading or progress bars that represent skills

Large or distracting icons

Fonts that are harder to read, like cursive

Projects

The meat of your resume should be your experience, and that can come in the form of roles or projects. Make sure to highlight ones that you are prepared to discuss in an interview setting.

When it comes to listing projects, you can arrange them in order of impact, importance, or personal meaning—it doesn’t necessarily have to be chronological since you want make sure the recruiter see the most relevant projects. If you are applying for a UX research role, for instance, list the projects you did the most research for first.

Include links

Have these links on your resume for hiring managers to easily access:

Personal website / portfolio website (Required)

If you have created your own content, other design-related accounts, (ex. Behance, dribbble)

Other resources

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Design your CV or resume on Figma⁠

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14 Top Tips for UX Resumes by DesignLab⁠

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UX Designer Resumes Hiring Managers Will Love⁠

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Overview

When applying for design roles in tech, what is the difference between product designer, UX designer, and interaction designer?

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