How to write a Design CV

Called a resume in the US and a CV almost everywhere else — the same document, and these are the rules it gets judged by.

The conventions below are the ones this field actually uses. They are what the builder applies when you pick Design / UX / Creative, and what the rating checks a finished CV against.

What it must contain

Leave any of these out and the CV reads as incomplete to someone who hires in this field:

Work experience — Say what the design changed - task success, drop-off, support tickets.
Selected Work — Your portfolio does the persuading. The CV only needs to get it opened.

The order to put them in

Order is not cosmetic. What sits at the top is what gets read before someone decides whether to keep reading.

Professional summary
Work experience
Selected Work
Skills
Education
Certifications
Achievements
Languages

What to put numbers on

The single most common reason a CV in this field reads as weak is that nothing in it is measured. These are the figures that mean something here:

task success · drop-off · conversion · support tickets · time on task

Verbs that carry weight

Openers like “responsible for” and “worked on” describe a job description rather than a person. In this field these do the work instead:

Designed · Prototyped · Researched · Tested · Simplified · Rebuilt · Facilitated

What gets one rejected

A portfolio link is mandatory. A design CV without one is usually discarded.

Length

1 to 2 pages is normal for this field.

Build a Design CV See a worked example

Free, no account, and nothing is uploaded — the builder runs in your browser and the CV never leaves it.

Common questions

What should a design CV include?

A design CV has to carry work experience and selected work. The order this field expects is professional summary, work experience, selected work and skills.

What goes first on a design CV?

The professional summary. That is where this field's convention puts it, and it is what the builder applies when you pick Design.

How long should a design CV be?

1 to 2 pages is normal for this field. Going longer does not add weight; it moves the thing being looked for further down.

Is a design CV the same as a design resume?

For applying to a job, yes - the same document under two names. Resume is the usual word in North America and CV almost everywhere else. The one real exception is the academic CV, which is long-form and lists publications.

Is there a free design CV template?

Yes. ihatejob builds one to this field’s convention for free, with no account and no upload: the section order, the section names and the rating all come from the design pack described on this page. It exports to PDF, Word and plain text.

Related fields

Content · Film · Journalism