I’ve been looking at a lot of designer’s CVs recently (read resumé if you’re not British). Hiring can be uplifting and inspiring but it can also be a touch frustrating. Here’s a list of the little things that really irritate me about your design CV:

1. Fucking skills charts

Once upon a time, somebody somewhere thought it’d be a good idea to rate their skills by way of bar-chart. It was — and still is — a crap idea. But that doesn’t stop every-design-graduate-ever carefully crafting their very own barometer of bullshit.

2. Making your CV in Photoshop

My bar is pretty low when it comes to CV design; it basically needs to be legible and not set in Papyrus. And not a jpeg. Or a jpeg inserted into a PDF. Yeah I know you can do some fancy shit with Photoshop (your bar chart says so). But did you have to make your CV a 10MB, multi-coloured mess?

I can’t copy and paste any of your details, which is kind of a problem if I actually wanted to contact you. Fortunately, I do not.

3. Mentioning how proficient you are at Microsoft Office

It’s the 21st century. This is not a fucking “key skill”. It’s about as impressive as being able to tie your own shoelaces.

4. Any more than a sentence about your job at Costa Coffee

I get it; you learnt teamwork and shit. But unless you’re telling me an anecdote about the time Dieter Rams came in ordered a skinny decaf caramel macchiato (oh the irony), it’s not relevant to this design role.

5. Listing your GCSE results in full

That B in Media Studies will do you zero favours my friend.

Dude, you’re meant to be a designer, could you not have designed your own CV? Or at least tried to choose a template that isn’t the third most popular Behance project of all time?

I’ve honestly been sent this template an alarming number of times.

The little things matter

We all make mistakes when starting out (I certainly did). But let’s learn from one another. Everybody and their dog wants to work as a designer nowadays and it’s hard enough as it is to get a foot in the door. So try not to trip over the little things on your way there.

What’s the most annoying thing you’ve seen on a design CV?

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