How to craft a killer Product Designer resume
By: Jimmy Foulds
Tags: Product Design, Design Thinking, Design Process, UX Design, Resume

Fresh out of a UX bootcamp, I had my sights set on working at a startup. The idea of wearing different hats along with ample learning opportunities was what really drew me. With this in mind, I reasoned that my resume probably wouldn’t be reviewed by many recruiters or hiring managers, but by my future teammates.

As designers, we’re constantly judging. Whatever our eyes happen to glance over is scrutinized at a superficial level (eg. colour, typeface and spacing) and at a methodical level (eg. is that the best way?). This scrutiny is amplified 10X when designers judge the resumes of fellow designers. So I knew mine had to be visually appealing and thoughtfully constructed so that other designers would simply consider reading it.

While it may not be the flashiest, its simplicity and functionality are what set it apart. In an interview I asked why I had been selected from over 1,000+ applications and, with a chuckle, the Director of Design said to me:

The way you designed your resume provided a delightful experience and gave us a clue that you might be able to do similarily delightful work in our platform.

I didn’t end up getting that job, but that feedback really stuck with me. With that, here are my thoughts and ideas for your consideration when crafting your own resume.

1. Make your colours mean something

The colours you use guide the reader’s eye and help distinguish important content. With only 7 seconds to impress, it’s crucial that you use colours to highlight the summary of your qualifications that you want readers to have.

For example, I used the purple highlight on the right-side column to draw the reader’s eye up from the ‘About’ section to the start of my work experience and then attract the eye down that same column. I thought highlighting my work experience had a far better chance of getting interviews versus skills, software and education.

2. Keep your line lengths ‘optimal’

A quick google search of “ideal number of characters per line” yields something like:

The optimal line length for your body text is considered to be 50–60 characters per line, including spaces (“Typographie”, E. Ruder). Other sources suggest that up to 75 characters is acceptable.

This was the main reason I designed my resume with two columns. It allowed me to condense the text under my job title to an optimal length for reading. In other templates, I’d typically seen this text run all the way across the page.

3. ATS-friendly is good for everyone

In today’s day and age, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a human won’t be the first one reading your resume. Hence, the necessity for your resume to be ATS-friendly. A quick test can be done by selecting all of the text and, while you’re selecting the text, watching how it is highlighted.

Is the text highlighted in the order you were expecting?

As you can see in the example above, the order that the text was highlighted is completely off. Not only that, my name, title and contact info weren’t even highlighted when the rest of my resume was. If you are having trouble selecting the text in an order you’d expect, it’s highly likely the ATS machine ‘reading’ your resume is going to have trouble too.

Now, see what the text selection process looks like after the resume has been optimized to be ATS-friendly.

Quite a difference right? The difference is because the reading order of the .pdf has been set and tagged so that it follows a logical order. To learn how to do this see here.

Bonus: Along with making your resume ATS-friendly, setting the reading order will ensure your reader has an easy time if they need to copy some text from your resume.

4. Link it all together

Make things easy for your reader to reference by adding links throughout your resume. At a minimum, your email address should be a mail-to link and your portfolio should be a hyperlink to your portfolio’s homepage.

There are ample opportunities throughout a resume to add links that help a reader learn more about you. Here are a few more examples.

Did you mention a project in your resume? Make sure it’s a link to your portfolio where the case study for that project lives.

Did you receive a special award or scholarship? Link to the website that explains what it was for.

Was your last company not very well know? Link to that company’s website so your reader doesn’t need to google it.

5. Matchy-matchy for the win

You are your own brand and all the materials that you share should feel like a piece of your brand. Everything, from your cover letter to your portfolio to your LinkedIn cover image to your presentation deck, should have the same look and feel as your resume.

Bringing all these elements together under one succinct umbrella demonstrates that you care about the details.