Cora's Blog: Resume Writing Workshop (Creative Niche Inc.)

This week the class had a Resume Writing Workshop with Creative Niche Inc. presented by Adele Wootton, Director of Client Services, and Stephen Hodges, President. The presentation was very informative about resume writing and ways how to break into the design industry.

A little about Adele and Stephen:
Adele has had over 20 years of advertising industry experience and some of her past jobs include being a print production manager, studio manager, project manager, and account manager. She currently has been a recruiter for 10 years. Stephen has over 20 years of design industry experience and some of his past jobs include being a graphic designer, production manager, and studio manager. He has been in the recruitment industry for 13 years.

A little about Creative Niche:

Creative Niche is a business services agency that matches outstanding advertising, communications, design, marketing, and interactive professionals with their clients’ job opportunities. The company has a team that includes former account service, project management, design, and production professionals.

Creative Niche talked about current market trends, which include:

digital, interactive, web
mobile
rich internet applications
social networking

As well, they talked about how when looking for jobs we should look for obvious job titles (production artist, graphic designer, etc), less obvious (studio manager, production manager, content manager, project manager, etc), and not so obvious (U/X designer, SEO/SEM specialist, online community manager, etc). We also talked about different work environments, such as advertising agencies, design firms, studios, independent contractor, freelancer, and freelancing through recruitment agencies.

Ways of finding work and ways to research:

through Creative Niche
general job search websites and publications
industry-related websites and publications
social networking
professional member associations
potential employer websites
recruitment agencies

Ways to research for jobs include identifying a list of potential employers, research market trends, consider your needs and goals, and carefully read job descriptions.

How do you assess your skills?

do an inventory of your skills, abilities, accomplishments, and achievements.
create sample case studies of your contributions to clients and employers.
create PARs, which is a great exercise for thinking about your accomplishments. Problem (what challenge did you face), Action (what action did you take to overcome the challenge), Result (what was the result of your effort).

Other important topics for resume writing:

how to identify your soft skills (universal skills that your can use for any job, such as patience, sociable, resourceful, and strong communication).
how to write your objective (quick statement including your title or how your skills can impact the company).
how to write your experience (ex. being concise and specific about your accomplishments with high-impact statements. An example of a good statement is: secured $200,000 account by creating high-quality mock-ups, storyboards, and editorial communications).
writing your education (ex. with over two years experience in the field, don’t put your education at the top and write descriptions of your programs.

Some interesting hints were given for the format and design of the resume: