If you’re hoping to launch a career in a creative industry sector, you’ll need a CV that showcases your creative skills as well as your experience and technical expertise. Although your CV is a formal, professional document, there’s plenty of scope for showing your creativity. In this article, we discuss how to produce a CV that’s both professional and reflects your personality and creative mindset.
What are creative industries?
The creative industries typically include the following:
- Film, video, TV, animation, visual effects
- Radio
- Photography
- Performing arts, including theatre and music
- Visual arts, such as painting or sculpture
- Museums, galleries and heritage sites
- Design, including graphic design, product design and fashion design
- Architecture
- Advertising and marketing
Within these industries there are various roles you could work in. Not all jobs in creative industries require creative skills. However, regardless of what organisation or role you’re applying for, if it’s within a creative sector, you typically have some scope to include creative elements in your CV.
What should be in my CV for creative industries?
Resumes for creatives should still include all the key sections of any standard CV. While you have the opportunity to express your creativity, this shouldn’t come at the expense of presenting your skills in a professional manner. Most CVs include the sections listed below. Make sure yours includes these details, and later in the article, we’ll show you how to add flourishes of creativity to enhance the document and stand out from other candidates:
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CV header: your header typically includes your name, your location and your contact details, including your email address and phone number. You can also add your LinkedIn profile, any other social channels that might be useful, and links to a personal website or portfolio.
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CV summary: this section provides a two-to-three-sentence summary of your skills and experience. Focus on a couple of your strongest skills, and also consider mentioning why you want the job and how it fits with your career ambitions.
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Work experience: list your relevant work experience in reverse-chronological order, starting with your current or most recent role. Add details of your responsibilities and achievements, reflecting the job description and showcasing what you can bring to the role.
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Education: add your highest or most relevant qualifications in reverse chronological order. If you have space, list specific areas of specialism, awards you won or societies you were a member of while studying.
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Skills: review the job description and add any skills you have that match those listed. Pay attention to technical skills as well as soft, transferable skills and include a mix of both.
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Optional sections: you can also add any relevant certifications or training, language skills, hobbies and interests or voluntary work, if any of these help you prove your worth to employers.
How can I adapt my CV for creative roles?
When you’re producing a CV for creative roles, consider these tips to help you express your personal style in the most impactful way:
Think about your brand: brands convey a clear, concise visual identity that you can easily recognise and remember. Think about your ‘brand’ and the way you want employers to perceive you before you start designing your CV.
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Use icons: icons can help you add some visual design flourishes without detracting from the written content of your CV. Use icon packs that offer simple and consistent styling to highlight the separate sections of your CV, experiences or key skills in your skills list.
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Add infographics: data visualisations can be a great way to showcase graphic design skills while summarising your achievements in different roles. Rather than simply listing your responsibilities in previous jobs, your CV should focus on showing the impact you can make. This gives you the opportunity to create engaging infographics that show how you’ve made a difference in your career to date.
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Develop a consistent visual identity: use colour accents, different fonts, columns, bold text and other subtle design elements to create a visual identity for your CV that you can carry across to your cover letter. Consistent styling can show you understand branding and how to communicate visually.
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Include examples of your work: if your creative work is visual in nature, you could include examples of it within the body of your CV. This might mean adding illustrations, graphic designs, website or app screenshots or visual art you’ve produced. Just make sure any images you include don’t detract from the written content of your CV.
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Consider a video resume: for certain creative roles, a video resume can be an ideal way to show your initiative and production skills. Just remember that you may still need to produce a written CV to pass the initial recruitment stages. Check the job advert to make sure the employer is receptive to alternative forms of application before you start your production.
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Add portfolio links: if you prefer to submit a traditional CV with minimal creative design elements, add a link to somewhere the hiring manager can check your creative talents for themselves. This might be a portfolio, a show reel or even a social media profile that documents your creative output.
Top tips for the perfect creative industries resume
Follow these tips for a creative CV that showcases your creativity while demonstrating you can conform to professional, corporate standards:
Use clear headings and sections One shortcoming of creative resumes is their potential lack of compatibility with applicant tracking systems (ATS). These systems scan and rank CVs according to their perceived suitability for the role. They usually search the text of each CV for keywords and phrases that match the job description. As such, you’ll need to make sure your creative CV uses clear section headings and enough text to prove a strong match to the job description.
Tailor your CV
It’s essential to adapt your CV for every job application. This gives you the best chance of demonstrating how and why you’re a suitable candidate for the job. Tailoring your CV can make it harder to include complex, intricate design elements, so consider reusability with every creative element you include.
Check your resume for functionality
When you’re drafting a creative CV, it can be easy to get caught up in the design features and lose sight of the actual content. There’s no point in making a CV that looks great but doesn’t show how you’re capable of doing the job advertised. Keep this in the forefront of your mind for all design decisions, and when drafting the written content of your application.
Proofread your CV
Although a creative CV is an expression of your personal style and creativity, employers are still going to value accuracy and professionalism. Hiring managers can be put off by spelling and grammar errors. Accuracy and professionalism is essential, so proofread your CV, including all headings and visual elements, before you send it.
Use an online CV maker
If you want to balance written content and visual flourishes that catch the eye of the reader, you might consider using an online CV maker. They provide ready-made templates with colour accents and design features to enhance the content of your CV in a few quick and easy steps.
