While copywriter
and art director resumes have a lot more leeway and room to be creative- there
are still certain things you should and should not do on your resume. Typos,
lies and long novels are givens –here are some additional
Things to remove from (or
never put on) your resume.
Objective.
This is super old school. And totally
unnecessary. We all know your objective is to get whatever job you’re applying
for. If you want to write a paragraph about yourself, do it on Linkedin or on your personal site.
Your GPA.
One of the great things about being a creative
is that your grades, your major in college and your GPA don’t really matter that much.
Your portfolio is everything. So make it awesome.
A ridiculous email address.
Mcv7832@gmail.com
Err…who is that? And how am I supposed to remember that? Most email services
are free, so create one that’s professional and clear - firstname.lastname@gmail.com
Anything that happened in high school or earlier.
Kind of like your GPA - irrelevant. And to the
people looking at your resume, talking about high school makes you look 7. And unqualified.
A series of short-lived jobs.
Yeah, maybe it’s not a good idea to show that
you can’t keep a job, are unreliable and probably not worth the long-term
investment to them. That may not be true – but that’s what it looks like.
Irrelevant work experiences.
Delete anything not related to advertising or being a
creative (writing or designing, etc). Feel free to bring up the fact that you were a caddy for five years or a waiter for two years in conversation.
Passive Language
Each bullet should start with an action verb –
Created, concepted, worked on etc.
Personal pronouns.
No need to write “I did xyz” – If you didn’t do all the stuff that’s on
your resume, then we’ve got a bigger problem.
Broad, general statements.
“Worked with team to create ads.” is essentially
the same as saying me saying “I’m a female.” Duh. Instead, be specific and skill oriented
– “Concepted and executed and integrated campaign promoting a new product
launch.” That tells me more of what you’ve
done and what you can do.
Basic Skills.
And speaking of skills: People know you can use
Word. Focus on the ones that make you stand out – the Adobe Creative Suite (a
must for art directors/designers, a perk for copywriters), Dreamweaver, HTML, Keynote,
photography, photo or film editing, motion graphics, 3D modeling, etc.
Cliches.
You and everybody and their cousin are “Team
players” and “detail-oriented” and “creative.” Use more crafted and clear
language – “collaborated with large team to blah blah blah” or “managed a
multi-agency database, tracking and maintaining an organized, fluent system for
senior creatives.”
References
Similar to your
objective, listing or even mentioning that references can be provide upon
request is not necessary. If they’re interested in you, then will suss you out,
online and in person. They’ll either call the somebody they knew at the
agencies you’ve listed or ask you to give them names and contact info.
