As a web designer, you have to always be on top of your game. Wasted opportunities to gain relevant experience and knowledge will probably translate into lower chances for employment. Technology and user needs are constantly changing, and you must keep track of it.
Your resume is the perfect starting point to show the employer you have what they look for in a web designer.
A great web designer should offer original design ideas, carry out all the stages of the visual design process, and use the best design practices to ensure a positive user experience.
As you can see above, a good candidate for a web designer position must have both technical and creative skills. Not only that, but you also need to have strong communication skills since you will be working closely with clients and members of other teams.
But having the right skill set is not enough. You have to make sure your resume convinces the employer that you are a perfect candidate for their company.
They need to see that you are capable of:
designing the page that best represent the company’s brand and fits the company’s branding policy
taking responsibility and lead when it comes to the design process and all of its stages
testing the website at different stages of design, proofreading the content and adjusting when necessary
creating user-friendly, engaging, and effective products
collaborating with different teams, such as web developers, marketing, engineering, etc.
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We’ve created this step-by-step guide to help you create such a resume.
In the next 10-15 minutes, you’ll learn how to:
► write a perfect professional profile summary for the web designer position
► quantify your responsibilities and achievements
► format your resume
► overall, create a web designer resume that stands out from the rest and gets you hired
You'll also get:
► a template and sample for a personal profile summary
► a list of 20+ action verbs tailored to web designer's responsibilities
► five examples of metrics to quantify your achievements
► 50+ actionable tips coming from experienced recruiters and resume writers
► a free web designer resume sample
Without further ado - let's get into it!
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STARTING POINT: Web Designer Job Description
Everything you need to cover in your resume is written in the job description.
Before you start crafting the best web designer resume, you need to make sure that you understand all the responsibilities and requirements specified there.
To find the crucial information, look for sections called 'Person specification', 'Essential and desirable skills' or 'What are we looking for?'.
The job description will likely sound like this:
We are looking for a tech-savvy and creative Web Designer to work in our marketing department. The Web Designer is responsible for the visual design process in its entirety, editing content, testing the website, and ensuring stability across devices, working with back-end developers and our marketing team.
To be successful as a Web Designer, you must be creative, have strong communication skills and attention to detail. A good Web Designer will use both technical and non-technical skills to improve user experience and promote the company’s brand.
Web Designer Responsibilities:
Perform all stages of a visual design process, start to finish, following brand guidelines
Test the website and ensure stability across devices
Edit and maintain the content and imagery
Offer creative and relevant ideas
Work as a part of a multidisciplinary team that includes back-end developers, marketing department, graphic designers, etc.
Communicate design ideas using wireframes and user flows
Use the best design practices to ensure a positive user experience
Maintain up-to-date knowledge with the latest trends, standards, and technologies
Web Designer Requirements:
College degree in Web Design, Graphic Design, Information Technology, or other related fields, or 3+ years of previous website design experience
Good coding skills using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery
Proficiency with Adobe Creative Cloud, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
Advanced understanding of web design best practices and interactive design principles
Good understanding of UI/UX principles
Proficiency using content management systems, such as WordPress
Good understanding of search engine functions and optimization
Portfolio of excellent creative work
Strong problem-solving skills and verbal abilities
Outstanding visual design skills and attention to detail
Now that you know what companies will look for, we can start working on a resume that proves to hiring managers and recruiters that you’re the best candidate for the job!
Step 1: Write down your contact details.
First things first - open a new Word or Pages document and write down your name and surname.
They are the first thing employers will read on your resume. You want them to be seen and remembered.
They should be easy to find, so put them at the top of the page.
Emphasize your name. Be bold and highlight your name by using a bold font or capital letters. Increase the size of the font to differentiate it from the rest of the text. Make it pop, but not too much. Don't exaggerate by using font size 72. Using 16-24pt, depending on the font, is perfect.
Then, tell employers how to reach you. Under your name and surname, write down your location, phone number, and email address.
This part should be short, straightforward, and professional – without too many phone numbers or emails to choose from and with a formal-sounding email address.
It should look like this:
NAME SURNAME City, Country / +44 (0)203 000 000 / name.surname@email.com
Step 2: Write a perfect web designer personal statement.
Unknowingly, many candidates lose the reader’s interest in the very first sentence of their resume.
The reason is that they start with a vague sentence about their career aspirations that doesn’t add any value – it feels like it’s there just to fill the space.
This ‘full-of-buzzwords-but-meaningless’ sentence usually sounds something like this:
I’m looking for a new challenging opportunity to develop myself and progress in my career. I work well independently but enjoy working as part of a team too. Willing to support your company with my skills and knowledge.
This sentence doesn’t say anything about your skills or experience, it doesn’t help you brand yourself as a web design expert, and it doesn’t grab the reader’s attention. In other words – it’s doomed to fail.
So, avoid starting your resume with an opening sentence that sends your application into the black hole of “thanks-but-no-thanks” resumes. Instead, kick it off in the most effective way – write a powerful personal statement.
A personal statement is essentially a summary of your career.
When done correctly, a personal statement can help you position yourself as an expert and a strong candidate right from the start, which consequently increases the time that employers will dedicate to your resume and your chances of being invited to an interview.
To do it right, fill in the template below:
<adjective 1> and <adjective 2> <current job title> with more than <number> years of experience in <industry 1> and <industry 2>. Strong <key strength 1> combined with the ability to <skill 1> and <skill 2>. Extensive experience of <area of expertise 1>, <area of expertise 2> and <area of expertise 3>. <Insert action connected with your achievement> resulting in <quantify success>. Currently looking to broaden experience and utilise the existing skill set in <specific industry/company/role>.*
*The last sentence is optional.
When you include relevant keywords here, it will sound something like this:
Tech-savvy and detail-oriented web designer with 3+ years of experience in eCommerce and creative design. Strong problem-solving skills combined with the ability to generate original ideas and to execute the visual design process independently. Created landing pages for every marketing offer and product, resulting in an increased conversion rate by 45%, which led to $2 million more in profit. Extensive experience in Adobe Creative Suite, SEO, as well as communicating design ideas using wireframes.
The example above fits well with the job description that we started with.
However, it’s important to know that when it comes to your personal statement, one size won’t fit all. You’ll need to customize this paragraph for each application.
So, don't forget to tailor this section and fill it with the same keywords that you found in the job posting for your desired position.
Depending on the key aspect of the role, customize your personal statement accordingly to highlight the most relevant experience and skills.
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Step 3: Structure your work history.
The work history or the professional experience section is the most important part of your resume.
Every word you add to the work experience section counts. Therefore, this section needs to be nothing less than perfect.
The most common (and the best) way to structure it is to apply reverse chronology, starting from your current job and then listing older ones.
For all jobs you include in your resume, you need to have the following information:
name of the company
your job title
time-frame (starting date - ending date)
description of your responsibilities
Pay close attention to the formatting. Choose one formatting style and stick to it.
For example, if you decide to write the time-frames on the right side of the page, keep them there throughout the whole resume. Don't move them to the left side or anywhere else.
Additionally, if you decide to write it in the following form:
08/2016 - 07/2019
Don't mix it with:
May 2014 - July 2016
from 2014-05-15 to 2016-07-15
or any other variation
Even though this might seem like a minor thing in your resume, paying attention to such things is the best evidence of your eye for detail, which is one of the things employers expect from the best web designers.
Step 4: Describe your responsibilities and achievements.
When describing your responsibilities and achievements, the key to success is in tailoring your job descriptions to the job you are applying for and keeping only relevant information.
Going back to the job description, here is the list of responsibilities of a web designer:
Perform all stages of a visual design process, start to finish, following brand guidelines (1)
Test the website and ensure stability across devices (2)
Edit and maintain the content and imagery (3)
Offer creative and relevant ideas (4)
Work as a part of a multidisciplinary team that includes back-end developers, marketing department, graphic designers, etc. (5)
Communicate design ideas using wireframes and user flows (6)
Use the best design practices to ensure a positive user experience (7)
Maintain up-to-date knowledge with the latest trends, standards, and technologies (8)
In your resume, you need to prove to them that you can be successful at performing all these tasks.
If you want to showcase skills they are looking for in candidates, writing a job description that looks like this won’t be enough:
Web Designer ABC company, 2019 - today
Key responsibilities:
Web design
SEO optimization
UI/UX principles
It simply doesn’t say anything about what you have done. More importantly, it doesn't show what you have achieved.
Instead, describe your responsibilities in this way:
Web Designer ABC company, 2019 - today
Key responsibilities:
Designed a new, responsive website, which improved search engine ranking and led to 53% increase in organic traffic (1 and 2)
Advised on and edited the website's imagery, which increased conversion rate by 27% (3 and 4)
Decreased bounce rate by 21% and improved client satisfaction score by 53% by optimizing the website for maximum speed (7)
Don't worry if you can't capture all the requirements in your employment overview.
It's likely impossible, especially if you didn't have precisely the same job in the past.
Instead, sprinkle keywords from the job ad all over your resume. Use them in the personal profile section at the beginning of your resume, in the job descriptions of different roles, and the list of your skills.
Furthermore, in the description above, you can see a few additional rules that should be applied:
a. Use bulleted lists.
b. Start each bullet point with a verb.
c. Be consistent with the tense you are using.
e. Quantify your responsibilities or achievements whenever possible.
A. USE BULLETED LISTS
Describing responsibilities in bullet points is the gold standard of resume writing.
It is much easier to highlight the relevant information in a bulleted list. Additionally, reading bulleted lists is quicker, easier and more understandable.
Write five to seven bullet points for the most recent job.
Then, as you go down memory lane and back to your older jobs, reduce the number of bullet points. Having two to three key bullet points is more than enough.
Are you wondering how you can describe everything you have done within 3-7 bullet points?
The key to writing strong bullet points is tailoring the descriptions to the job and including only information relevant to the job.
Think about every word and bullet point you include. Then, assess the value of each sentence in your resume by asking yourself if it shows valuable experience, achievement, knowledge or a skill that you could use in the job. If the answer is "no", "not sure", or "maybe", tweak it or remove it.
B. START EACH BULLET POINT WITH A VERB
Bullet points should be concise, straightforward and focused on what you did, not on what the role was about.
To write such bullet points, avoid repetitive phrases at the beginning of each bullet point, such as ‘I am responsible for/in charge of/I did’.
Also, avoid starting with nouns.
For example, writing just 'project management is not enough.
It won't mean a lot to readers, as project management includes various activities - from developing a project to managing a project budget or completing administrative tasks to track progress.
Instead, describe your responsibilities by starting bullet points with action verbs.
The best action verbs depend on your experience and industry.
Referring to the web designer job description, it's obvious that you need to use power verbs that highlight your creativity, problem-solving skills, technical skills, and excellent communication.
So, some of the action verbs in your resume should be:
· Advanced
· Adjusted
· Consulted
· Communicated
· Created
· Designed
· Developed
· Edited
· Executed
· Generated
· Implemented
· Improved
· Maximized
· Optimized
· Planned
· Prepared
· Presented
· Programmed
· Redesigned
· Updated
· Upgraded
· Tested
C. BE CONSISTENT WITH THE TENSE YOU ARE USING
If you are talking about your previous employment or past achievements, use past simple tense – created, made, designed. When describing your current role, use present continuous tense – preparing, identifying, optimizing
D. QUANTIFY YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Numbers help readers understand the impact you’ve made in your position; they grab attention and make resumes sound much more impressive.
If there is one thing that can make your resume outstanding, it’s quantifying your achievements.
Below you can see the same job description, without any numbers:
Designed a new, responsive website (1 and 2)
Advised on and edited the website's imagery (3 and 4)
Optimized the website for maximum speed (7)
It’s okay, but it doesn’t sound as strong as it could.
For the web designer position, include some of the following metrics:
Increase in client satisfaction
Improvement in user experience
Increase in conversion rate
Boost in traffic
Decrease in bounce rate
Step 5: Include your education.
List relevant education.
Here are a few basic rules:
Start with your highest degree first.
Add other degrees in reverse-chronological order.
If you finished college, don’t add your high school information.
Add other training, qualifications or certificates only if they are relevant to the job.
What information should you include?
the type of degree you earned
major
the name of your school or college
the year you graduated
Other information, such as GPA, should be included if requested or if you are a recent graduate with an impressive GPA. Otherwise, no one will pay attention to it.
Additionally, if you are currently undergoing a professional qualification, don’t forget to specify the expected date of graduation. It is important info that shouldn’t be omitted.
Step 6: List relevant skills.
The skills section of your resume includes your abilities that are related to the jobs you are applying for.
This is not a mandatory part of a resume. However, if you want to highlight additional skills that you didn’t have a chance to apply or show in your previous jobs, this can be the right place.
Here are some relevant skills or other information to include in this section for the web designer job:
People you interacted with: clients, colleagues, marketing department, back-end developers, etc.
Tools and languages used: HMTL, CSS, JavaScript, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, WordPress, etc.
Work produced: Web pages, wireframes, user flows, etc.
Projects you contributed to: new websites, marketing campaigns, etc.
Step 7: Prepare a reference list.
Skip the 'References available upon request' sentence at the bottom of your resume.
Employers assume you have references and will ask for them, if necessary. And the most common practice is to request a reference list at the end of the hiring process, not upfront.
However, even though you don’t need to include them in your resume, we wouldn’t recommend waiting until the last minute.
Prepare a reference list in advance, securing at least three to five references.
Bear in mind that references should be people who have supervised you or had a chance to collaborate with you in an academic or hands-on setting like an internship, job or volunteer position, as they can advocate about your potential for success.
In a new document (separate from your resume), sum up the following information about your references:
name and surname
their job title and company/institution
contact details – phone number and email address
Bonus tips:
1. Give your references a heads up
Before you add someone’s name on the list, ask your references for their approval to avoid any awkward situations.
Additionally, advise them if there is anything they need to know in case your potential employer reaches out to them to avoid any confusion (e.g. if you have changed surname in the meantime since you have worked with them or if your current employer is unaware of the fact that you are actively looking for a job, so this needs to stay confidential).
2. Match formatting style
For a polished look, use the same design and formatting style on your references list that you used for your resume. Having matching documents will help you come across as a well-prepared, detail-orientated and professional candidate.
Step 8: Polish up the formatting.
Up until this point, you have been working on the content of your resume.
Now let’s put a cherry on top by polishing up the layout!
Here, little things make a big difference. Choices about font, spacing, margins and alignment affect the overall impression. Without the proper formatting, the content loses its edge.
>> You can do it on your own. Or you can save precious time and pick one of our resume templates and have your application ready in 15 minutes! <<
Here are some actionable tips:
A. Choose a professional font.
Select a professional, readable font for the body of your resume. Avoid too complex, unprofessional or hard-to-read fonts.
Choose between classic fonts as Calibri/Calibri Light, Arial, Corbel, Cambria, Georgia, Source Sans Pro/Light.
Another factor in making your words highly readable is setting an appropriate font size. Generally, you should stay between 10 and 12 points.
B. Highlight the headings.
Employers should be able to navigate through your resume with ease and they need to know where to look for specific information at first glance.
Differentiating the headings of each section in a professional way can help. You can:
● Write section letters in capital letters
● Use a bold font on your section headers
● Increase the size of your section header fonts to 12, 14 or 16 points
Underlining headers is also an option. However, underlined text tends to be hard to read, so we don't recommend it. In other words, it is an option, but not a good one.
C. Manage the white space.
Last but not least, an element that contributes to the readability of your resume is the amount of white space - an area of your resume that remains unused when separating sections and paragraphs of text.
Lack of sufficient white space can make your resume look cluttered, whereas too much can leave your resume feeling bare and lacking in content.
So, to make a resume that's easy on the eye, it’s important to achieve the right balance between white space and content.
Pay attention to:
Spacing: If your resume looks packed, increase the spacing between lines from 1.0 pt to 1.15 pt.
Margins: Margins (white space around the content) will depend on the amount of text you have. They should be between 0.5’’ to 1’’. Play around with it until you get a layout that is easy on the eye.
Alignment: The most common recommendation is to align your text to the left.
An alternative solution is to justify it (align both to the left and right, distributing your text evenly in a line). This depends on your preferences. The only option that needs to be ruled out is centering the whole content – it’s okay for headings, but not for the body of a resume.
And that’s about it!
When done carefully, this step in creating your resume can make it stand out from the pile of other resumes - even if they all come from the world’s best web designers.
SO, WHAT DID WE CREATE?
<DOWNLOAD FREE SAMPLE RESUME HERE!>
After following those eight steps, a perfect web designer resume is here!
If you followed all the instructions above, your resume will look and sound like this:
⇡ Download this sample in PDF format by clicking on the picture above. No registration required. ⇡ This resume sample is a protected document. Copyright @ Recommended By Recruiters.
LET’S RECAP:
Creating the best web designer resume can be done in eight steps:
Start with the job description. Make sure you understand the main requirements. Highlight the most important keywords, if needed, as you will need them to write your resume content.
Open a new Word or Pages document. Write down your name, surname and contact details, including location, phone number, and email address. Make it as straightforward as possible.
Write a killer personal statement by sprinkling the keywords all over the opening paragraph. Use a template or a ready-made sample we've created for you.
Describe your previous responsibilities in bullet points. Write three to seven bullet points per job. All bullet points should be relevant, specific, detailed and quantified.
List your qualifications.
If you have additional skills you couldn’t cover in the rest of your resume, include them in an additional section with the overview of your skills.
Prepare a separate reference list.
Polish up the formatting. A template can help!
And that’s it! Your resume ready to impress employers!
Do you have any questions about writing a perfect resume for the web designer position? We’d love to help! Book a FREE coaching call with our job search experts and have all your questions answered in 30 minutes.