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This article is from March 12, 2013, and is no longer current.

25 Creative CVs and Resumés

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If your resume and CV (curriculum vitae, definition) look like the one below, then you’re failing to impress prospective employers, partners, and clients. You’re a creative professional! Look like it! Everything you produce with your name on it should sell you and your creative skills. Let accountants and sales people stick with the black on white, block-style resumes and CVs; as a designer you need a CV that stands out. I like to think of it like this: If all the applicants’ CVs are printed, and someone drops the stack of printouts, you want yours to be so eye catching it’s the one the interviewer picks up first.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The above example will never be the first one picked up.

By contrast, the 25 CVs and resumes shown below will stand out. Let them inspire you to greater employability! Click on each to visit the full version on the creator’s page.

Please note: This article links to resources hosted on external Web sites outside of the control of CreativePro.com. At any time those Web sites may close down, change their site or permalink structures, remove content, or take other actions that may render one or more of the above links invalid. As such neither Pariah S. Burke nor CreativePro.com can guarantee the availability of the third-party resources linked to in this article.

Pariah S. Burke is the author of many books and articles that empower, inform, and connect creative professionals.
  • Pariah Burke says:

    True, online applications require easily parseable formats for database processing. Online applications aren’t the only ones available. In the day when EVERYONE applies via forms and email, the resumes and CVs mailed PHYSICALLY get the most attention.

  • Anonymous says:

    These examples (excluding John Doe’s…sorry!) are a great “kick in the butt” and “get moving” type of inspiration. I’m over due for refurbishing my portfolio and cv!

  • Anonymous says:

    Are you kidding!? If one of the above resume crossed my desk, it would take a supreme act of self-control to keep from crumpling it.

    Moving past the glaring examples of things you definitely should NOT do as a designer, they all smack of desperation. When I want to see your portfolio, I’ll ask; don’t stick your foot in my door like some Admen wannabe.

  • RobinJane says:

    Pariah, I usually love your posts, but I have to say that in my last job search, I was told over and over that the employers ONLY accept the online applications, and ones that were physically mailed were disregarded. In several cases I got attention by faxing (in fact, that’s how I got my current job), but I also got a lot of negative feedback from that as well. In a very small percentage of cases, my fax got to the right person before a job was advertised. I heard a lot, “We were thinking that we need this, this, and this, and then your resume came in and we decided to create the position.” But in every case, the resumes that were physically mailed were disregarded.

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