3 Big Mistakes You Make in Your UX/UI Designer CV

Having a strong CV is your halfway to the dream job. You spend a huge amount of time writing and polishing your document. When you’re finally done, you start applying to different jobs.

Going through the interview rounds might be stressful for junior designers, so you’re sure that you’ve prepared enough. You feel like you’re in the top 1% of the candidates with a strong CV in your hands.

Suddenly your CV gets rejected again and again. As a result, you're disappointed. You're trying to understand what went wrong during your application process.?

When you analyze what is wrong with your CV, you simply might not be aware of the mistakes you did.?

As a senior UX/UI designer, and top ADP List mentor who have seen decades of mentees' resume, here are the most popular mistakes you need to avoid in your CV.

A mix of different experiences

The major goal of your application is to stand out from the crowd. There are thousands and thousands of other designers who compete with you every day.?

This is why your major goal is to make a great impression on the recruiter who will see your CV.

The biggest mistake you can do to stand out from the crowd is to show everything in your CV. By everything, I mean totally different experiences that you have.?

For example, your CV might have next experiences: designer, waiter, technical support.

By combining all these things you might be thinking that having all of them shows that you’ve been working for a long period and your CV is full enough.

This is the problem number one. Don’t mix all experiences together. Your goal is to show relevant things in your CV only.

To understand how it works, imagine yourself as a recruiter. You need to find a perfect UX/UI designer for your company.?

You’ve just published a job online and started getting responses. Furthermore, you’re waiting for a perfect candidate with design experience who might be working in a similar industry before or have relevant projects in the portfolio.

Instead, you get CVs that are filled with different irrelevant experiences, and you don’t know what to do with these candidates.

Do these candidates are switchers or just trying to get any job available on the market? If the candidate is a switcher, what amount of projects does he or she have?

Thinking in a way that recruiters do immediately explains why having different irrelevant experiences is a big problem. You don’t stand out from the crowd.?

Instead, you are getting behind other candidates because of these experiences.

When you start your UX/UI design career, forget about your previous path. You don’t have commercial experience? It’s not a problem. Concentrate on your projects.

Recruiters are looking for experience and knowledge in the industry. If you don’t have experience yet, showcase your projects.?

It’s a unique way to stand out from the crowd. For example, the company you want to get into is a restaurant.

If your portfolio has websites or apps with a restaurant focus, you immediately stand out from other candidates.

If you want to have experience in your CV and this is crucial, help a non-profit company as a volunteer. While you don’t get paid, you get experience for your CV.

Vague descriptions

Now you know that having a perfect fit for a job is very important, and you’re ready to improve your CV.?

If you have a perfect fit with your experience for the company already, but your resume still gets denied, you might have another reason for it.

Problem number two I frequently see in my mentee's resume is vague information inside the experience section.

To understand better what vague in your resume means, compare these two lines:

• Created products for fintech companies.
• Created 5 B2B apps for the fintech companies, increased user satisfaction by 20%, and improved clients’ databases by 5%.

As a recruiter, what line does stand out to you? Is it the first or second? I believe that you’ve selected the second because the first is too vague.

All UX/UI designers create more or less similar products. This is why it doesn’t bring any value to your CV if you use generic descriptions.

But when you say exact achievements, especially with digits, this is highly valuable information for a recruiter. This is what they always look for in your CV.

A recruiter needs to see a perfect fit with your experience and achievements. There is no reason to hire another designer that can do the same as other designers are already doing at the company.?

But if you can bring something unique to the company, you’re a highly valuable candidate.

Recruiters spend for every CV not more than 7 seconds. If your CV doesn’t have anything interesting for them, your CV will be moved out of their review process. This is why you need to prepare your document for this situation.

How to be sure that your CV is well-prepared? Review your CV with fresh eyes for a few seconds.?

What is the most important information you get within 7 seconds? If it’s only your name and contacts, your CV won’t perform well.

Use bold text or accent color to highlight your achievements, so recruiters will immediately be pointed to the most important part of your CV.

Don’t underline everything in your CV, but only the most important information, so the general CV structure will be still appealing to recruiters.

Try to use digits in your document. The more achievements in digits you have, the better. Even if it’s 2 or 3, it’s something that you can always add to your description area.

Unstructured layout

Now you know what experience to include and how to write descriptions. I believe that your first idea right now is to include as much relevant info as possible, which is great.

There is only one last mistake that you can make. Don’t get crazy with your CV layout by writing too many lines so that there is no space in your CV anymore.

Yes, I know that you want to include all things right now, but remember that you have 1 page only, and your CV should be easy to read for recruiters. The rule of 7 seconds is still up-to-date for you.

Here is where your design skills are needed. Once you’re done with your CV improvements, take a 5-min break and review your CV again.?

Get the whole page in front of your eyes and start analyzing it.?

You need to make sure that every section is distinguished from each other and doesn’t look like a mess.

Think about your CV as a website layout with a header, sidebar, main body, and footer. Every section is unique, but there is a whole layout that connects everything in a union.

Is your CV accurate? Do you have a well-structured section inside of it? Recruiters will quickly look at every section, and if they can’t understand your CV easily, your chances to get into the next round of the application will be lost.

If your CV has good separate sections, then move to the next round of checks.

Look at your experiences sections. Does every description is easy to read? Can you easily distinguish descriptions from each other? Does this principle also apply to the details of other sections?

In the experiences section, you can add bullets to help visualize every description you have.?

For the skills, you can use a grid layout to include relevant skills.

Your CV need to have not only big components aligned with each other but smaller components in them as well.

As you know great design is great because of the details. The same thing happens to your resume.

Apply the design system principle to your CV. Start with small elements and combine them into bigger ones.

Allow your CV to be spacious and easy to read for recruiters. If you have enough white space, it increases the speed of reading.

If you follow these steps, you will avoid major mistakes most junior designers do, which means increasing your chances to get your dream job.

Final thoughts

Having a strong CV is the only way to be hired. Before you get into the technical interview, recruiters will read your CV and decide whether you can move to the next round.

This is why it’s super important to prepare your document for the interview and avoid the mistakes of other junior designers.?

Make sure that your CV is well-structured, has relevant experience and descriptions. Try to add something unique about yourself.

Remember that recruiters are looking not only for a great professional but also for individuality. Your CV is the only chance to show everything at once, so prepare your CV today and start applying for the job of your dream.

If you want to learn more about me, visit my personal website.