CVs and interviews

Graphic Design and Illustration

Your Personal Brand Market research Product development Effective packaging

First glance check

CV sections
Personal details Career aim/ profile Education Employment Skills Achievements References Emphasise your selling points through your space allocation

Personal details
Name is the heading Include address, email, telephone Include link to online portfolio Add social media link Professional emails only

Profile/ career aim

Highlight selling points State your aim Eg
Recent graduate in Tourism and French with experience of work in a busy tourist information centre and high level customer care skills, now seeking to pursue a career in the promotion and development of local tourism.

Selling points could be

Qualities Skills Degree title Project work Work experience

Career aim could focus on:

Who you want to work with What kind of products you want to produce How the employer describes themselves

Were a family of creatives, from the worlds of digital design, branding, advertising, and marketing. As a team we work to create solutions that deliver tangible results. http://www.purethoughtdesign.co.uk/

Education
Reverse chronological order Include: dates, where and what you studied, grades? Consider adding: Project work, modules, other achievements

Employment
Employment, experience, work experience, voluntary work? Include: dates, where you worked, job title Include description of what you did/ skills? No solid blocks of text Reverse chronological order Consider having two employment sections?

Eg English Language Assistant

Organised and delivered conversation classes to groups of students Utilised a variety of teaching resources, including a language laboratory Produced a leaflet for students to help them locate appropriate online resources to develop their English Developed a resourceful, imaginative approach to teaching in order to inspire my students

Other sections
Skills - List technical skills Skills - List transferable skills or embed in other sections? Achievements competitions, attendance on short courses, anything else Interests include? References available on request?

Interviews

First glance check

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What will they ask?

Tell us about your career ambitions
Why you have applied for the job? Please tell me about a time when. Questions about your portfolio/ your design approach

Questions about the company/ organisation, sector/ industry

What would you do if..?

Why have you applied for this job?

Eg Kate Show that you can do the job by giving a broad overview of your education and work experience
Show enthusiasm by stating: how the job fits in with you career plans, why you want to work for that employer in particular etc

Competency questions
Common skills Communication and interpersonal skills Team work, leadership Time management, planning organisation Commercial awareness Problem solving, creativity What skills are necessary for the job youve applied? Tell me about a time when you successfully pitched a novel idea to an audience and secured their buy in? Tell me about a time when you worked with other creatives to produce a response to a design brief?

When answering
Situation Task Action Result

Sample STAR
Describe a challenging project you have planned and taken through to a conclusion

STAR
Situation During my first year at university Task I carried out an assignment where I created a website for a small business. The website had to be user friendly, all links had to work effectively and the website had to be displayed on the universitys server.

STAR
Action I arranged meetings with the end user to talk about the design, colours and layout that he would like, and to identify the content from his old website that he would like to retain in the new one. I demonstrated sample designs to help him clarify his ideas. We discussed the companys values and how they could be reflected. I also met with the university webmaster to find out the web authoring packages that were compatible with the university website, and decided to use Dreamweaver. I created a mock-up of a home page and a suggested navigation, which I presented to the end user in a second meeting.

STAR
Result The end user was impressed with my proposals and offered me a temporary contract for the Summer vacation to implement the website. You can see the website I created on www.website.co.uk. I developed skills in negotiation and presentation, as well as gaining new skills in the use of Dreamweaver. I achieved a high grade for the assignment.

Your portfolio
Task/ brief Action
What did you do from start to finish Original concepts/ inspirations? Where did they come from? How did you develop them? How did you select the final concept? How do the specific features meet the brief?

End result?

Company/ job knowledge

What do you know about us? What are we famous for? What sets us apart from our competitors? What do you think of our branding? What is the purpose of design? (educate/ inform, improve customer loyalty, improve sales?)

Preparation
Prepare answer to introductory question Prep skills stories Research company and role Prep your questions Create your portfolio Plan how youll get there/ timings etc

More support
Careers Advisers Mon Fri, 11 4 in MB Lisa.price@wlv.ac.uk www.wlv.ac.uk/careers (Job seeking skills) Jobs and events (in particular MBTI 17th Feb)