UX Designer Resume Examples

Before landing the dream job of a UX Designer, the design project that will help your work get noticed is your design resume. Selecting skills, qualifications, and relevant experience that Recruiters are looking for and presenting them properly can level up.

It can be easy to get lost in the details to ensure that you include everything a Hiring Manager could be looking for in a UX Designer. Don’t overthink it. As a UX Designer, empathize with the Hiring Manager that has to look at hundreds of resumes for one posting. What could your resume design do to make less work for them, improve their experience, and to ultimately see the value you could bring to their organization?

UX resumes provide a brief overview of a UX Designer’s experiences, education, skills, and accomplishments. They show how a candidate can contribute to the company and add value as a Designer. UX resumes should answer these questions:

• Who are you?
• What UX experience do you have?
• What impacts have you made as a UX Designer?
• What can you offer the company?

Before you begin writing your UX resume, there are a few steps you can take to prepare.

Similar to any UX design project, the end result should be human centered. As a UX Designer, you should approach your resume with your audience in mind. Review the job description to understand what exactly the company is looking for. The Hiring Manager or Recruiter may not have a technical background. Instead, they may be looking for specific keywords and skills, so make sure to emphasize these in your resume.

Resumes should be customized to each position you apply to. Employers want to see how your past skills and experience are relevant to their specific needs. Carefully review the job description and highlight important skills and requirements. Emphasize these skills in your resume.

Some companies use initial screening software before Hiring Managers even look at the resume. Make note of which words and phrases are used most often and include those terms in your resume. While you do not want to sound too repetitive, make sure that your resume passes their minimum requirements and lands in the hands of a human.

Browse through the company’s website and social media and search the internet for articles and news about them. Research is crucial for a UX Designer to understand their user, and the same applies when job hunting and building a resume. By looking at their work and values, you can better tailor your resume to address their needs.

Design thinking is being used by more and more companies in various departments. But not all companies share design philosophies or use design for the same objectives. Make sure to review different platforms that the company uses, or clients they have had to see how design has played a role. Reviewing past design choices also allows you to reference specific examples of their work in an interview. By becoming familiar with a company’s design approach, you can accurately speak to the value you could add in the role.

Compile a comprehensive list of your projects, experiences, and skills. Include details like the tools you used and the goals you accomplished. For each UX resume you create, refer back to this master list and select the ones that best suit the position. By doing the work now to compile your experiences, you will save yourself time and be able to showcase your best attributes when your dream job comes along.

Your resume is an opportunity to show your skills as a designer, so you want to create a pleasant user experience for the reader. Your resume should show employers your ability to organize and simplify information, which is key for a successful UX Designer.

Apply design thinking principles to your resume as you would to the pieces in your portfolio. Use your resume to show off your design sensibilities, but keep it simple, clean, and readable. Use adequate white space, maintain consistent formatting, stick with one or two fonts, and use color sparingly.

Once you’re ready to start writing, there are a few best practices that will help you build a strong UX Designer resume.

• Be concise: One page is the ideal length for a UX resume. Employers may be reviewing hundreds of applications, so keep your resume short and to the point.
• Match the job description: Avoid sending generic resumes. For each UX job you apply for, edit and rewrite your resume so it is relevant to the position and company.
• Keep it organized: Use headings and sections to structure your content. Bullet points are a good way to keep your content organized and digestible.
• Use action verbs: Choose punchy action verbs that highlight your accomplishments and contributions to a team or project. Examples of strong action verbs include: consulted, presented, coordinated, lead and advised.
• Include numbers and metrics: Use numbers to indicate the scale of your work and success. Numbers add credibility and show your impact as a UX Designer.
• Craft strong accomplishment statements: For each work experience, write an accomplishment statement in the form of action verb + task + result. For example, “Designed a new event website with user-centred design that increased registrations by 30 percent.”
• Highlight your UX experience and training: Emphasize your top skills and experiences at the beginning of each section. Start with the most relevant and interesting information so the employer will want to continue reading.
• Edit and proofread: Carefully review your resume for any spelling and grammar errors. Resumes with excessive errors are often instantly rejected. If you are sending a digital resume, check that any links you include are working.

A resume is a way to pitch your skills and qualifications to an employer. They show that you are a good fit for a position, which ultimately can land you an interview. Resumes tell a story about why your education and experience makes you the perfect candidate.

You do not necessarily have to be an expert in everything. Hiring Managers look for quality, competent people with proven creative problem solving abilities and familiarity with industry design tools.

A resume is not a list of everything you have done. Rather, it is a carefully curated snapshot of your accomplishments. Resumes should show how your UX skills and experiences would help a company succeed. A UX resume should be a holistic representation of what you have to offer, and inspire a Hiring Manager to review your portfolio.

To create a strong, well-structured UX resume, follow this general outline:

• Contact information: Include your name, email, phone number and portfolio.
• Profile/Summary/Objective: This is a brief statement that highlights your most important skills and accomplishments. It should also showcase your enthusiasm for the company and role.
• Experience: Include relevant professional experience. Time as a design intern may also apply.
• Projects: Highlight relevant UX design projects.
• Skills: Include technical skills that match the job description.
• Education: Include school name, degree/certificate and graduation date. You can also add relevant educational achievements.
• Awards/Recognition/Activities: These showcase other accomplishments that help you stand out.

The key components that you should include in a UX resume are a profile, experience, education, skills, and awards or other activities.

A profile (also called a summary or objective) can help you stand out. In two to four sentences, tell your story – why are you the best candidate for this position? If you are new to UX design, you can explain your career switch in the profile. Some job postings will not ask for a cover letter, so use your profile to highlight your accomplishments and enthusiasm.

List your relevant professional experience in a reverse timeline, so your most recent experience is first. For each entry, include your job title, employer, start and end date, and the location. Aim for two to three bullet points for each experience. Rather than simply stating your job responsibilities, frame your experience around your achievements as a Designer. For example, instead of “Designed user-centered websites”, rewrite it as, “Designed user-centered websites that maximized user engagement and cemented brand identity.

Include the name of the institution, the degree or certification, and start and end date. If you are new to UX and do not have as much work experience, you can emphasize your educational achievements and relevant coursework.

List technical skills along with tools and software that you are proficient in. Make sure these match up with the skills listed in the job description.

Highlight your relevant UX design projects. Include the title, a link, and your role in the project. Briefly describe the project and include relevant tools and skills.

In this section, list conferences, awards, and involvement in other activities or organizations, such as meetups or bootcamps. This helps show that you are active in the UX design community and are committed to expanding your craft.

The skills you put on your UX resume should be relevant to the job you are applying for. Make sure to match your skills to keywords from the job description and emphasize these on your resume.

Some of the top skills and design resources to put on a UX resume include:

• User research and user strategy
• Wireframing
• User testing
• Prototyping
• UI design
• Responsive web design
• Front-end programming (Coding)
• Information architecture
• Interaction design
• Analytics
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• User centred design
• Axure
• Principle
• After Effects
• InVision
• HTML & HTML5
• CSS Frameworks
• Python
• Sketch
• Flinto
• Framer
• ProtoPie
• POP App
• Figma
• OptimalSort
• Zeplin

The skills required to be an expert UX designer go beyond the technical. Make sure to also include soft skills that demonstrate empathy, critical thinking and growth.

NAME Phone Number Email LinkedIn Portfolio

Talented UX Designer skilled in [top skills]. Completed several projects, including [major UX accomplishment or projects]. Passionate about [UX-related passions].

Job title, Company Month, Year – Month, Year

• [Action word] [skill/task] [result/impact]
• [Action word] [skill/task] [result/impact]
• [Action word] [skill/task] [result/impact]

Job title, Company Month, Year – Month, Year

• [Action word] [skill/task] [result/impact]
• [Action word] [skill/task] [result/impact]
• [Action word] [skill/task] [result/impact]

• [Project], [Role] Brief description of project

Degree earned, School name Graduation date

• [Relevant courses]
• [Academic achievements]

• [Technical skills]
• [Software/tools]

• [Award]
• [Award]
• [Bootcamp]
• [Conference]

As a UX Designer or a UI Designer, you are expected to prioritize the user.

A Hiring Manager is the user, and your resume is the product. Make sure to keep the Hiring Manager’s experience in mind and how they want to use your resume to make their life easier. Test the user experience of your resume by sending your resume to peers and gather their insights.

If you use design thinking and think of writing a resume as you would design a product, you will put yourself in a great position to create a stand out resume and cover letter. To recap what we’ve described above, make sure to follow these resume-writing steps:

• Research the company, the role, and relevant UX design skills
• Reference designer resume examples to build a resume outline
• Add relevant education experience, work experience and UX projects to the correct section of your resume
• Highlight experience with design tools
• Craft concise bullet points using the action verb + task +result format for each experience, emphasizing successes
• Have a trusted peer proofread your UX Designer resume for grammar and spelling to make sure your experience is professionally presented

Many Designers will have similar qualifications, by ensuring you include the important information, you create the opportunity to be creative with how to make your UX resume “scroll-stopping.”