How to Apply for Graphic Design Job

Cover Letter Always include a cover letter. And not the kind where you copy and paste the name and job title into it. Research the company, read the full description and make it personalized towards the job post for which you’re applying. Your cover letter should get a potential employer excited to look at your resume and the rest of your submission materials. Make your resume a reflection of your talent. Your resume should not be basic. You are a designer- portray this through your resume. The overall look of your resume should be professional but also demonstrate some of your design skills and personality. Other Resume Tips:

• Highlight what skills you really need for a design job. If you’re a Photoshop pro, make sure that is listed and not the fact that you are skilled in Microsoft Word. Everyone under the age of 65 is proficient in Word. That’s like saying you’re fluent in English.

• Don’t include every job you’ve ever done if it’s not relevant to the position you’re applying for. At the same time, you don’t want a potential employer to think you’ve been doing nothing by leaving big gaps in your employment history. Split your resume into “Professional Work Experience” where you can highlight jobs relevant to the position and “Other Work Experience” where you can add the part-time gigs you held in college.

• Make sure everything fits on one page. A pretty standard rule to follow in terms of resume length is one page for every ten years you’ve been in the work force.

• Use a professional and modern font. If your font is still the default font then you aren’t trying hard enough.

• Your resume should be submitted as a PDF file. If you submit it as a Word Doc, your employer could be looking at it with different settings or a different version entirely and the whole format could get messed up.

Include a link to your online portfolio. Applying for a design job without including some sort of work is like putting a braille sign behind glass: pointless. More Portfolio Tips:

• Showcase only your best design projects. There is no need to include every project you’ve ever done. Narrow down your portfolio to only your best designs that you’re really proud of.

• Include a variety of different design mediums. This is only if you’re applying for an overall design job. If you’re applying to be a web designer you should mainly showcase other web design jobs you’ve done.

• Give credit where credit is due. Make sure you point out what part of the project you specifically contributed to. If you didn’t write the copy or develop the website, make sure you note this in the portfolio and give proper attribution to who did.

We're currently looking for a Graphic Designer to join our team on a part-time or internship basis! View the job description. When you're ready to apply, follow the steps above and send your materials to therese.kuster@mudd.com.