Art Director CV Example

An art director CV that's well-written, engaging and showcases the most relevant skills and experience gives you the best chance of progressing to the next stage of the recruitment process. Let’s take a closer look at the key parts of a CV and how to shape them so they communicate your creative vision as clearly as your experience.

Key sections of an art director CV

Your strategy for writing an art director CV will depend heavily on your experience, your level of seniority and the requirements listed in the job description.

However, regardless of your seniority, an art director CV needs to tell a cohesive story of your professional growth. In the following sections, we’ll dive into each part of the CV step-by-step, starting with your header and moving through to your professional achievements.

CV Header

Start your art director CV by adding a professional-looking header that contains all your relevant contact information. Include your name, email address, phone number and location (your full address isn't typically necessary for UK job applications). Additionally, listing your LinkedIn profile in your CV header can be valuable. It serves to provide more detailed information about your career journey, your qualifications and your industry standing, in an easily accessible way.

For UK applications, it's not usually advisable to include a personal photo or any other personal details, such as your age, gender, nationality or ethnicity. These can risk introducing bias to the decision-making process and are discouraged under the terms of the Equality Act 2010.

CV Summary

Below your CV header, the next section tends to be a CV summary or CV objective. This paragraph briefly explains a few of your key skills and qualities, so employers can easily understand whether you're likely to be a suitable candidate for the art director job. The CV objective provides an alternative to the standard CV summary. While the CV summary focuses on your skills and achievements through your work experience, a CV objective highlights your ambitions and plans for the future, including how the role fits with these. This makes it ideal for junior candidates.

In your summary or objective, write two or three sentences introducing your key skills, unique qualities and career achievements, making sure they match the key requirements listed in the job description.

An effective CV summary will focus on a few of the key skills required for the role and show how you've put them to good use in your career to date. You'll want to give the reader a good impression of your unique qualities and briefly provide evidence of their impact in previous roles. Below you'll find an example of a strong art director CV summary.

Above is an example of a less effective CV summary, with some subtle, yet notable differences. Common mistakes that lead to an ineffective summary include a lack of quantifiable experience, vague statements or failing to tailor your summary to the job description. Long, rambling sentences that lack structure can also make your summary harder to read.

Work History

A CV's work experience section is usually its most important element. Employers tend to value the work experience section, as it shows evidence of how you've put your relevant skills to good use in your career to date. Always take the time to tailor this section, including keywords and phrases that match the job description. This will help employers to judge how strong a fit you are for the role, and how you might apply your skills for the benefit of the organisation.

This section should contain a list of your most relevant previous jobs in the last 10 or 15 years. Add the job title, the name of the employer, its location and your dates of employment. Include detail in bullet points, outlining the skills you used in the role and the impact they made.

What differentiates one CV work experience section from all the others is the use of action verbs and quantifiable evidence in your bullet points. It should showcase how your actions led to positive outcomes for the employer, and show a progression in your skills throughout your career. Take a look at this art director CV example work experience section for inspiration:

Take a look at a less strong art director CV work experience section above. An unengaging work experience section could be too generic, focusing too much on day-to-day duties rather than skills and achievements. It could also fail to address the job description or lack evidence to show the impact you've made in your career to date.

Professional Portfolio

For some applications, including a link in your CV to a career portfolio or examples of your previous work can be advantageous.

Portfolios are typically favoured by creatives or candidates who produce work of a visual nature. However, there's no reason you can't showcase any type of work sample in your CV, assuming you can upload it or find it online. There are several approaches to adding your work samples to your CV. You could add a link to an externally hosted portfolio, either in its own section or in your CV header. Alternatively, you could add links to separate work examples hosted either on a company website (such as case studies), or on your LinkedIn profile.

Education

In your education section you'll want to list your highest and most recent qualifications, particularly if they're a requirement for the role.

Art director roles typically require candidates to have a relevant university degree, and you'll want to showcase this in your CV to confirm your eligibility. Add your Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Graphic Design or another related degree that makes you an eligible candidate for the position, in your CV. If you have any other degrees or qualifications that highlight 3D modelling and rendering, brand identity development skills or your most relevant skills, you could also add these.

When listing your qualifications in your education section, select only the most suitable qualifications and list them in reverse-chronological order, starting with the most recent and working backwards. For each qualification, add its name and level, the awarding body or institution, its location (if necessary) and your dates of attendance or graduation. If you want to emphasise your education in your CV, include bullet points showing specialist areas of study, projects, awards, society memberships or anything else that helps show you've got the necessary skills for the job.

If you have any specialist certifications or licences that are necessary for the role, or help you stand out above other candidates, you may wish to mention them here. When adding any special licences, it's a good idea to also reference their expiry or renewal dates, if applicable.

Skills

In your CV skills section, include a combination of the key hard and soft skills you possess, that make you a suitable candidate for the position. Make sure your skills list reflects the requirements specified in the job description, and include a few skills that are unique to you, and help set you apart from the pack. For an art director CV, it's essential to include relevant skills for the role that match your skill set, such as collaboration and typography and layout expertise, to impress the reader and show you're qualified for the art director position.

Hard Skills

Hard skills are the specialist technical skills that are essential for carrying out the duties of the role. They might be developed through study, on-the-job training or experience in the industry, and some hard skills may require a licence or certification. For art director roles, key hard skills you've gained, such as adobe creative suite proficiency, and UX UI design proficiency, are typically among the most critical for the job. Firstly, check the job description, then add four or five key hard skills in your CV that help the employer to decide if you're a good fit for the role.

The best hard skills section will contain a mix of your strongest technical skills and those listed in the job description as 'essential' or 'desirable'. The closer your skills list is to matching the essential job description skills, the better your chances of success.

See below for examples of skills that are frequently included in the hard skills section of an art director CV:

Soft Skills

Soft skills are distinct from hard skills and tend to reflect your inherent personal qualities and strengths. These are often more transferable to different roles, and help the reader understand your working style, and your likely fit to the team and the organisational culture. Transferable skills are among the most in-demand skills for employers, with rapidly changing and evolving ways of working requiring ever-more flexible and adaptable employees. Soft skills are also highly valuable for junior and entry-level positions, where candidates aren't expected to have a wealth of relevant work experience and career achievements.

Just like the hard skills section, begin by reviewing the job description to learn the most desirable soft skills to include in your art director CV. Only add soft skills that you can provide evidence for throughout your CV. Create a list of four or five transferable skills, combining the most essential skills from the job description with the skills that help you to stand out as a unique and compelling candidate for the position.

Below is a selection of soft skills regularly featured in an art director CV.

Certifications, Training and Licences

Depending on the role and your qualifications, it might be necessary to include a certifications section. It can be a valuable way of differentiating yourself from other candidates and showing employers your dedication, motivation and commitment to professional development. Furthermore, if there are any necessary certifications or licences for the job, this CV section takes on even more importance. If you're applying for a technical role or a position that involves the use of specialist software or equipment, these might make it more necessary to include a section showcasing your training.

See below for a list of example certifications and licences you might add to your CV for art director roles:

Language Skills

If you speak a foreign language, it can be beneficial to include a languages section on your art director CV. Whether languages are a requirement of the job description or not, if your CV lists additional languages, this typically reflects well on you as a candidate. Within this section, list the foreign languages you speak to a reasonable degree of competence, together with an indicator of your skill levels.

There are several methods of confirming your foreign language skills on your CV. The simplest way is by assigning a basic descriptive word, such as:

• English: Fluent
• Spanish: Intermediate

You might choose to adopt an international standard framework for languages, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This assigns a standardised level to your language skills, for example:

• A1: Beginner
• A2: Elementary
• B1: Intermediate
• B2: Upper intermediate
• C1: Advanced
• C2: Proficiency

Optional Sections

In addition to the core sections of your CV, optional sections can be a useful way of proving you've got the necessary art director skills. If you're unable to show you have all the necessary skills for the job through your work experience, optional sections can be a valid way of providing further evidence of your suitability, to give you the chance of gaining an interview. If you're an entry-level candidate or a career changer, optional sections can be particularly valuable.

Explore our career resources for practical strategies to make your CV stand out and move you closer to landing an interview.

Hobbies and Interests

If you have any hobbies and interests that can showcase skills relevant to the job description, it might be worth including them. Additionally, hobbies and interests are an ideal way to show the employers some elements of your personality and interests beyond work, which can set you apart from other candidates. However, only mention hobbies and interests that are relevant to the role, and that help you prove skills that you haven't been able to show in your work experience or other CV sections.

Achievements

Creating a list of your key career achievements can be an effective way of drawing attention to the things you're most proud of from your career. If you've won any awards or achieved any key milestones in your career to date, you might want to mention them here.

Volunteer Roles

Another way of showing employers your skills and experience is through volunteer roles. If you're struggling to show you have the necessary credentials through your work experience, volunteering can provide valuable examples of how you've put your skills into action. In your volunteering section, use a similar structure to your work experience section.

Add your job title or a description of the volunteer role, the organisation name, its location and the dates you volunteered (start and end date). Under this, add bullet points to show the skills you used, and evidence of how they contributed to positive achievements for the organisation.

References

For UK job applications, it's rare to include references on a CV. However, it's a good idea to check the job advert and have some references ready to go in case the employer wants you to include them on your CV. If the employer requests references on your CV, choose two or three, and always approach them for permission before including them.

Add their name, their job title, the organisation and their contact details. As an alternative, you could add a brief line confirming you're able to supply references when necessary, such as 'references are available upon request'.

Best action words for an art director CV

Using strong action verbs in your work experience bullet points gives you the opportunity to show how you've applied skills to good effect in previous roles. Starting each bullet point with an action verb, such as 'delivered', 'collaborated' or 'developed' also allows you to show your key skills and qualities in a way that's easily identifiable for the reader. Remember to always back up the action verbs you use with quantifiable evidence that shows the impact you made. You can use past tense for any action verbs describing previous jobs, with present tense for action verbs to describe your current role and responsibilities.

Art director CV example

Now that you're aware of the key steps to creating a winning art director CV, you can review a complete example to see how a final CV looks:

If you want to get a feel for how your CV will look once you finalise its design and layout, check out our CV examples for inspiration.

Guide to CV ATS optimisation

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are becoming more and more integral to the recruitment process for many employers. These systems ease the burden of the recruitment process by performing various tasks, including scanning and ranking CVs based on their likely fit to the job description. By taking on this task, the systems can save hiring managers the time and effort of reviewing every CV in detail. With vacancies regularly receiving hundreds of applications, this can increase the efficiency of the recruitment process.

Because ATS software is becoming more common in the recruitment process, it's important to make some concessions in your CV to give yourself the best chance of progressing beyond the initial screening. With that in mind, here are some tips on preparing your CV for ATS screening:

• Include keywords and phrases from the job description that are easy for ATS apps to identify, and help make you appear a strong fit for the role.
• Use standard CV headings that make your CV easier to navigate, such as 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Choose a simple, straightforward CV layout with clear, consistent formatting, that avoids text boxes, graphics or other special design elements, as these can make your CV harder to scan.
• Select a font that increases the readability of your CV, such as popular serif and sans serif fonts, between the sizes of 10 and 12 for main text and 14 and 16 for headings.
• Use bullet points in place of full sentences and paragraphs. This can reduce the overall length of the document, make the keywords stand out and make it easier for ATS apps to scan.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the steps to creating an ATS-compatible art director CV, but a few small changes can make a big difference. To smooth the process, use one of our expert-designed, ATS-optimised CV templates to increase your chances of success at this stage of the screening process.

Key takeaways for an impactful art director CV

To grab the attention of the reader with your CV, tailor it to the exact specifications of the job description, incorporating keywords and phrases that match the employer's requirements. Pick a CV format that matches your experience level, and focus on showing the reader how you've developed relevant skills and put them to good use to add value for previous employers.

Finally, using a clean, professional CV template like those offered by Jobseeker, can help your CV stand out among its competitors and give you the best chance of success with your applications.

Citations:

1. National Careers Service, How to write a CV
2. Jobseeker, Recruitment Statistics