Read on to find out what to put on a resume when applying to motion graphics design positions.

Your LinkedIn profile, portfolio site, and resume (if you have posted it, which is a good idea) are accessed by a multitude of diverse users for various purposes in a public forum. A cover letter is a personal and direct communication with a specific individual; in fact, today’s cover letters are emails. As such, it is both an opportunity to make a distinctive and unique connection with the hiring manager and a way to support guiding the selection process. The goal of a cover letter is to win an interview.

Promoting yourself is the path to success for personal brand marketing and fully realizing your potential as a motion designer. Self-promotion can involve many skills and aspects of being a motion designer. They all work towards improving your designs and increasing your visibility in the job market and the motion design community.

According to Wikipedia, an elevator pitch “explains one's skills and goals, and why they would be a productive and beneficial person to have on a team or within a company or project.”

You aced your interview! You can take additional action to further enhance your interviewer’s impression of you by following up with a post-interview thank you email. It’s surprising how few candidates do this, mainly because it’s another opportunity to sell yourself and distinguish yourself from other candidates.

There are several excellent reasons to support your decision to move from graphic design to motion design.

Learning motion design is usually at the top of designers’ to-do list surveys. And that’s a good thing, too: the market is exploding. We see video everywhere – not just on device screens, social media, web videos, and tv/movies; notice the prevalence in retail store displays, museums and attractions, sports and music events, bus stop kiosks, supermarket checkout lines, and even highway billboards. Also, brands are increasingly expanding their implementation of video in their marketing and branding efforts. Design-wise, we live in a moving world.

You’ve done your homework: your portfolio site looks great, friends and colleagues have reviewed your resume, and your LinkedIn profile is complete – your personal brand marketing tools are ready to deploy! The next step is looking for a job or assignment.

You need a job as a graphic designer. You have a collection of projects you’ve created in (or outside of) school. Your portfolio is one of the three key tools in job hunting (along with your resume and your LinkedIn Profile). So how do you leverage your collection of projects in a portfolio? 

There is no set formula for getting freelance graphic design work, but there are two basic tracks:

• Job boards, where projects are posted and you apply for them (or you post your skills and people hire you).
• Do It Yourself (DIY) outreach, where you leverage your connections and reach out through social media and other avenues.