UI Designer Resume Guide & Tips

Your resume is the first testament to the skills that a hiring manager sees. Based on your resume, a hiring manager either decides to cut your application from the hiring search or invites you for an interview. Your resume serves as a vital first impression and can make or break whether you make it to the next round of the application process. Therefore, you want to ensure that your resume is polished and effectively communicates your qualifications. 

What to Put on a UI Designer Resume

Resumes should ideally be a single page in length, and with such little space, many job applicants need help with what to include and what to exclude. All resumes should include general information such as contact information and education. You also want to highlight skills and experience, though you may find certain aspects are more important than others. Below are a few guidelines for what to put in your UI design resume.

Contact Information

Every resume should include your contact information, usually near the top of the document, so it’s easily accessible. This is a short section that shouldn’t take up much space. You want to include your name, professional title, mailing address, phone number, and email. If you’ve tailored your social media accounts for UI design networking, you can also include links to your Linkedin or Facebook profile. 

A Profile or Summary

A resume summary or career profile is a brief statement near your resume's top. It gives hiring managers a snapshot of your resume in just a few sentences. This is the place to highlight your skills and accomplishments that make you ideal for the position. This can be one of the trickier parts of a resume to complete, as it needs to be brief, precise, and compelling. 

Work Experience

This is the most crucial section of your resume that demonstrates your background in UI design. Don’t list every job you’ve ever held – only list experience relevant to the job you are applying for. Include your job title, the company you worked for, and the dates you were employed. Work experience should be listed in reverse chronological order, with your most recent (or current) employment given first. Also, include a short description of your work responsibilities and achievements at each job. You can use bullet points here for easier reading. 

Education

Even though work experience is generally more critical to UI design hiring managers than education, you should still list any professional training. Begin with a college degree if you have it. Include the school you attended, along with the years you were there. If you’ve participated in a UI design bootcamp or certificate program, you can list this in chronological order along with your other education. You do not need to list your high school diploma. 

Relevant Skills and Specializations

This section highlights relevant skills that fit the job description and stands out to employers. You can list the industry-standard programs you have experience with, such as Figma or Sketch. This is also a place to list certifications, awards, or work accomplishments that might have yet to fit under work experience. Don’t use this as a space to dump keywords. Ensure the skills listed are relevant to the position you are applying for. 

5 UI Designer Resume Tips

Even following the steps above, your resume needs to stand out from the crowd. Hiring managers can receive dozens, if not hundreds, of applications. Usually, their job is concerned with culling the pile rather than looking at each application substantively. While a winning portfolio can be the most important part of a job application, with a weak resume, you risk your portfolio remaining unseen. Below are a few tips for writing a resume that is effective at communicating information and memorable enough to earn you serious consideration.

Design as You Would an Interface

You may not think it at first, but your resume serves as an excellent example of your UI design skills. Just as in UI design, you need to consider your user's needs and use design elements that are visually appealing and lead the user to important features.

Some elements you should consider include typefaces, color, and whitespace. The font you choose should be easily readable. You can use color to accent information, but you don’t want to go overboard. Text elements – sentences, paragraphs, bullet points, etc. – need to have enough white space around them for easy reading. It’s ideal to print out your resume so you can get a sense of the first impression it makes. If you choose to use color, make sure your resume reads well in black-and-white only formats, as your resume may not always be printed in color.

Avoid being Too Elaborate or Too Forgettable

Your resume is a document to convey important information. In trying to stand out among the competition, it can be easy to overload your resume with visual flourishes or wordiness. Creating a flashy resume demonstrates a misunderstanding of its purpose and is sure to get it thrown out.

Job seekers entering the job market might find design templates offered through programs like Microsoft Word helpful. On the other hand, a plain boring text document can make your resume look like everyone else’s and make it forgettable. Finding the right balance comes down to trial and error, though seeking professional feedback is also helpful. 

Avoid being Too Verbose or Technical

Many hiring managers won’t be experts in the field of UI design, so you want to make sure your resume isn’t full of technical jargon. If your resume is confusing or doesn’t make sense to the person reviewing it, it’s likely to be thrown out. In some cases, such as senior positions, jargon may be used to show your experience. It’s best to check the job posting you are applying to. If you see jargon there, it’s safe for you to use. Otherwise, leave it.

Along a similar vein, avoid using a thesaurus on your resume. You might think replacing standard verbiage with flashy or large words helps your resume stand out. However, the practice serves to muddle your resume and distract you from your actual skills and qualifications. It’s equivalent to putting flashy colors or graphics on your resume and is a sure show-stopper. 

Lastly, keep your resume to one page. While you may have heard a two-page resume is acceptable, stick to one page unless you’re a senior UI Designer with significant relevant experience. Remember hiring managers are looking for your ability to convey information concisely.

Draw the Eye to Important Information

Hiring managers most likely won’t read your entire resume. Remember, they’ll likely have many applications to get through. Thus, your resume will only have a few seconds to grab their attention. In this way, layout and format are crucial aspects of your resume in that they help convey important information.

For the uninformed, it can be easy for job applicants to draw attention to the wrong aspects of their resume. However, as a UI Designer, you should possess at least a basic understanding of how visual composition can be used to draw the reader’s eyes. A dense gathering of text, bolded fonts, and color can all be used to draw a hiring manager’s attention or improve reliability. Make sure you use these concepts wisely and apply them to the most important information you want hiring managers to see.

Proofread & Polish

Remember that hiring managers are generally looking for reasons to trim down their massive stack of resumes. It’s important to polish your resume to perfection and proofread it several times to avoid errors. Typos on your resume can lead to your application being thrown out before your qualifications are even considered. The same goes for resumes that are too text heavy or visually dense.

Get Feedback

It’s helpful to ask trusted teachers or professionals for feedback on your resume once you’ve completed a draft you are happy with. They’ll likely have recommendations for areas that should be trimmed back, expanded on, or improved. Feedback can also be a valuable part of polishing and proofreading your resume. A friend or professional is likely to catch minor details you overlooked.

One place to receive feedback is in the UI Design Certificate Program offered through Noble Desktop. In addition to receiving hands-on training from expert instructors, students learn important industry concepts and tools. They’ll also build a portfolio of professional projects and receive one-on-one career mentorship that can assist in creating a compelling, memorable resume.

Learn the Skills to Become a UI Designer at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers several UI design classes for those seeking professional instruction in pursuing a career as a UI Designer. Classes are small and feature expert instructors and free retake options. Courses can be attended in person in NYC or online from anywhere. 

The UI Design Certificate is designed to prepare students to launch a career in UI design. You’ll learn essential design principles as well as how to use the most popular UI design tools: Figma, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Throughout the course, you’ll complete a number of hands-on projects and build a portfolio to showcase your skills to potential employers.

Should you be interested in UX design as well as UI design (the two fields commonly overlap), you can pursue the UX & UI Design Certificate. You’ll learn the design principles and industry tools of both UX & UI design, build a professional portfolio, and receive one-on-one job preparation assistance. 

Bootcamps are also available where you can learn the ins and outs of the most popular UI design tools, including Figma, Photoshop, and Illustrator. These courses are open to pure beginners and are designed to guide you to mastery of the program. 

If you’re not ready to jump into a full UI design course, you can explore Noble Desktop’s learning hubs. These hubs are designed to inform you about a topic and offer learning resources, including free tutorials and self-guided education. UI design learn hubs include:

• Learn UI Design
• Learn Visual Design
• Learn Adobe XD
• Learn Figma
• Learn Sketch