How To Create a UX Designer Resume | AND Academy (2024)

If you want to impress UX hiring managers, you will need a well-designed resume. Learn how to create a professional UX design resume with this guide.

For every job they post, a UX hiring manager will be inundated with dozens, if not hundreds, of applications. The first thing they’ll do is skim through each candidate’s resume (or run it through specialised software) to make an initial assessment of their suitability.

As a UX design candidate, you’ve got the challenge of capturing the hiring manager’s attention and showing them, in the space of one or two pages, that you’re a great fit for the role.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a resume that effectively showcases your skills and demonstrates your unique value as a UX designer.

Keep reading to uncover:

• What is the purpose of a UX design resume?
• What should you include in your UX designer resume?
• What are the top UX design skills to highlight in your resume?
• How to create an impressive UX designer resume: 5 best practices
• UX designer resume templates
• UX designer resume FAQs
• The takeaway
• What's next

Let’s begin.

1. What is the purpose of a UX design resume?

A UX designer resume outlines all the skills, experiences, and accomplishments that position you as a qualified UX designer. It provides a concise overview of your professional and educational background, allowing hiring managers to skim through and assess your suitability for UX design roles.

Why do you need a UX designer resume?

Your UX design resume forms an essential part of your personal brand and your job application package.

Your personal brand is how you present and market yourself within your industry. It tells employers: “This is who I am and this is what I’m good at. This is how I can add value to your organisation.”

Your application package comprises the various documents you use to apply for jobs and demonstrate your expertise. A UX designer resume is usually the first thing an employer will look at before reading your cover letter and, finally, going through your portfolio. We show you how to create an impressive UX design portfolio in this guide.

The purpose of your UX designer resume is to make a positive first impression and encourage hiring managers to consider your application further. It’s therefore critical that your resume is well-structured, to-the-point, and carefully tailored to the job you’re applying for.

2. What should you include in your UX designer resume?

Here’s how to structure your UX design resume.

Your name and contact details

At the very top of your resume, state your name followed by your title—e.g. Senior UX Designer or User Researcher—your email address, phone number (with dialling code), a link to your UX design portfolio, and links to any relevant professional profiles (e.g. LinkedIn).

Tip: Format your name in H1 text, your title in H2 text, and your contact details in normal/body text, and double-check all links to make sure they work.

A brief introduction

Next, write two or three sentences to introduce yourself. Summarise your key skills, experience, and specific areas of expertise, and outline what you’re looking for in terms of your next career move.

Tip: Think of this as your value statement, showing the hiring manager why you’re a great fit for their role. Be sure to tailor this section closely to each job you apply for.

Skills summary

Provide a skimmable summary of your most relevant skills, presented as a bullet-point list. Depending on how you structure your resume, you may choose to divide this into two separate sections: one for skills and one for tools-related proficiency.

Either way, this component should include hard skills (technical, job-specific skills such as wireframing, prototyping, and design thinking), soft skills (things like collaboration and problem-solving), and tools and software you’re proficient in. We’ll explore the most important skills to highlight in your UX resume in section three of this guide.

Tip: Many companies use software known as Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to scan resumes for specific keywords. Optimise your skills section for such software based on the key skills and tools highlighted in the job description. This will increase your chances of passing through the ATS and reaching a human hiring manager.

Educational background and qualifications

This section should highlight your educational background and qualifications. Mention any traditional education you’ve completed, such as a university degree, as well as any subsequent industry-relevant training and diplomas such as a UX design certification.

Include the name of the school or training provider, the official course title, the year you graduated, and your final grades (if applicable).

Tip: For the sake of keeping your resume brief, include your highest level of education only. If you’ve got a university degree, for example, there’s no need to list your high school grades.

Employment history

This section details your professional experience, starting with your current or most recent position and moving backwards.

For each position, share:

• The company name
• Your job title
• The dates you worked there

Then outline your main responsibilities and achievements within each role. Where possible, share specific data and results to highlight your impact.

For example, if you were tasked with growing the design team, you could mention the number of new designers you successfully hired and onboarded, as well as the time- and cost-saving impact of any new processes you implemented.

How to talk about your employment history: Advice for junior UX designers

If you’re new to UX, make sure that your UX designer resume highlights your transferable skills and experience. You can still include non-UX roles in your resume (and it’ll be necessary to do so if those make up the bulk of your employment history); just make sure you frame them in a way that’s relevant to UX.

For example, if you’ve worked in marketing for most of your career, emphasise transferable skills such as conducting research, analysing data, creating customer personas, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration.

How to talk about your employment history: Advice for mid-level and senior UX designers

If you’re an experienced UX designer, you might find that your employment history is too extensive to fit on your resume in its entirety. In that case, share your most recent (or most relevant) positions in detail and provide just a very brief summary of earlier or less relevant roles.

Tip: Don’t list every single task and responsibility you had at each job. Focus on the aspects that are most relevant to the role you’re applying for, and use bullet-point lists to make the content skimmable and reader-friendly.

3. What are the top UX design skills to highlight in your resume?

Your UX designer resume has one purpose: to convince the hiring manager that you’re a good fit for the role.

Hopefully, there’s a strong match between the skills you’ve got and the skills they’re looking for. When writing your resume, your goal is to emphasise that match and make it easy for the recruiter to see the connection.

The skills you highlight in your resume will therefore vary depending on the job description.

Let’s say you’re applying for two different roles: one that focuses heavily on UX research and strategy, and one that emphasises the need for a hands-on designer who can create deliverables at every stage of the product design process.

Your skill set may span all of those areas, but you’ll emphasise different aspects for each application. For the first role, you’d design your UX resume to highlight your skills and experience in conducting user research and leading strategic initiatives.

For the second role, you’d emphasise skills such as wireframing, prototyping, and creating user personas.

Generally speaking, a UX designer resume should highlight essential skills such as:

• User research
• Data synthesis and analysis
• Information architecture
• Wireframing and prototyping
• User and usability testing
• Design thinking
• Proficiency in industry-standard UX design tools and software
• Collaboration and communication
• empathy
• Problem-solving

Learn more: The Most Important Hard and Soft Skills for UX Designers.

4. How to create an impressive UX designer resume: 5 best practices

every UX designer resume is as unique as the person behind it—but there are some golden rules that all resumes should adhere to. Follow these best practices to ensure that your UX design resume hits the mark and effectively conveys your skills, value, and expertise.

1. Tailor your resume to the job you’re applying for

When viewing your resume, the hiring manager wants to see that you’re a genuine fit for the role. And, if they’re using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), the software will also be looking to determine how closely your resume matches the job description.

As such, you must tailor your UX resume to each job you apply for. That doesn’t mean you need to create your resume from scratch every time; you’ll just need to adapt specific sections.

In particular, pay close attention to:

• Your bio section: You can use this section to express interest in a specific industry or type of role.
• Your skills summary: each job will prioritise different skills, so tailor this section to emphasise the most relevant skills for the position.

And remember to give your resume a thorough proofread before you send it off. As you edit and adapt certain sections, you want to make sure that the content still reads and flows well.

2. Opt for a user-friendly design

You’re a skilled UX designer so you know all about the importance of a logical structure, a clear visual hierarchy, and plenty of white space. Approach your resume like any other UX design project: design it in a way that’s user-friendly and easy to navigate.

Here are some tips to help you optimise your UX designer resume:

• Present all content in concise, skimmable chunks. Use bullet-point lists and short paragraphs.
• Use headings, varying font sizes, and bold formatting to convey a clear visual hierarchy and place emphasis on the most important information.
• Leave sufficient white space between each section; your UX designer resume shouldn’t feel cluttered or over-crowded.

Ultimately, you want to make sure that the hiring manager can easily skim through your resume and pick out the most relevant information.

3. Keep it professional

You might be tempted to showcase your creativity and design a UX resume that really stands out. However, don’t lose sight of the fact that a resume is a professional document.

Use your portfolio to demonstrate your design skills. For your resume, stick with simplicity and professionalism. Opt for black text on a white background, maintain a logical and straightforward layout, and choose a professional, easily legible font.

Hiring managers aren’t looking for fancy designs; they just want clear insight into your skills and experience.

4. Stick to an appropriate length and format

It’s often said that a resume should be kept to one page, but that rule can be difficult—and rather limiting. While it’s important to keep your UX design resume concise, don’t fixate too much on the one-page rule.

It’s much better to have your resume spaced out nicely over two pages than to cram it all onto a single page in the tiniest possible font. Just remember that the content should be scannable and digestible—don’t send the hiring manager reams and reams of uninterrupted text.

When it comes to format, PDF is usually best. However, make sure you check the job description for any specific requirements regarding how your resume should be shared.

5. Test your UX design resume

Get a second pair of eyes on your resume before you send it off to recruiters. Ask a trusted friend, relative, or colleague to read through your resume and share feedback regarding:

• The content: Is the structure logical and easy to follow? For each job in your employment history, is it clear what you did and how you made an impact?
• The overall design and readability: Is your UX resume neatly formatted and easy on the eye? Is the content skimmable and digestible?
• General quality: Is your resume error and typo-free? Are all employer names spelled correctly, and do all links work?

Once your resume has been quality-approved, save it in PDF format, double-check the final version, and get ready to share it with employers.

5. UX designer resume templates

When it comes to creating a UX designer resume, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There are many professional templates out there that you can fill in and customise. In fact, following a template is a great way to make sure that your UX design resume is neat, well-structured, and user-friendly.

Here are some of our favourite (and free!) UX designer resume templates.

1. Resume.io

Resume.io has hundreds of templates you can use to build your UX design resume, ranging from simple and modern to creative and professional. For your UX resume, we recommend choosing a template from the simple or modern categories.

Once you’ve chosen your preferred template from the homepage, simply follow the steps to fill in your name and enter your email address.

You’ll then be asked how you’d like to proceed with creating your resume. You can choose to upload and edit an existing resume, generate a draft with the help of AI, build from a blank template, or customise an existing template.

For ease and speed, we advise customising a ready-made template. If you choose this option, you can select a sample resume you like the look of and edit the details to make it your own.

2. Canva UX design resume templates

Canva is a much-loved design tool—and you can use it to create a professional UX design resume. Navigate to the Canva resume template library and filter by style, theme, and price to see suitable templates.

Once you’ve selected a template, it will open in the Canva editor. From there, just double-click on each content block to edit the text. And, if you want to rearrange the structure of your UX design resume, simply drag and drop individual components to move them around.

Once your resume is complete, you can download it as a PDF to share with employers.

3. Google Docs resume templates

If you’re looking for a simple yet effective template for your UX designer resume, look no further than Google Docs.

Assuming you’re already logged into your Google account, navigate to Google Docs, expand the template gallery, and choose from one of five options.

All of the Google Docs resume templates are extremely professional and reader-friendly, but we especially like the Serif template. Select your preferred template and it’ll open as a new Google Doc which you can edit and customise directly.

The great thing about using Google Docs to build your UX resume is that you can easily share it for feedback. Invite your trusted resume tester to add comments and suggestions to the doc. Once you’re happy with the final version, download the file as a PDF.

4. Figma UI/UX designer resume kit by DMS Studio

Figma fans will love this UI/UX designer resume kit created by DMS Studio. The free version contains two templates with slightly different structures. You can use any one of these templates by simply double-clicking on the various content blocks and filling in your own text.

For more customisation options, you can upgrade to the Pro Template kit for $3.

Overall, this is a great option if you’re comfortable using Figma and want to create your resume using your favourite design tool.

5. UXfolio resume template pack for Figma

Another great option for creating an impressive UX designer resume is this UXfolio template pack available in Figma.

The pack includes three UX designer resume templates, each with a slightly different layout and style—but all equally professional.

We highly recommend these templates if you’re creating your first ever UX design resume. each section contains useful tips to help you fill out the content, guiding you to build a resume that effectively showcases your skills, experience, and expertise.

6. UX designer resume FAQs

How do I make a UX designer resume with no experience?

emphasise your passion for UX, highlight transferable skills, and include details of any UX-related projects, internships, or volunteer work. At the top of your resume, write 2-3 sentences explaining why you’re transitioning to a career in UX. In your employment history, talk about relevant transferable skills such as research, data analysis, problem-solving, and empathy.

What is a good bio for a UX designer?

A good bio for a UX designer resume gives a brief summary of your professional background and highlights your unique value. It should also include a reference to any specific career aspirations you have, for example, leading a team in your next role or taking on a more strategic position.

How long should a UX resume be?

Many sources will advise you to keep your UX resume to one page, but that’s not always realistic. Aim to keep your resume as concise as possible without leaving out any important details about your experience. Two pages of well-spaced, skimmable text is perfectly acceptable for your UX design resume.

7. The takeaway

Together with your UX design portfolio and a well-written cover letter, your resume forms a crucial part of your job application package. Most hiring managers will skim through your resume before they decide whether to proceed with your application. And, if your resume isn’t neatly formatted, easy to read, and tailored to the specific job you’re applying for, you may well fall at the first hurdle.

Follow the tips and best practices we’ve outlined in this guide to create a high-impact, user-friendly resume that will impress hiring managers and land you an interview. You’ve got this!

More UX design career tips and insights

Once you’ve crafted an effective UX design resume, you’ll want to prepare to apply for jobs and excel in the interview process. Here are some expert guides to help you navigate the UX job market and take the next step in your career:

• How to Get a UX Design Internship as a Recent Graduate
• A Guide to the Most Common UX Design Interview Questions (and How To Answer Them)
• Benchmarking and Negotiating Your UX Designer Salary: The Latest Data for 2024

8. What's next

For further insights into the UI UX design industry or securing a role in the field, visit our blog.

Additionally, check out these supplementary resources.

1. Watch this session by Shiva Viswanathan, Design Head of Ogilvy Pennywise, and Naman Singh, Product Experience Designer at RED.
2. Talk to a course advisor to discuss how you can transform your career with one of our courses.
3. Pursue our UX UI Design courses - all courses are taught through live, interactive classes by industry experts, and some even offer a Job Guarantee.
4. Take advantage of the scholarship and funding options that come with our courses to overcome any financial hurdle on the path of your career transformation.

Note: All information and/or data from external sources is believed to be accurate as of the date of publication.