It’s pretty common to ignore your resume until you actually need to send it to someone. When you’re happily employed it goes unopened on your computer indefinitely, and if you’re freelance you might be so busy hustling for work that you hardly get the chance to look at it. But revisiting your resume regularly to build it up ensures you’re constantly pushing yourself and growing as a designer. If you’re looking to beef up your design resume, here are 5 things you can do:
Matt Manos, Founder and Managing Director of verynice, is a firm believer in volunteering time and skills—after all, he’s based his company on a Give Half model. Aside from the karma points and overall life enrichment, offering pro-bono work has added benefits like networking that can in turn lead to other (paid) opportunities. Volunteer work can also give you the chance to expand your capabilities as a designer for the type of work you ideally want to do.
“Offering new services for a fee can be difficult without the proper ‘proof’ that you know what you doing,” Manos explained. “As a result, pro-bono work can be beneficial for freelancers/studios/agencies who are looking to roll out a new service. By approaching a non-profit, and offering to help them for free in order to test out a new service or method, you can boost your credibility.”
