Ok, so, you are starting to look for work as a designer and if you are not setting up your own practice then you will be working for someone else.  That means you will need your portfolio and a CV.  Your portfolio gives prospective employers information about your ‘core’ design skills, for example sketching and CAD, but what goes on your CV?

Ok, so, you are starting to look for work as a designer and if you are not setting up your own practice then you will be working for someone else.  That means you will need your portfolio and a CV.  Your portfolio gives prospective employers information about your ‘core’ design skills, for example sketching and CAD, but what goes on your CV?

There are many other skills that you would have gained through your training that you can include on your CV and these are as important as your design skills.  These can be called ‘soft’ skills.  These skills give employers an idea about how you work and what other skills and attributes that you have beside design skills.   Soft skills are also transferable skills, because they are relevant in other fields, not only design.

Whereas your design skills are communicated through a portfolio, soft skills are communicated through your curriculum vitae, your CV.  When you apply for work you will need to provide a CV and you can use this as a means of presenting your soft skills to employers and as leverage to get you through the door.  It is important not to forget these skills but to highlight them when you look for work.

So what are soft skills and how do you present them? Firstly they should complement your portfolio if you are going for design work.  You should be able to speak about examples where you used these skills and how it influenced the outcome of some project, but they can also be used independently of a portfolio and that is why they are very useful.   I wouldn’t put all of these skills on one CV though, CV’s should be tailored to the position that you are applying for, however these types of skills can add much value beyond just the software that you can use.

 I have listed 10 skills below.  These are just the ones that I came up with; there are more.  If you have others you want to add let me know.

Planning
Think about your design project, or any design project, and they all require planning.  In fact in many definitions of design you will find a reference to planning, that’s how fundamental it is to the idea of design.   However it’s one thing to say you can plan a project and another to demonstrate that you can devise and execute a plan.  Luckily if you have completed a design course you have successfully devised and executed a plan, in fact many more than one.  So this should definitely go on your CV.

Decision making
It’s 4am and you are in the lab, you have 3 assignments due tomorrow and you haven’t finished any of them.  One is worth 50% of the semester’s mark for the course and the other two are worth 5% each.  What do you do?  Well you ask yourself some questions, “What is important?  What is not?”, and then you make a decision.  Of course, during a project you are not just making one or two decisions but a series of decisions that will lead you to a successful outcome.  This is what you can add to your CV, the ability make decision within a project that lead to a successful outcome.  Employers like to hire people they can trust to make good decisions.