Creative directors are in charge of all things creativity. When it comes to general marketing, designing, copywriting, sales, and more, the creative director is responsible for cross departmental collaboration and supervises team members. They oversee events, projects, launches for new products, and more while making sure the team meets deadlines. Creativity is a must for this role and you’ll want to let your muse shine!

Social media marketing as a whole has taken off and will continue to with the technological evolution that we’re experiencing. As a result, creative directors will still be necessary in the online world and should be expected to grow in these industries in order for companies to stay competitive.

Since creative director roles typically require five or more years of relevant experience, you’ll want to showcase your leadership, project and time management skills. Specific examples of completed projects within deadlines, especially with multiple departments involved, will prove that you’re capable of the position that you’re applying for and demonstrate your communication skills.

With that being said, let’s take a look at what successful creative director resumes look like in 2021. We’ll go over four examples of different creative director roles with templates to give you a strong starting point. Then, we’ll review a list of powerful action verbs to drive your achievements home and a list of skills that recruiters and companies are looking for in a creative director.

Creative Director Resume Templates

Creative Director Resume Sample

As an experienced creative director that demonstrates growth within a company, you’ll want your resume to highlight your work history. This creative director resume template provides thorough and detailed examples of your achievements with measurable outcomes, using a combination of action verbs and numbers. The skills section also features a wide variety of hard and technical skills that are applicable to the role that you’re applying for.

A creative director resume that showcases experience with promotions and longevity at companies, supplemented by relevant education and hard skills.

Download Resume Template (Google Doc) Download Resume in PDF

Recruiter Insight: Why this resume works in 2021

Focus of resume is creative director-related experience

If you have as much relevant experience as shown in this template, it should be the main focus and defining point of your resume. Although there are five positions listed, three of them were at one company which shows longevity and growth within your career, which companies like. They want someone who is going to grow with them, especially within the creative/marketing industries.

Also see: How To Write Your Resume's Work Experience Section

Broad coverage of technical skills relating to creative directors

In a role that requires creativity, you need to have the skills to use the tools to create. Specific software like Adobe Creative suite demonstrates familiarity with industry standards, while other skills like graphic design, web design, and digital marketing further indicate familiarity with technology. Similarly, you should include skills across the marketing and creative industry to show recruiters variety and flexibility in what you can do.

Associate Creative Director Resume Sample

An associate creative director may be someone with less experience than a creative director, and is perfect if you’re looking to grow into the position and obtain experience. As a mid-level role, you’ll want to use a strong combination of your work experience, education, skills, and certificates to prove that you’re looking to continue your career.

An associate creative director resume that combines both work experience and education to create a strong candidacy, along with technical skills and certifications in the other section.

Download Resume Template (Google Doc) Download Resume in PDF Go to Resume Page

Recruiter Insight: Why this resume works in 2021

Education is relevant to associate creative directors

Since this is a mid-level position, the combo of both experience and education is key. This resume template lists relevant degrees for both bachelors and masters in marketing. If you don’t have relevant education or studied something else, you can also add online course certifications to show recruiters your dedication to the role and industry outside of traditional school.

Also see: How to List Your Education on a Resume

Strong use of numbers relevant to marketing

Metrics are critical to include on your resume, since they clearly show recruiters the impact you have had to your previous employers. Note how this resume stresses things like “increased sales by 25%”, “improved production speed” and “boosted engagement” — when using metrics on your resume, try to use metrics like these that are relevant to marketing.

Also see: How to Write Resume Bullets That Get Interviews

Creative Marketing Director Resume Sample

Creative directors can have niches, but a specialized one for marketing makes the most sense since creativity is often used for various marketing strategies. You’ll want to use specific projects that you’ve accomplished while showcasing your marketing prowess and leadership abilities. This resume template will help you stand out when applying for a senior-level marketing role with creative marketing experience.

A creative marketing director resume that combines experience, education, technical skills, certifications, and awards.

Download Resume Template (Google Doc) Download Resume in PDF Go to Resume Page

Recruiter Insight: Why this resume works in 2021

Use of action verbs relating to the creative industry and marketing

You want to make sure that you talk about what you did in your role, rather than the responsibilities of the job that anyone might be able to do. This resume uses verbs like “applied,” “established, “directed,” and “researched.” These action verbs highlight things like leadership, initiative and technical acumen with one word.

Also see: Effective Action Verbs for your Resume

Showcases completed projects, specifically in marketing

Completed projects are important, especially when successful and within deadlines. The resume template specifically offers two successful projects of marketing plan development and social media campaigns, such as “developed 5+ videos and unique promotions, generating over 1,000 views.” You should include examples of marketing projects like these to demonstrate concrete accomplishments and show what you could do at the company.

Also see: How to List Projects on a Resume

Chief Creative Officer Resume Sample

Different kinds of C-suite positions beyond CEO, COO, CFO, and more are becoming more popular as roles to establish strong leadership at companies. The Chief Creative Officer role is one of these and is similar to a Chief Marketing Officer. An emphasis on your leadership and management experience will be key here, as this role is one of the heads of the organization.

A Chief Creative Officer resume that has strong, professional experience in leadership and marketing with a bachelors and masters degree.

Download Resume Template (Google Doc) Download Resume in PDF Go to Resume Page

Recruiter Insight: Why this resume works in 2021

Demonstrates management and training experience which is critical to C-level roles

Since this resume is for a c-suite role, there needs to be a focus on your experience with management over several teams and departments. This resume template not only shows your leadership, but your ability to mentor other employees’ “creative and professional development.” The ability to train others in this position shows your commitment for growth of the company.

Also see: How To Write Your Resume's Work Experience Section

Strong, measurable achievements to show your impact

This resume template uses accomplishments like “executed eight tradeshows and conferences, generating more than 1,000 quality leads in 5 months” and “led website redesign, resulting in 50% audience growth and 25% lower bounce rates.” Both are impressive and measurable outcomes. These help recruiters imagine the impact you’ll have if you’re hired - demonstrative impact is absolutely critical for C-level hires.

Also see: How to Write Resume Bullets That Get Interviews

Skills For Creative Director Resumes

When applying for a creative director role, your technical skills are going to speak a lot to what you’re capable of doing. Make sure to scan the job posting for the description of the role, responsibilities, desired skills if any, and more. Use these key terms in your resume if relevant to you and if you have the skills in order to make it through the applicant tracking system (ATS). Many companies use this software now to automatically screen out candidates that don’t fit the criteria that they’re looking for, but will have keywords related to the job that will be searched for on your resume.

To give you an idea, here’s a list of relevant hard skills that we’ve found most commonly used on successful resumes for creative directors. These skill sets are transferable from previous positions, such as Adobe Creative suite, Canva, and SEO proficiency.

Art Direction
Brand Development
Graphic Design
Creative Strategy
Adobe Creative Suite
Branding & Identity
Logo Design
Advertising
Branding
Adobe Illustrator
Concept Development
Typography
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Corporate Identity
Graphics
Photography
Social Media Marketing
Web Design
Digital Marketing

Creative Director Resume Tips

Creative directors simultaneously oversee multiple teams and departments. They are responsible for the company’s marketing initiatives, using their creativity and inspiration to bring products and services to life to attract more customers. Proficiency with technical software is a must, as these tools are vital to the ever expanding world of social media marketing and digital advertising. They direct the vision of where the art of the marketing will go and complete projects within deadlines and adhering to budgets.

With that out of the way, let’s go over some helpful tips to make your creative director resume successful in 2021:

If you have one, include a portfolio of your work.

Since this position is for a creative director, you may have a portfolio with graphic design, web design, photography, and other examples that are relevant to the role that you want to show off. This may be able to be included in the application as a separate link for a portfolio or website section, and you could also include the website in your personal information section of the resume. The ability to see the work you’ve done directly can supplement your already compelling resume, as it offers a visible and concrete sample of your skills.

Namedrop familiar and impressive companies you’ve worked with.

If you’ve worked with recognizable companies and brands, mentioning them on your resume will help to get the recruiter’s attention -- especially if they’re successful, like Disney, Tesla, Apple, Facebook, and other big names. Popular and well-known organizations have an influential reputation, which impacts your reputation if you’ve directly worked with them as clients, a collaboration, or something else. This is different than if you worked for the company as an employee, as the company name will be stated in the work experience section as your employer by default.

Showcase your organization-wide leadership abilities.

Since the creative director is a director position that requires at least five years experience on average, there is a lot of leadership and management skills that are required to be successful. Highlighting your experience of team management with training and coaching alongside your ability to manage a huge portion of the business is critical, especially if the role you’re applying for is a c-suite creative director role. Your ability to communicate and delegate tasks in a director role is necessary, and you’ll want to demonstrate this with examples like “oversaw a budget of $7M and a team of 20 creatives” and “led a global marketing team of 15 professionals in 10 different countries.” Both of these examples show that you’ve successfully managed large teams and a larger budget.

Demonstrate your understanding of clients’ wants and needs.

You may work directly with clients when presenting the team’s work, as well as listening for feedback in order to improve what the client wants. Referencing your experience with understanding the client’s vision, implementing their suggestions, and making their dreams become a reality will help a recruiter to understand your ability to work with people. An example of this is “created and designed 10 presentation decks for clients, implementing their feedback and boosting leads by 30%.” By stating your work with clients, you show that you’ve been successful with completing the work that they want and that helped drive results for their company.

Action Verbs For Creative Director Resumes

Every bullet point should start with a strong action verb to highlight your role in every accomplishment. Especially for a high-level and experienced role like a creative director, you’ll want to use powerful verbs like “directed,” “initiated,” “budgeted,” and more. The role requires plenty of project management experience, budgeting experience, and overseeing cross-departmental teams in order to create a cohesive and well-oiled machine to bring the company’s marketing ideas to life. If you use more bland verbs such as “made” or “did,” you're downplaying your achievements in your experience to sound only like the essentials of what the job required.

Expedited
Launched
Initiated
Analyzed
Implemented
Interviewed
Restructured
Directed
Guided
Assessed
Delegated
Organized
Streamlined
Processed
Simplified

For a full list of effective resume action verbs, visit Resume Action Verbs.

Resume Bullet Points From Creative Director Resumes

You should use bullet points to describe your achievements in your Creative Director resume. Here are sample bullet points to help you get started:

Identified changes to assortment, distribution, and marketing using financial and behavioral analysis that enabled an upmarket fashion company to better target their customers, resulting in $400M growth

Analyzed $800K of monthly marketing spend data to optimize audience, creative and copy of campaigns; increased conversion by 12% MoM and decreased cost per acquisition by 35%

Designed, executed, and optimized digital marketing campaign on Google's AdWords for $20B CPG company, yielding 20% ROI improvements

Optimized budget allocation of the increased marketing spend of $10MM across 5 cities

Doubled new user acquisition from 10-15 users to 20-25 through the implementation of new marketing strategies focused on online advertising and improving the company's web presence, social media, and search engine optimization.

For more sample bullet points and details on how to write effective bullet points, see our articles on resume bullet points, how to quantify your resume and resume accomplishments.