Interior designers create spaces that are functional, aesthetically pleasing, and appropriate for their clients’ needs. To succeed in the role, you’ll need a creative mindset, an eye for detail, and an aptitude for problem solving. You’ll also need excellent people skills, as achieving client satisfaction is likely to be your primary goal.
There’s no single path to becoming an interior designer. While formal education isn’t always strictly necessary, most firms require at least a bachelor’s degree in a design-related field. Additionally, some states require licensure to practice or to claim the title of interior designer, typically through the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) exam.
In 2023, job prospects for interior designers are good, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting 13 percent growth. In particular, expect to see a rapid increase in trends like environmental design, sustainability, accessibility, and universal design.
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As an interior designer, you combine creativity and technical skills to design functional and stylish spaces. With recent industry trends leaning toward sustainability and wellness-focused designs, it's crucial for you to stay up-to-date and showcase your expertise in these areas. Since companies are looking for detail-oriented and highly skilled candidates with a strong portfolio, it's essential to have a well-crafted resume that highlights your skills, experiences, and projects in the best possible light.
In this industry, your resume should not only demonstrate your design skills but also your ability to execute and manage projects efficiently. Therefore, it's vital to use your resume as an opportunity to tell your story, showcasing your versatility as a designer and your ability to adapt to different styles and clients' needs.
As an interior designer, you must be proficient in industry-specific design software like AutoCAD, SketchUp, or Revit. Make sure to highlight these technical skills on your resume, specifying your level of expertise and any certifications you have earned.
A strong interior designer resume should feature a diverse array of projects, from residential to commercial spaces. Detail your accomplishments in these projects, emphasizing any awards or recognition you've received, and quantify your success using metrics (e.g., increased client satisfaction by 20%).
As an interior designer, you’ll be responsible for more than just designing attractive spaces — your duties may also include client acquisition, bidding on new projects, sketching design plans, estimating costs, and ensuring that all designs comply with health and safety, product, and building regulations. It’s a tall order, which is why your resume needs to demonstrate a healthy mix of soft skills and hands-on design experience.
Soft skills like creativity, organization, and communication, while essential to interior designers, are too subjective to list outright. Instead, demonstrate these skills in action through your accomplishments. If you want to emphasize your ability to build strong relationships, highlight the amount of new business you’ve brought in through referrals or discounts you’ve secured from long-time vendors.
As an interior designer, you’ll need technical skills like Illustrator and Photoshop, AutoCAD, and Autodesk Revit. You can list hard skills like this in a separate skills section. If you have additional qualifications, you can list these in the same section, but using subheadings to make it easier for recruiters to quickly skim.
As an Interior Design Assistant, you'll be supporting a lead designer in bringing their creative visions to life by assisting with space planning, materials selection, and client management. With the design industry being fast-paced and competitive, companies are increasingly selective in hiring assistants who demonstrate a keen eye for design, excellent communication, and organizational skills. A well-crafted resume is crucial for showcasing your capabilities in this industry and highlighting your unique blend of creativity and practical skills.
To create an effective Interior Design Assistant resume, focus on aligning your experience and skills with the job requirements. Companies want to see your ability to work seamlessly with a design team while maintaining a client-first mindset. It's also important to stay updated on the latest design trends and software to enhance your professional development and make yourself a more desirable candidate.
As an Interior Design Assistant, you'll be using various design software programs to create and present design concepts. Make sure to list all relevant software in your resume, such as AutoCAD, SketchUp, and Adobe Creative Suite, to show your competency in the tools essential to the role.
Tailor your resume to accentuate the interior design projects you've participated in, whether through internships, school projects, or freelance work. Be specific about your role and contributions to each project, emphasizing your collaboration, problem-solving, and design skills, as well as any successful results achieved.
Interior design assistants are integral to the smooth running of design firms. To succeed, you’ll need both administrative and creative skills, as your tasks can range from providing administrative support to assisting with design tasks, maintaining client relationships, and managing projects. Your resume should demonstrate your ability to assist with any aspect of the job, so make sure to emphasize the hard skills and experience that employers are looking for.
Showing that you’ve worked your way up from the bottom emphasizes loyalty, commitment, and a willingness to take on any whatever task is needed. If you’ve held other positions related to interior design — like sales assistant, event planner, or design consultant — including those titles on your resume can show the kind of career growth that recruiters want to see.
Using hard numbers is the best way to provide context and emphasize the scope of your accomplishments. Including metrics for how much you increased sales, how many team members you’ve trained, or how much you increased customer referrals outlines your achievements in objective, concrete terms that are easy for hiring managers to understand.
Let's chat about crafting a resume for an entry-level interior designer role. This job is all about expressing creativity, but in a business-focused way. Recently, employers are looking for candidates who understand the growing emphasis on sustainability in design and can use digital tools and software like AutoCAD or SketchUp. When writing your resume, it's important to not just list your skills and past experiences but to show how they're relevant to the industry trends and to the specific role you're applying to.
In the world of interior design, showing is as important as telling. Don't just mention your skills and experiences, but tell the story of how you've used them in real-world projects, even if these were done during your studies. This is particularly important with the rapid transition to virtual collaboration and digital tool usage in the industry.
Don't just say you're proficient in AutoCAD or SketchUp, for instance. Instead, highlight a project where you utilized these tools to create a design solution. You could even include a link to a digital portfolio showcasing your work.
If you've had experiences with eco-friendly design practices, that's a huge plus. Elaborate on any project where you've used repurposed materials, focused on energy efficiency, or incorporated sustainable elements in your designs.
Early in your career, you’ll be competing with other entry-level interior designers with similar amounts of education and experience. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to stand out — even without a long work history, your student activities, volunteer work, and personal projects can all demonstrate the essential skills you’ll need as an interior designer. By using action-based bullet points, you can have a professional-looking resume even as a fresh graduate.
Your resume should always prioritize your most recent and relevant experience. As a recent graduate, this is likely to be your education, so consider putting your education section at the top. The more recent your degree, the more detail — like coursework and GPA — you can include, but you should drop this extra information once you have more professional experience.
If you don’t have a lot of paid work experience, that’s okay! Educational projects and volunteer work both have a place on your resume, especially if you’re applying for entry level positions. Structure these the same way you would any other experience, starting with an action verb and focusing on accomplishments, not responsibilities.
We spoke with hiring managers from top interior design firms like Gensler, Perkins&Will, and HOK to learn what they look for in resumes. Based on their insights, we've compiled a list of tips to help your interior design resume stand out and get you hired.
Hiring managers want to see examples of your design work and style. Include a link to your online portfolio or attach a PDF with your best projects.
Avoid simply listing software or skills without context:
A resume summary for interior design roles is optional. It allows you to provide context on your background and highlight key qualifications that may not be obvious from the rest of your resume. Summaries are especially useful for career changers or experienced professionals. Keep it concise - no longer than a short paragraph. Avoid generic soft skills, repetition from other resume sections, or fluffy language.
Instead of an objective statement, which focuses on your own goals, a summary should emphasize the value you'll bring to the role. Mention your target job title and incorporate relevant keywords to help your resume perform better in applicant tracking systems.
The work experience section is the heart of your interior design resume. It's where you showcase your skills, accomplishments, and career growth. Hiring managers want to see the impact you made in your previous roles and how you can bring value to their company.
In this section, we'll break down the key steps to writing a compelling work experience section that will catch the attention of interior design hiring managers.
The education section of your interior design resume should be concise and highlight your most relevant qualifications. This section is especially important if you are a recent graduate or have limited work experience. Here are some key tips to make your education section stand out:
Interior designers need to have experience with taking designs from concept to creation, all while considering what their clients are looking for and how the space is going to be used. Want to show off your creativity? Use verbs like Designed and Created. If the job you’re applying for is more focused on technical skills, try Drafted or Developed. To emphasize sales and customer service, use Generated, increased, or Fulfilled.
Starting each bullet point with a strong action verb is the best way to make sure you’re focusing on your accomplishments, not simply listing your responsibilities. Remember, hiring managers don’t want to know about your previous jobs — they want to know what you’re likely to achieve in this one.
For a full list of effective resume action verbs, visit Resume Action Verbs.
When listing skills on your resume, make sure you’re focusing on hard or technical skills — think specific software programs, certifications, and elements of design. While soft skills like creativity and communication are also essential for interior designers, these should be demonstrated through your accomplishments only, never listed as skills on their own. Hard skills can be listed in your bullet points or in a ‘Skills’ or ‘Additional Information’ section at the end of your resume. If you do this, make sure to keep it short and easily skimmable — typically around 5-10 skills.
To find the right skills to get you past Applicant Tracking Systems and into the hands of a hiring manager, you should carefully read through the job description and pull out the most important skills. Our list of top resume skills and keywords has analyzed over a million job descriptions to give you a headstart.
You can include the above skills in a dedicated Skills section on your resume, or weave them in your experience. Here's how you might create your dedicated skills section:
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Interior Design job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more 'important' it is.
Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.
