Here are the keywords and skills that appear most frequently on recent Creative Director job postings. In other words, these are the most sought after skills by recruiters and hiring managers. Go to Sample Templates ↓ below to see how to include them on your resume.
Remember that every job is different. Instead of including all keywords on your resume, identify those that are most relevant to the job you're applying to. Use the free Targeted Resume tool to help with this.
Does your resume contain all the right skills? Paste in your resume in the AI Resume Scan ↓ section below and get an instant score.
Paste your resume below and our AI will identify which keywords are missing from your resume from the list above (and what you need to include). Including the right keywords will help you get past Applicant Tracking Systems (i.e. resume screeners) which may scan your resume for keywords to see if you're a match for the job.
Go through the Creative Director posting you're applying to, and identify hard skills the company is looking for. For example, skills like Adobe Creative Suite, Brand Development and Adobe Photoshop are possible skills. These are skills you should try to include on your resume.
The following word cloud highlights the most popular keywords that appear on Creative Director job descriptions. The bigger the word, the more frequently it shows up on employer's job postings. If you have experience with these keywords, include them on your resume.
Here are examples of proven resumes in related jobs and industries, approved by experienced hiring managers. Use them as inspiration when you're writing your own resume. You can even download and edit the resume template in Google Docs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The associate creative director oversees many aspects of the creative departments in a company. They may work with marketers, graphic designers, photographers, and other creative professionals within their organization. The associate creative director is responsible for crafting the broad vision for advertisements, publications, commercials, webpages, and more. They are also responsible for delegating the tasks that need to be done to the correct creative teams to make their vision come to life. This is a mid-level role. Often, the associate creative director reports to the creative director. Ideal candidates for this role will have experience in the creative industry, like previous roles as a graphic designer, brand marketer, or assistant art director. They also must have artistic and creative prowess, superb communication skills, and established project management capabilities.
The associate creative director must have a strong understanding of who their ideal customer is and what they are looking for. For this reason, applying to companies that provide a product or service that you are familiar with is a good idea. For example, if you are an avid gamer, you can apply for an associate creative director role at a video game company and use your experience to your advantage.
This resume template is suitable for experienced hires or mid-level hires. The education contains two examples of an education experiences, but only include one (your most recent one) if you're a senior level employee.
It strikes the right balance between white space and content, and doesn't waste space on unnecessary images and icons. Remember, recruiters aren't looking at how creative you are when it comes to your template. Your content is core and should be the focus.
This job seeker uses resume bullet points that uses strong action verbs, and most importantly, contain numbers that demonstrate the significance of their accomplishments.
This template is clean, readable by resume screeners, and is effective at calling out key accomplishments and projects from specific work experiences. This would be useful if you have been at a company for a while, or been in a consulting-type of role, and want to point hiring managers to your most impressive accomplishments.
Action verbs are important on your resume are vital. They evoke strong imagery to your reader, and this resume does an excellent job by using words such as “spearheaded,” “managed,” and “drove.” These words will help you to put your achievements in perspective, in conjunction with measurable results. Use action verbs relating to the skills you want to highlight.
Many of your accomplishments will involve your responsibilities in your employer's high-level projects. Recruiters want to see what you’ve completed in previous roles -- such as the Operations Improvement Project and new iPhone app launch highlighted in this resume. The numbers make your experience real, rather than a vague “oversaw several teams for a project.” What did you do specifically? Be specific.
This two column resume template has been designed and created in Google Docs, and puts an emphasis on a skills section. You can download it in Word, or edit it directly in Google Docs.
The two-column in this Google Docs resume template prioritizes the work experience sections, while maximizing the content into the resume. Not all two column templates are ATS-compatible, but this one is when it is saved as PDF and passed through a resume screener.
Skills sections are a great way to include specific keywords and skills that you have, that haven't been included in other parts of your resume. This helps you get past resume screeners that scan your resume for specific keywords.
Here are some of the most popular skills we see on Creative Director resumes:
While the keywords above are a good indication of what skills you need on your resume, you should try to find additional keywords that are specific to the job. To do this, use the free Targeted Resume tool. It analyzes the job you are applying to and finds the most important keywords you need on your resume.
It is personalized to your resume, and is the best way to ensure your resume will pass the automated resume filters.
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.
