INDUSTRY STATS
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Senior Art Director positions are at a 11% growth rate, which is faster than average. With that said, there are currently 98,500 jobs in the market right now. The total number of jobs is expected to increase by 10,800 to 109,300 in the period of 2020-30.
What’s more, the median annual wage for the Senior Art Director jobs was $97,270 in May 2020. The lowest 10% earned less than $54,530, and the highest 10% more than $199,250.
Our conclusion? The Senior Art Director job market is wide open for candidates.
Top Senior Art Director sections that make the best resume
- Header
- Professional summary
- Experience (with numbers and results)
- Relevant skills
- Education
- Certifications
How to write a Senior Art Director resume experience section
Senior Art Director Resume’s Job Experience Checklist:
- Use 4-6 bullet points per job title;
- Don’t go further than a decade behind when describing your job history, unless you’re applying for an executive position;
- Combine job responsibilities as well as achievements with numbers in results when you describe your past work;
- Start each sentence with a power verb and avoid overused buzzwords;
- Use either C-A-R or S-T-A-R methodology, when describing your experience.
The work experience samples below come from real Senior Art Director resumes that got people hired at top companies. You can use them as an inspiration to build your own resume:
- Briefing work into the studio and liaising with clients and suppliers
- Directing of Photo-shoots and Video-shoots and video editing
- Storyboards and copywriting
- Web Design / Layout
- Emailer design and slicing
- Project management
- Host brain storming sessions
- Present at pitches for new business
- Design and layout of print adverts
- Design of OOH advertising
- Design of event collateral
- Mentoring and overseeing design team
- Senior AD for Zynga's new STAR WARS Game - forging a new "forever franchise" for NaturalMotion
- Created Art Bibles, Mood-Boards, In-depth Deconstructions, Ripomatic Videos for the new and upcoming StarWars Game
- Stakeholder of all aspects orbiting Disney brand-guidelines and communicating IP restrictions to the art-team
- Created new, company-wide art-pillars and design-dogmas in order to elevate NaturalMotions art-quality
- Steering the hiring-process of new talents
- Hands on work, creating key-art ideations, story-boards, concept-art, UI and UX flows and vertical-slices
- Senior AD for Zynga's new STAR WARS Game - forging a new "forever franchise" for NaturalMotion
- Created Art Bibles, Mood-Boards, In-depth Deconstructions, Ripomatic Videos for the new and upcoming StarWars Game
- Stakeholder of all aspects orbiting Disney brand-guidelines and communicating IP restrictions to the art-team
- Created new, company-wide art-pillars and design-dogmas in order to elevate NaturalMotions art-quality
- Steering the hiring-process of new talents
- Hands on work, creating key-art ideations, story-boards, concept-art, UI and UX flows and vertical-slices
- Leading accounts like Bank Aljazira, Albaik, Desar, Emaar, Alnahdi, Johnson Controls, Tahweel Integrated (Technology & Industrial), Enaya and working on clients like Almari, Alyoum Chicken etc...
- Conceptualizing, Pitching on, presenting & winning: Bupa Arabia, KASC, Sunbula Pizza & Gear Up.
- Supervising the creative department on daily work and campaigns with minimum supervision from the CD.
- Conceptualizing and presenting campaigns/360O’s, one-shots, TV Commercials etc... and following their execution till media delivery.
- Creating storytelling TVC storyboards and scripts and presenting them to clients.
- Working with DoS at early stages to formulate the strategy.
- Supervised Photoshooting & TV shooting & formed an understanding of their work-flow.
- Keeping up-to-date with digital and integrating digital ideas in most creative campaigns.
PRO TIP
Don't make the same mistake everyone else does. What we mean is, don't list your Senior Art Director job responsibilities instead of your achievements. Recruiters know what you do. They want to know what kind of difference you can bring to their company. Focus on what you've accomplished.
Action Verbs for your Senior Art Director Resume
Recommended reads:
Senior Art Director Resume Skills’ Tips & Tricks to Impress Recruiters
Resume Skills Section Checklist:
- Ensure your hard skills section (including technologies) are exactly matching the job description.
- Don’t simply list your soft skills. Apply the “show, don’t tell” principle - let your job achievements speak for themselves.
- Find a way to showcase your skills beyond the skills section.
- Your resume’s skill section is important to ATS systems - so don’t skip it.
Top Skills for your Senior Art Director resume
- Photoshop
- Illustrator
- Microsoft Office
- Autocad
- Jira
- Scrum
- Communication
- Active listening
- Conflict resulotion
- Stakeholder management
- Empathy
- Openmindedness
PRO TIP
When picking skills to feature in your resume, make sure they'll be relevant to the position you’re applying to. The point of listing skills is for you to stand out from the competition. Stay away from repetitive, meaningless skills that everyone uses in their resumes. Or else, they’ll backfire and make you look like an average candidate.
Recommended reads:
Senior Art Director Resume Header: Tips, Red Flags, and Best Practices
CHECKLIST For Your Senior Art Director Resume Header
- Your name and surname in a legible and larger resume font
- The job title you’re applying for or your current job title as a subheading to your name
- Link to your portfolio or online profile, such as LinkedIn
- Address (City and State for the US; just your city for rest of the world)
- Email address
- Headshot (required or welcomed in the EU; not required and sometimes frowned upon in the US)
Stick to popular email providers such as Gmail or Outlook. And use these professional formats to create your username:
- first.last@gmail.com
- last.first@gmail.com
- firstlast@gmail.com
- f.last@gmail.com
- first.l@gmail.com
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Some companies, states, and countries have non-discrimination policies about what kind of information can be included on your Senior Art Director resume. This might include a photo (which is often included in a resume header and might be on personal web pages you link to). You can always email the company’s HR department to ask about their policies before you apply.
Senior Art Director Resume Summary Best Practices
Checklist: What to include in your Senior Art Director resume summary:
- Years of experience;
- Highlight top 3 skills and proficiencies;
- One big professional accomplishment you’re most proud of, that you can tie with the aforementioned skills;
- Use short, direct sentences - but no more than three - to keep the HRs interested.
Resume Summary Formula:
PRO TIP
You’re not going to get hired simply because of a good summary or objective. However, your recruiter can bump you up in front of similarly experienced candidates who didn’t demonstrate such passion and drive.
Recommended reads:
Listing Your Education, Certifications and Courses
Resume Education Section Checklist:
- Ensure your hard skills section (including technologies) are exactly matching the job description.
- Don’t simply list your soft skills. Apply the “show, don’t tell” principle - let your job achievements speak for themselves.
- Find a way to showcase your skills beyond the skills section.
- Your resume’s skill section is important to ATS systems - so don’t skip it.
Top Certifications for your Senior Art Director resume
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
There are dozens of certifications that you can claim as a Senior Art Director. But, some are more effective than others. That’s why you mustn’t include every certificate other applicants might have. Try instead to earn and list a few of the difficult ones.
Senior Art Director Resume: Additional Writing & Formatting Tips
There are three basic resume formats you can choose from:
- Reverse-chronological resume format;
- Functional resume format;
- Hybrid (or Combination) resume format;
The most optimal format for your particular case will depend on your years of experience, as well as whether you’re switching industries or not.
Reverse chronological resumes are best suited for experienced individuals who are sticking to their industry. The experience section takes a central place, and its bullets contain your responsibilities and achievements, coupled with numbers and results.
Functional resumes are used by less experienced jobseekers or career changers. Note that it’s not a format that recruiters prefer, as most are used to the classic chronological alignment. Instead of a list of job titles, functional resumes focus on your skills, and through what experiences you gained them.
Hybrid resumes are great for both experienced and entry-level candidates, as well as career changers. They combine the best of both worlds - most often in a double column format, where one side of the content is focused on your experience, whereas the other - on your skills, strengths, and proudest moments.
Senior Art Director Resume Summary best practices
Here are more resume tips regarding your layout and style:
- Clear and legible 12p resume font size;
- Use 10’’ resume margins - that’s default for a great resume design;
- Use a one-page template resume length if you’ve got less than 10 years of experience; otherwise, opt for a two-page resume;
- Save your resume as PDF before sending it to the recruiter.
To take it a step further, check out how your resume can stand out without leaning too much on the creative side.
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PRO TIP
Sometimes you’ll want to go after a job which requires more experience than you have. Instead of using a typical Senior Art Director resume layout, you can use a creative layout. Getting noticed is the most important challenge and a creative resume layout might help you get invited for an interview as most of other accountants have boring resume designs.
Other sections to include in your resume
Depending on the type of company (corporation or start-up; innovative or traditional), job seniority level and your location, you may want to include more sections to your Senior Art Director resume:
Senior Art Director Resume: How to Make Yours More Creative & Stand Out
When you send your resume to a potential employer, chances are it's the fiftieth one they've seen that day. That's why you need to make your Senior Art Director resume stand out for the right reasons. That means showing your personality, not just your professional experience. Employers are far more likely to remember a candidate who seems like a genuine person and not a robot. Do this by including your passions (which is also a great place to demonstrate skills on a resume), share your favorite books, or even what your usual day looks like.
What Makes a Great Senior Art Director Resume: Key Takeaways
- Choose a resume layout that sends the right message across and fits your current career situation;
- Create a resume header that shows your desired job title, and easy to find contact numbers;
- Be specific about your experience, accomplishments and future goals in your summary;
- Feature detailed metrics and specific examples that show the impact you made in your previous roles when describing your experience;
- List soft skills backed by examples;
- Add all of your technical skills and certifications that you have and match the job description;
- Show off a dash of personality in your resume that will demonstrate your culture fit and the right mix of hard and soft skills.
