Resume Tips for Advertising Pros

Whether you're just starting out in advertising or are a seasoned veteran, sizzling ad campaigns may excite you, but the thought of writing your own ad piece -- your resume -- may leave you lukewarm. In this competitive field, experts recommend improving your resume to get noticed for the most desirable positions. Follow these insider tips to get started.

Focus on Accomplishments

"The single biggest mistake that ad people make is writing a job description resume as opposed to an accomplishment resume.

"Any recruiting director, want to know about your accomplishments,". "How many ads did you produce, how much were your billings, did you win any awards, did you increase market share, profit, etc.?"

Target Your Resume

Advertising campaigns and job search campaigns have the same goal: To get attention through a clear message and benefits statement. Karsh advises job seekers to carefully read the job description and adjust their resumes to employer requirements. "A resume is just like an ad -- you want to target it to the audience," he says. "Find out what the company is looking for, and then match your skills up.

Adding a qualifications summary that includes your career goal is a great way to target your resume. Here's an example for a creative director:

Creative director with seven years of experience in both agency- and client-side communications for Fortune 500 retailers. Respected leader of creative teams, multimedia divisions and corporate communications departments. Expert in the technical, conceptual and content development of advertising campaigns that target desired audiences and articulate the merits of client products and services.

Pick the Right Format

A combination resume, which leads with a qualifications summary but also provides a reverse chronological employment history, is a good choice for most advertising professionals.

Employer want to see a career path. he wants to see what you did and where you did it as opposed to looking at skills and trying to match it up with your jobs." "Don't make it look like (a) newspaper layout -- make it look like a resume,".

Nanda explains that professionals on the creative side can take more design risks than those on the business end. "Advertising creatives (art directors, copywriters, graphic designers) are going to be judged almost exclusively on their portfolio," he says. "Creatives do have the opportunity to have much more fun with their resumes. They can write it funny, design it cool and be much more irreverent. Business resumes should be straightforward."

Proofread

Just as an advertising campaign needs to be perfect, so does your resume. One of the biggest mistakes advertising professionals make is sending out resumes containing typographical errors. "There's no excuse for typos with spell-check, yet we continue to see them -- and from executives, too.