You are the creative mind behind a company’s marketing campaign. You transform brands and inspire customers.
You combine customer-focus with tech savviness to deliver an on brand and unique user experience.
But, I hear you say, how do you organise all of this talent and expertise into a creative marketing resume?
Don’t worry we’ll explain.
When looking for a creative marketer, hiring managers want to know:
- You have the right technical skills (UX Design, SEO Power Suite, Adobe Creative Suite, Google Analytics)
- You have the right experience and education
- You have the creative ability to drive a project from conception to perfection
Continue reading to find out what you need to do to make it into the creative marketing world.
“Beyond the critical role it plays in tech innovation, personal self-expression, product development, and simply making our world a more interesting place, creativity may be the most important determining factor in whether a content marketing program is properly positioned to thrive or doomed to fail.”
- Jodi Harris, Content Strategy Consultant and Director of Editorial Content and Curation at Content Marketing Institute
This creative marketing resume guide will include:
- 8+ samples and examples of creative marketing resumes
- How to write a stunning summary that will show you’re a creative genius
- Experiences you need to include to show you can effectively reach target audiences
- Technical skills you need to include to show you have an analytical mind as well as a creative one
- Soft skills that show your ability for storytelling and collaboration
- How to include portfolio examples
- Creative marketing qualifications and certifications
Using this guide will get the hiring manager want to:
- Read past your summary, and get to know you on paper
- Be captivated by your skills and experience
- Put on you on the ‘yes’ pile
- Contact you and get to know you in person
- Hire you!
Looking for related resumes?
- Content Marketing Resume Example
- Digital Marketing Resume Example
- Marketing Assistant Resume Example
How to write a creative marketing resume
Creative marketers define the voice of a brand or company. Your resume should show that you can do this whilst maintaining commercial awareness.
Creative marketing resumes that get noticed feature ingenuity and imagination. They combine strategic thinking with an analytical mind.
Use your resume to show can merge hard skills like code and data analysis with soft skills like storytelling.
Include examples that show:
- You have experience working on online multi-channel marketing campaigns, content planning and content creation
- You can create consumer-focused marketing strategies
You can use Adobe Creative Suite to create marketing collateral. Creative marketers often perform elements of graphic design
Here's what a hiring manager will look for in your resume.
- Do you have experience envisioning, planning and executing advertising and promotional campaigns?
- Can you initiate market research studies and use them to inform campaigns?
- Can you analyse the effectiveness of a social media campaign?
- Do you have strong storytelling skills?
- Are you a highly skilled communicator?
The most important aspects of a program analyst resume:
- Resume header that says marketing extraordinaire
- Resume summary that describes your abilities and achievements
- Resume experience that proves your ability to create effective campaigns
- Hard skills that show your ability to problem solve, analyse and create
- Soft skills that show your ability to effectively research and collaborate
- A glimpse of your portfolio
- Creative marketing education and certifications
How to create an outstanding creative marketing resume header
Your creative marketing resume header is your opportunity to effectively convey who you are, and what you do.
There’s a skill to this. Make sure to avoid common resume mistakes.
We’ll show you how.
You’re applying to work as a creative marketing assistant for a well-known educational organisation.
Your header looks like this:
This needs some tweaks. Here’s why:
- The details you have provided are far too basic. Don’t leave the hiring manager guessing
- It lacks effort. This is a key opportunity to tell your story
Make a great first impression. Let’s have a look at how to do it:
This is miles better: Here’s why:
- Immediately the hiring manager knows the candidate’s full title. This makes it instantly more professional. Plus, attention to detail is key in this role.
- It provides a link to the candidate’s portfolio, which builds a connection with the recruiter and gives a better picture of who you are, and what you’ve done
Now, how to bring some of that creativity of yours into a resume layout?
How to choose a spectacular creative marketing resume layout
When picking the resume layout of your creative marketing resume, show your originality.
Show off your style and market awareness. Afterall, you know what works and what doesn’t.
Why not experiment with different colours, textures and fonts on your resume?
Image is everything in the creative marketing world.
Below are some layouts that will show off your creative flair:
3 ideas to make your resume design memorable
- Impose your white resume on a different coloured background and use a tear effect to reveal the different parts of your resume
- Incorporate the logos of big companies you have worked for in your work experience section. This shows you are well respected in your field, and companies love that.
- If you want to keep your resume simple, use a resume package to convey your personality and brand. This way you don’t need to worry about readability and get as creative as you want.
Creating a layout which establishes your own ‘brand’ will tell companies that you can effectively market. This will really catch their eye.
Creative thinking and commercial awareness are essential on a creative marketing resume
As a creative marketer, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that creativity is essential in a successful creative marketing resume.
You are solutions-orientated, and results-driven. You use your creative thinking to drive effective and impactful product campaigns or brand launches.
But your creative thinking doesn’t operate in isolation. You use your commercial awareness and lateral thinking to analyse and determine what is needed for a specific client.
Use your resume to show the hiring manager that you can transform a business with unique direction.
In your resume you can show this by:
- Describing how you have driven creative projects from start to finish
- Explain how you collected and collated data and contributed to creative briefs
- Reference the programs you used to gain insight into your client base (Google Analytics)
- Write about the effects of this research, what impact did this have?
- Referring to the software you used to bring your creativity to life
Write about these capabilities in more depth in your summary and experience sections.
We’ll go through this now.
Writing a stellar creative marketing resume summary
Your resume summary is a vital component of your resume. It will either illustrate you as a marvelous marketer, or a driveling fool.
Make sure its not the latter.
Use this section to create a comprehensive and informative overview of you as a person.
Your skills, achievements, experience and personality.
Reference that award-winning marketing campaign you worked on. Explain that you are an expert in safeguarding a brand’s essence while taking it to the next level.
Express this all in a few sentences.
Remember, be concise, but make sure you shine.
3 creative marketing Resume Samples - Summary
Here are some samples of creative marketing resume summary sections:
This summary is definitely lacking. Here’s why:
- It doesn’t specify exactly what you do, or what kind of creative marketing you are especially interested in
- The language used is too basic and informal. It’s your job to really WOW hiring managers
- It doesn’t highlight any certifications you have attained or reference your technical skill set
Instead, use this section to paint a picture of who you are and what you can bring to a company:
This is much better because:
- It explains what role you are experienced in, and how many years’ experience you have
- It boasts about your achievements
- While it is succinct, it contains a lot of information about what software and programs you can use
- It conveys your enthusiasm
Let’s try this again but for more senior creative marketer:
This summary is OKAY but there’s still some work to do. Here’s why:
- While it expresses the candidate is qualified, it doesn’t specify how many years’ experience they have, and how they are qualified
- It doesn’t show how the candidate determined the effectiveness of social media campaigns. Tell the hiring manager what programs and software you can use
- It doesn’t show RESULTS
This summary section tackles these errors:
This summary is much better. This is because:
- It tells the hiring manager that the candidate is in a senior position
- It lets them know the candidate has certifications to prove they are qualified
- It lets the hiring manager know the candidate is used to producing results
Pro tip
Use the summary section as a brief introduction to your experience section. In this section you can showcase your achievements, seniority and experience and elaborate on them later on.
How to frame your experience on your creative marketing resume
In your experience section on your creative marketing resume, you should accentuate:
- Your experience with specialist software. (SEO and SEM Campaign tools, Photoshop to create digital content)
- Your experience analysing data and preparing reports to measure the performance of campaigns
- Your experience researching market trends and demographics to develop marketing plans
And remember, paint a story. Don’t merely list what you have done. Delve into it. Be informative.
But no waffle. Keep it relevant and related to the job description.
To help with formatting divide it up. Tell the hiring manager:
- What you did/what projects you worked on
- How you did it
- The results it produced
- How you impacted the company. Did you help attract new clients?
Below are some examples. One with common mistakes. The other a pro example:
2 creative marketing resume experience samples."
02/2017 - 11/2019 
- •Made creative suggestions to increase brand awareness
- •Collaborated with key players when developing marketing campaigns.
- •Analysed social media campaign’s effectiveness.
- •Used Google Adwords for pay-per-click campaigns.
Those entries aren’t ideal. This is why:
- These entries don’t explain the impact of your actions
- They don’t expand on your skill set
- They don’t explain what software you can use
The following example provides more of an explanation of your experience:
02/2017 - 11/2019 - •Managed the day-to-day management of Gilmore and Co’s social media vehicles, including creating content, managing and scheduling posingt and posting content for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram.
- •Monitored the success of social media campaigns using Google Analytics and implemented effective changes in response, increasing site hits by 42%.
- •Took ownership of the brands tone of voice, sharing scintillating copy to engage Gilmore and Co’s audiences, while safeguarding their essence.
- •Designed marketing communications materials (brochures, pamphlets, posters) using the full Adobe Creative Suite, informed by feedback from data collection of the target audience.
These entries are much more effective: Here’s why:
- They explain in detail what you did, and what effect this had on the company
- It specifies your capabilities, using action words
- It discusses the software you can use
Remember, each time you apply to a new job craft your resume in response to the job description. Use keywords from the description throughout to ensure your resume reaches the top of the pile.
Match the duties and responsibilities the hiring manager has advertised.
How to describe the duties of a creative marketer
Listed below are some of the duties performed by creative marketers daily. Make sure that you refer to these responsibilities into your experience, education and skills sections:
- Used research and applied sound strategy to develop and implement creative concepts. This delivered a strong message which reinforced the brand value
- Guided the overall tone and look of creative campaigns
- Created innovative concepts and project direction
- Conceptualised marketing ideas into simple proposals. Delivered them confidently to grow engagement with customers
If you are looking to give your resume a little lift, you can:
- Provide portfolio examples that show off your past projects
- Explain that you have the know-how to create accessible products and brand strategies that meet customer needs
- Explain what technical knowledge you have. Employers need to know that you can effectively put your creative ideas into action. For this you will need to use the right tools, UX Design, Adobe Creative Suite and the like
What to include in your creative marketing education section?
Your education section is your opportunity to show you have the academic qualifications and training to do the job and do it right.
For this role, employers typically look for a BA degree as a minimum. Related degrees include, Advertising, Marketing, Broadcast or Journalism.
In this section you can go into specifics about the content of the courses you studied. Refer to courses in communication methods, sales, market research, and consumer behaviour.
An MSc would also be useful for this kind of job. This would provide strategic business-focused training, preparing you for a future management role.
In this part of your resume you should also refer to any certifications you have attained or are in the process of attaining.
Use every opportunity to give yourself an edge and make your resume stand out. This is a competitive job market, and hiring managers only want the best.
Skills to highlight in your creative marketing resume
“It can be daunting to look at marketing and think you need to fully master: analytics, data, CRO, SEM, advertising, copywriting, SEO, community and more. But in reality, to be a successful marketer, you don’t need to be an expert in every channel: one or two areas of expertise will be enough.”
- Ash Read, Editorial Director atBuffer
The skills section should show you have the right balance of creative flair and analytical thinking.
If you want to be taken seriously as a creative marketer and start landing the jobs you want, you need to make sure you don’t scrimp on ‘hard’ skills.
Here are some of the essential hard skills that hiring managers are looking for in a creative marketer:
16 "Hard" Skills You Need to List in Your creative marketing
Soft skills are also essential for this position. These include the following:
12 top soft skills for a creative marketing
- Strong communication skills
- Presentation skills
- Strong research skills
- Analytical thinking
- Time management
- Organisation skills
- Critical thinking
- Attention to detail
- Commercial awareness
- Storytelling skills
- Strong writing skills
- Creative thinking
Discuss these skills in more depth in your experience section. Tell the hiring manager how you have applied these skills. For the hard skills you have mentioned, discuss how long you have used them for, and your proficiency in them.
Integrating your portfolio into your resume
Use your resume as an opportunity to showcase the projects you have previously worked on.
Nothing speaks volumes like the work you have created.
Ensure the links you include are short, and easy to type into a browser. Hiring managers have limited time, so make sure it’s not wasted.
Create individual links to specific materials, as well as to any websites where your work has been published.
How to include your certifications on your resume
Including relevant certifications is another way to good way to show that you are prepared for the job. It shows you have taken an extra step to enhance your performance.
Because the role of a creative marketer is so vast, there are a whole range of certifications that will put you head and shoulders above the rest.
Certifications allow you to specialise in a certain area. Hiring managers will take notice of this. It will show them that you can bring something unique to the table.
Below are some relevant certifications for creative marketers.
Top 8 creative marketing certifications worth including
- Google Ads Certification
- Fundamentals of Digital Marketing Certification
- Content Marketing Certification Course
- Google Analytics IQ Certification
- Bing Ads Accredited Professional (BAAP) Certification
- Deep Learning Specialization Certification
- Google Analytics Individual Qualification
- Hootsuite Social Marketing Certification
What to take away from this guide:
When writing your creative marketing resume keep the following in mind:
- Create a header and summary that instantly portrays you as a marketing wizard
- Write work experience that demonstrates your ability to deliver effective marketing campaigns
- Explain your technical abilities and certifications that set you apart from other candidates
- Describe the soft skills you have. Show your strong research skills and analytical thinking
- Integrate portfolio examples into your resume
- Include keywords from the job summary into your resume to make sure it doesn’t get skipped over
