Best Practices to Write a Stellar Artist Resume Posted Jun 11, 2020
We know you possess the ability to make stellar art and have all the talent to carve a name for yourself. However, if you want to be employed as an artist you have to show the same care to your resume that you show to your art.
Artists spend hours pondering over an idea or making a masterpiece. But resume building is definitely easier than that if you adhere to the following best practices.
Professional Experience
The professional experience of an artist resume should resonate with their current and previous work profiles. You should compile your work profiles here with key achievements and contributions in your entire professional career as an artist.
Here’s how you can construct the professional section that conveys your expertise to recruiters and makes a concrete impact:
- Bucketing & Bolding: Keeping in mind that you should never bold 3-4 words in one go, you need to highlight important words and figures in your resume. Further, bucketing 3-4 points under relevant subheadings can bring forth your expertise and increase the readability of your resume.
- Roles & Responsibilities: Since the idea of a resume is achievements based, you should avoid pointers that reflect your roles and responsibilities without showing what impact those brought. Try to use a STAR (situation-action-task-result) based format to write points in your resume to solve this issue.
- Power Verbs: Make sure you are beginning each point in your resume with an action verb. Further, verify if the form of the verb is in line with the work profile timeline. For example, you should use the present participle of the verb for current profiles and projects.
Exhibition
This is one of the most essential parts of an artist’s resume. You need to showcase information regarding the exhibitions you were a part of to solidify your real-life experience to the recruiter.
It is a tricky business to portray exhibitions in a resume because they are given preference over your other professional achievements.
For example:
2 Person Exhibition | Fight against the artificial intelligence | Queen Brianne Art Faculty | Dec ‘14
- Created an art piece that showcases the consequences of technological advancement
Summary
This section is a summary of achievements throughout your professional career. Irrespective of the targeted industry, the first thing a recruiter notices in a resume is the professional summary.
It showcases your abilities on how you can be beneficial to an organization, thus solidifying your candidacy.
For example,
3+ years experienced Graphic Artist and certified video animation professional, demonstrated capability to develop logos, user interface, and landscape art-form. Adept at conducting art events and exhibitions for upcoming artists.
The above example showcased what a well-crafted summary should look like.
Education
Considering the importance of cruel modules that artists have to study during their academic journey, the education section becomes one of the most important factors that decide your fate of getting shortlisted.
You should include the key modules and important academic achievements for each degree to make a concrete impact. Using a reverse chronology to list your professional qualifications, here is how you can make a stellar education section:
For example:
Masters in Fine Arts | Harvard University | Boston, Massachusetts | Apr ‘15 - May ‘19
- Received a scholarship of USD 5000 to work on art in a digital age and its consequences
- Gained expertise in designing logos by using Logomaker, Logoscopic, etc.
The must-have sections
An artist resume is incomplete without the following sections:
Collection: It is most likely that your collection is owned by a private collector. Though you need to ask for the collector’s permission before listing it in your resume. Grants & Awards: List all your grants and awards to best showcase your achievements across your entire career span. Residencies: Mention all the key residency programs you were a part of.
Conclusion
Depending on the professional experience, make sure your resume is of 1 or 2 pages. However, do not exceed 2 pages. Attach a portfolio with the resume. Further, you can include links to your Instagram profile to showcase your artistic abilities.
Make sure your resume is keywords friendly as your recruiter might use screening software. Take help from the job post and draw relevant skills & expertise.
Further, do give equal importance to publications and journal articles. An optimized artist resume is essential when applying for a grant, residency, scholarship program, etc. Make sure you leave no stone unturned.
