Portfolio Lesson 1: Course Intro & Resume Writing - INSTRUCTOR: Gleb Shtyrmer EMAIL

Portfolio
Lesson 1: Course Intro & Resume Writing
           INSTRUCTOR: Gleb Shtyrmer
           EMAIL: gleb.fda@gmail.com

About this Course

Philosophy of this course
             It is the pervading law of all things organic and
             inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical,
             of all things human and all things superhuman, of
             all true manifestations of the head, of the heart,
             of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its
             expression, that form ever follows function. This
             is the law.

             Louis Sullivan

What is the function of a portfolio?

 Share works with others?

        Portfolio is a professional tool, with a clear objective:

      Getting new job/clients

Course Objective:
The course objective is to help participants take their first steps in career
development. Students will learn how to write and design their resume, design and
print business card, assemble their works in an effective portfolio highlighting the
best of their skills and experience.
Students will develop basic computer software and graphic design skills required
for realization of printed catalogues and digital PDF documents with Adobe
InDesign.
Students that will successfully complete this course will end up with three self-
promotion any designer needs to starts her/his career: Resume, Business Card and
Portfolio.

Course Topics

 Design                             Marketing
 • Basic understanding of graphic   • Elements of portfolio
   design principles.               • Elements of resume/cv
 • Minimum set of software skills   • Professional portfolio and
   required for realization of        resume copywriting rules
   professional portfolio
                                    • And more…
 • Real projects
 • And more…

Software:

 In this course you will get a very solid software base

 BUT IT IS NOT ABOUT SOFTWARE.

 It’s about building the tools required to face
 professional challenges in the real world.

Course sample schedule:
• Lesson 1. Course Presentation. Resume: sections, layout and formatting, language and more.
• Lesson 2. Resume: layout examples online: discussion in class
• Lesson 3. InDesign: Interface and navigation.
• Lesson 4. InDesign: working with texts and styles. Resume: example in class, part 1
• Lesson 5. InDesign: working with tables and shapes. Resume: example in class, part 2
• Lesson 6. Printed and digital images: introduction to basic graphic design concepts. Understanding professional technical printing
  requirements.
• Lesson 7: InDesign: working with images, shapes and effects. Photoshop: Creating grayscale images. Business cards: examples 1 and 2 in
  class.
• Lesson 8. InDesign: working with vector graphics. Business Cards: example 3.
• Lesson 9. Midterm submission deadline. Portfolio: Function and Elements. Discussion of past year portfolios.
• Lesson 10. InDesign: setting up a printable catalogue, working with multipage documents, master pages, page numbers etc. Portfolio:
  example in class, part 1
• Lesson 11. InDesign: creating content tables. Portfolio: example in class, part 2
• Lesson 12. InDesign: working with links, errors, exporting documents. Portfolio: example in class, part 3
• Lesson 13. Final Projects
• Lesson 14. Final Projects
• Lesson 15. Final Projects

Course Projects and Tests:
1. Midterm:
   • Project 1: Resume writing and design
   • Project 2: Business card. Design a print ready business card
   • Deadline: 9th week of the semester (25th-29th of March 2019)
2. Final Project:
   • Portfolio: Design a printable catalogue of your work
   • Deadline: 14th and 15th weeks of the semester (13th-24th of May 2019)

Course Materials:
During each lesson you will get materials:
1. Examples
2. Presentation PDFs
3. Useful links
4. And more…

Lesson files can be found on FDA SERVER:        As well as on the dedicated web page:
\\server\lesson files\Gleb\Portfolio Projects   https://courses.shtyrmer.com/fda/

About your instructor

Gleb Shtyrmer
Artist, web and graphic designer and software engineer with more
than 10 years of experience.

Download CV:                      Visit website (art):

                                  https://www.shtyrmer.com/

Writing a Resume

Hiring Process
   When you decide on a movie to        And this process is somewhat
   watch, it may all or some some of    similar to job recruitment:
   the following steps:
You• Take
      should      pass      through
          a look on the title and
                                       every  one     of  those     steps
                                          • Quickly scan the resume and
                                                                          to
     movie poster                 get the job
                                            cover letter
   • Read the description               • Read resume in detail
   • Watch the trailer                  • Read the portfolio
   • Read the reviews                   • Ask for references
   • Watch the movie                    • Make an interview

Gathering materials
• Thoroughly research the employer – it will help you with both resume and
  interview
• Understand the requirements of the job
• Match your skills for the job
• Target your resume
• Prove that you are the best fit for this position

Research employers
• What products and services do they offer?
• What are their competitors?
• How many years are they in business?
• How many employees do they have?
• How many locations do they have?

Resume targeting
• Employer is looking for very specific things expressed in job
  description
• One-size fits all resumes force the employer to search through your
  resume for matching skills
• Targeted resume highlights specific skills that are relevant for the
  specific job

Your resume should not be vague

Conventional Resume Formats
Chronological: best for solid professional experiences

Functional: best for new graduates and employment gaps

Chrono-Functional: more flexible format, best for most of the
situations

Resume Sections
•   Personal Information
•   Headline
•   Qualifications Summary
•   Skills Summary
•   Education and Professional Experience
•   Technical Skills
•   Languages – remember to add level of your ability and in some cases specify separately
    writing/reading/speaking levels.
• Other RELEVANT information

one more controversial section:
Objective
Objective is a problematic section that may narrow yur possibilities. Some of its disadvantages
include:
• It is about what you want, not about what your employer or your prospective client wants
• If objective is too specific: it may prevent you to be called for an interview
• If objective is too vague: it looses it’s purpose
• It’s position (on the top of the resume) is very precious and should be used wisely

If you are applying for a job – it is your objective.
Fortunately, it is an optional section.

Headline
Think of headline like a title of magazine article or Ad copy.
It makes you want to read further.

The most important information should appear in the
first 1/3 of your resume

Qualifications summary
Surveys show that “Qualifications Summary” or “Summary of
Qualifications” is said to be the most important part of a resume.
Qualification Summary is a list of 3-5 short and powerful phrases
highlighting your most impressive and relevant characteristics:
• Professional skills, experience and education
• Abilities and talents
• Credentials and achievements
• Most impressive quantifiable results
• Etc.

Experience and Education
• REVERSE chronological – latest first.
• Put the most relevant of this two sections first: for example if you
  have just graduated or changing your career path – education should
  come first.
• Don’t make lists like:
   •   Date:
   •   Position:
   •   Company:
   •   Description:
• If you have a college degree don’t include the high school

Technical Skills
• Divide in sections when needed

• Use lists or tables

• If you do not know the software do not include it

• Don’t include outdated technologies

• Describing how proficient you are with a software is not mandatory. If you think
  you can make a good impression by doing that – do it. Otherwise, just list the
  programs.

Skill Summaries
• Take a close look to the list of responsibilities in the job description
• Rewrite the responsibilities with your matching skills and professional
  experience
• Never use exactly same phrases, describe it with your words

• Learn more about Soft Skills:
  https://www.thebalancecareers.com/list-of-soft-skills-2063770

                           DO NOT LIE!

Exclude the following:
• Unrelated experience (but be careful about leaving gaps in employment dates)
• Outdated experience (if you have a lot of experience, you may consider
  summarizing this experience in an Early Career section, with no chronological list)
• Obsolete technology
• High school information
• “About Me”, “Profile”, “Bio”, “Hobbies”, “Interests” and other useless sections

Resume Language: Personal Pronouns

Don’t use personal pronouns in your CV.
Examples of personal pronouns:
I, my, me, you, they etc.

If you create a section in yout CV entitled «About Me», you damage yourself twice:
1. It’s a usless section nobody will want to read
2. You are using personal pronouns

Resume Language: Action Verbs

•   Make a dull sentence come to life
•   Add a sense of energy and excitement
•   Show what you can do
•   Highlight what you have done

Learn more:
https://www.ulm.edu/careerconnections/powerfulactionverbs.html
http://careernetwork.msu.edu/resources-tools/resumes/action-verbs.html
https://www.themuse.com/advice/185-powerful-verbs-that-will-make-your-
resume-awesome

Resume Language: Action Verbs
from: Design Portfolios. Presentation & Marketing for Interior Designers. 3d Edition by Diane M. Bender

Resume Language: Problem-action-result
PAR Statements, or Problem (or Situation or Challenge) – Action –
Result Statements, are also referred to as Accomplishment Statements.
They describe a problem that you faced, the action you took to
overcome that problem, and the result of your action.
Strengthen these statements further by quantifying them. That will
make PAR statements the most effective tools you can use to present
your case.
Add as many quantifiable results as possible

Resume Language: Problem-action-result
• Think of achievements in your career
• What problems have you solved for your employers/clients
• What was the action you’ve taken to solve it?
• What was the outcome?
• Saving time/money?
• Improving sales?
• Getting new clients?

Learn more:
http://resumefactor.blogspot.com/2011/09/par-statements-best-weapon-in-your.html
https://www.pcc.edu/staff/pdf/1035/SampleresumeStatementsusingPAR.pdf

Dos and don’ts of resume writing
DON’T                                                              DO
• Email with inappropriate or unprofessional username          •   Use your name as username
• Usage of personal pronouns (I, me, my etc.)                  •   If you don’t have a personal
• Including references in the resume                               domain, get an email from current
                                                                   popular email providers as Gmail
• Including the phrase “references available upon request”
  or similar
                                                                   or Yahoo

• Including irrelevant information                             •   Check which personal information
                                                                   should be included in a resume in
• Putting the word “Resume” in the title
                                                                   your country
• Including photographs
• Including hobbies unless they are relevant to the position

Resume length
Consider the following factors:
• How much experience do you have?
   • If you are beginning your career (recently graduated or less than 5 years experience) – try to
     fit your resume in one page
   • If you already have many years of experience – you may consider expanding to two pages

• Do not make it longer than 2 pages

Visual aspect
• Professional
• Inviting
• Consistent
• Easy to scan quickly
• Easy to read in detail

Visual aspect
Fonts:
   • Easily readable
   • Maximum 2 fonts
   • Less than 10 points for body text will make your Resume difficult to read
   • More than 12 points for body text will make your Resume look unprofessional
   • 13+ for headings and titles
   • 18+ for your name
   • It is better to use more traditional Serif fonts when applying to a big corporation or conservative
     kind of company
   • It is better to use more modern Sans-Serif fonts when applying to a more modern company, start
     up, architecture and design companies etc.L
Learn more about resume text formatting:
https://www.themuse.com/advice/12-tiny-changes-that-make-your-resume-easy-for-recruiters-to-
skim

Visual aspect

Visual aspect
Layout:
• Use white space generously
• Create big margins all around the pages
• Keep the margins and gaps between various elements of a consistent
  size
• Don’t put text too close to images and graphic elements

Visual aspect
Organizing texts:
• Use bulleted lists, but don’t use only bulleted lists – blend them with
  small paragraphs when needed. For example, describe your job in a
  paragraph and followed by a bulleted list of your achievements
• Be laconic. Don’t create big paragraphs. Try to use maximum 6 words
  in a phrase.
Remember: writing a Resume is like writing an
Advertisement Copy

Visual aspect
Consistency:
• Decide on formatting of various elements (titles, subtitles, dates, job
  titles, company names etc.)
• Keep this formatting exactly the same in all of the document.
• Consistency is crucial to achieve readability and overall positive visual
  appearance of your resume
• In InDesign use Styles to manage formatting

Preparing to send the resume
• Beware of typos – bad spelling can ruin your resume, ask help of your
  friends
• Be sure to include or exclude everything employer requests
   • If a portfolio or cover letter were requested – attach them to the mail
   • If requested to send a pdf portfolio, do not send a link to your website instead
   • Respect requested file size

Assignment:

   1. Write your CV/Resume in your favorite text editor (Word, Google
      Docs, Open Office etc.)
      • Follow the guide lines provided in this lecture
      • Use professional language
      • Do not use resume templates
   2. Choose a resume layout for discussion. Search the web for resume
      examples and choose one layout you like, copy it on your USB drive
      and bring in class.
Portfolio                                     INSTRUCTOR: Gleb Shtyrmer
Lesson 1: : Course Intro & Resume Writing      EMAIL: gleb.fda@gmail.com