- Fact, there is more to reading a job description
than just reading the job description.
(gentle melodic music)
In today's video, I want to walk you through
how to dissect all the information
that you get given in a job ad to pull out
what's really important to the company
that you're applying to, so that you can make sure
that you highlight that stuff in your application.
I've pulled up the job ads
for three marketing and brand design roles
in the tech industry, we're gonna through them together,
and I'll pull out what stands out to me and what I would do
if I was applying to this job.
I hope it's gonna be really useful for you.
This is sort of a follow on from my top five mistakes
that designers make in job applications video
that a lot of you seem to really enjoy.
So let's get on with it
and take a look at some real world job ad examples.
Okay, the first job ad
is for a brand design role at Webflow.
You know, I had to include a Webflow in this video.
I love the company.
So let's take a look at this job description.
Webflow is a visual web development platform
that empowers non coders to create incredible experiences
for the web.
We're looking for a brand designer web to help us design
and build beautiful websites for Webflow,
using Webflow, inspiring a rapidly growing community
of designers along the way.
Okay, so straight off the back
they're talking about websites as the core thing
they want his person to design, web is in the name.
So already that is telling me that
if I'm applying for this role,
my portfolio better be filled with websites.
As a brand designer
your user extensive knowledge or web design,
icon design, layout, typography,
animation, and building sites
and Webflow to develop and evolve Webflows brand.
Okay, so they're calling out web design,
icon design, layout, typography, animation,
as core skills that will be needed for this role.
So that's something that I would be wanting to make sure
is visible in all of the projects that I have
in my portfolio, if not in every project,
at least that there's one project that represents my skills
in each one of these categories.
And remember, like I talked about
in that top five mistakes video,
when someone is reviewing your application to a job,
they are not able to read every single word
on your portfolio site
and look at every single project in detail.
So that's why I would make sure
you pick a couple of projects that demonstrate
all of these skills that they're looking for really well
and call the things out in
in your project descriptions like highlight a piece
of animation or interactivity that you did for it.
Highlight your typography decisions,
go into detail about that and focus on that,
cause that is what seems to be important
to Webflow and obviously building sites in Webflow.
This is important.
You need to have a project
in your portfolio that is built in Webflow.
It would probably be a really good idea,
honestly, if your portfolio site itself was built
in Webflow to apply for this job,
and yeah, got to make sure that you call this out.
I would make sure that the first site
in my portfolio was one that was built
in Webflow for a client or a company as well.
They talk here about ability to work with data
and customer insights to contribute to the team's goals.
So for this, I would try
and think about any times that I've used research
and data that I've pulled from, you know,
how customers are currently interacting with our website
and fed that into my design decisions, call that out either
in your cover letter or in the description of a project
and that'll show Webflow that you have that skill covered.
They talk about collaborating, collaborating again
but with teams outside of just the design team,
and then they talk about team critique sessions too.
So this is saying to me that like
obviously Webflow is looking for a team player.
I think that team player is one
of those resume buzzwords that everyone says they are.
So it's much better for you to show that you are,
if there's a project where you collaborated with someone
perhaps from one of these other teams,
not just the design team, it would be good to call that out
as part of your project description.
They talk here about having knowledge of Webflow,
obviously we already talked about the fact
that your portfolio should be built in Webflow.
You should have a Webflow
like client or company project in there.
We also see other No Code tools.
I think it'd be really impressive
if you could show a project where you connected Webflow
to another No Code tool, even just using Zapier
or something like that, to send data somewhere
or fetch data from somewhere for your Webflow site.
I think that would show them
that you have an understanding of this.
They're calling out these things here again.
Icon design layout, typography, animation.
So it's really clear that these are important
key skills that Webflow wants to add to their team.
So please make sure
that you call those out in your projects.
This line here really stands out
to me as a fellow in-house designer as well,
and I think that we can sort of see it up here as well.
When they talk about collaborating with other designers.
In this role, I would bet
that you're not really picking out new color palettes
and starting brands from scratch very often.
Webflow's a very established brand already
and they need someone who is comfortable working
within those existing guidelines.
So I would avoid showing too many projects
in your portfolio that are all
about creating the brand from scratch,
and I would try to at least feature one
or two where you were iterating
on something that existed that would give them
the confidence that you would be comfortable working
with an existing brand guidelines.
Yeah, just something to be aware of,
and having a growth mindset and eager to learn new things.
This could be evident
in a blog that you have on your website,
or maybe it's something that you specifically
decided to call out the latest thing that you're learning
in your cover letter,
just to show them that you have that vision.
Let's move on now and look at this job out here
for a senior brand designer at Pilot.
It's always really important to read this thoroughly
so that you can call
out anything that you personally like can relate to it.
Me, for example, I can relate very strongly to Webflows.
I don't relate as strongly to pilot,
so I would be kind of
like scraping the barrel to talk about this,
but I could perhaps talk about my experience at Zero,
which was an accounting software company.
Even though the mission
isn't something that I feel particularly close to,
I do have experience
in this world of finance and accounting,
and so I'd want to make sure to call that out.
So just have a think
as you read company descriptions in job ads
you're applying to, how do you relate to their mission?
How does your experience,
how could that help towards their mission?
They're looking for a senior brand designer,
senior is called out,
so we'll see later on what that means to them,
and to help build the future of the financial back office,
work with stakeholders to tell Pilot's brand narrative
through design.
Okay so that's already like a much more,
more of a senior role job description I guess then,
creating assets, it's like,
no, you're telling the brand narrative through design.
As a key member of the design team,
you work to define and evolve Pilot's
brand visuals and strategy.
Okay so, we'll see how this plays out through the rest,
but already I'm seeing here that this is a difference
from the Webflow one,
where in that there was specifically saying we're looking
for someone comfortable to work with an existing guidelines,
whereas this one here is really talking
about someone who has strong brand experience,
can help to define evolve, and sort of form that brand.
It makes me feel like it's much more malleable
and more open perhaps than Webflows is.
Less defined, that's why they need help with defining it.
In key responsibilities,
they talk about owning the web experience.
First off, it's the first item on this list.
They do say other customer touch points as well.
But this tells me
that the website Pilot.com is probably going to
be the main thing that you'd work on this role,
and so therefore I would want to make sure
that the portfolio that you would submit
to this would be mostly web design.
This is interesting here,
up-level Pilots internal and external brand.
So if you had a story or
like a way you could speak to doing this at other companies,
like I know for me at Zero,
I did a lot of internal brand design work to, you know,
help unite the team
around our brand company values in particular.
Then that might be a really good thing to call out here.
Ideating concepts,
developing visual identity platform systems,
unlike the Webflow one, I really would advise you
here to make sure your portfolio has an example
of a project where you developed the system
of the identity, yourself.
Showing the details of how you delivered
that I guess would help them to
visualize what you could provide
to Pilot as part of this role.
Developing and managing the production, okay.
So this is interesting.
This is showing me that they really want someone
with good organizational skills as well,
to manage this pipeline of work.
That'd be something to specifically call
out in your cover letter,
how you've handled this at previous roles.
They're also noting here,
a bunch of other different types of output.
Like I guess this is the other customer touch
points that they talked about up here.
So perhaps for this job application,
I would advise having some extra stuff in your portfolio
not just websites.
Just websites would be perfect I think,
for the Webflow one, but for this one here
you'd want to show how you apply visuals
to other things too, so they can make sure
that you have that skillset.
This bit here is also
really related to that organizational side of things.
They want someone who can be
across a lot of projects and working cross-functionally too,
and they specifically talk about brainstorming,
sketching, and prototyping, so maybe
this is a good reason to show a full process
of a project in your portfolio
and not just the finished product,
but show them how you got started.
Show them how you brainstormed and sketched and all that.
And if not in your portfolio,
have that prepared to talk to them about in the interview.
Even if they don't ask.
In this qualifications part, they specifically call
out experience developing branding systems.
So that's, we mentioned a few times now,
so definitely make sure that that would be part
of an application here is showing how you develop a system
around a brand and then they call
out layout, typography, iconography, and illustration.
So I would hope that you could show those
through the work that you have in your portfolio,
like through these types of things and the website,
and they call out excellent visual,
verbal, and written communication skills too.
So I think this is important for every job, honestly,
but because it was specifically called it out,
you need to make sure that you're communicating well,
that your application is well-written, well formatted,
with key things, bolded and stuff like that
to make it easier for them.
All those are signs of that
someone's paid attention to the communication.
Once again, they're calling out organization too,
which I already had seen
through several of these other points
and the responsibilities, but yeah,
this would definitely be something
that I'd recommend talking about in the cover letter
in the application for this job,
because it might not be super visible
in the work in your portfolio,
but you need to tell them what experience you have
in this and why you could do this well.
Okay, let's move on to our last example here,
but I hope that was useful already to sort of
see the differences between Webflow and Pilot
and how I would sort of tailor my experience
and talk about different things in each one.
Let's take a look here
at this lead marketing designer role for SamCart.
So they're an e-commerce company and they say
they're looking for a lead marketing designer to
take our current website, landing pages, ads,
and brand to the next level.
So they've got something already
and there looking for someone to iterate on it.
The ideal candidate should have an eye
for clean and artful web design.
They've called this out specifically,
so I would make sure that the first project
in my portfolio was a super clean and artful,
which I could be interpreted a lot of different ways,
and I would perhaps check out the SamCart website to try
and get an idea of maybe what they might mean by artful,
and pick a project that best sort of like gets closest
to that to show them as the first one,
because the first project in the portfolio is
usually the one that reviewers are going to click on first.
Not always, but usually, so I'd make sure that's there
cause they have specifically called out on this line.
They say that this role will help us crush quarterly
and yearly revenue goals.
So, if you could speak to any ways that your work
in previous companies has helped towards revenue,
that would really help,
even if you don't have a specific example
of your work leading to that, I think that talking about
how at a previous company, you,
as a team, met, crushed a revenue goal,
could help to have that in the cover letter,
because that would be an
immediate sign that you read this job description in detail.
You'd be surprised how many people don't do that.
So that would help her application to stand out.
So they call out proven work experience as a web designer
as the first thing on their list.
Just like they talked
about cleaning up for web design up here.
So again, we're looking for a portfolio
with web designs as the core skill set that makes it up,
but they also talk about demonstrable graphic design skills.
So, for this one, just like with the Pilot job ad
I would make sure that I had some other things
in the portfolio as well to show not just web designs.
Think you focus on web with a smattering-
Is that a word?
Of other design skills in there too.
They are specifically calling out a process
of creating wire frames, storyboards, user flows, et cetera.
So just like I would recommend in the pilot one,
maybe for at least one project show the full process
of the Y frames, et cetera in there
so that they can see that you have that,
or at least be prepared to talk about in the interview.
This specifically calling out some tools here.
So I'm going to assume that these are the tools
that their current design team uses right now.
I wouldn't, self-select out of this.
If your main experience is in Figma or in XD or, you know,
a different tool, but this just gives you an idea
of probably the design tools that you'll be working with
if you joined the company.
Designers should be able to design in any tool, really,
it's the process that matters, not the tool.
They talk about proficiency in code here,
for rapid prototyping in particular.
So if you have that, if perhaps there is a design you did
that you also built a prototype for,
and then that's new portfolio,
that will be a great thing to call out and to make one
of those like core projects and to click on.
They're talking about hitting deadlines, fast paced team,
and this combined with this whole thing of like
crush goals thing is giving me a vibe that it's like,
it is a really fast paced work environment.
So if that's something you've thrived in, in the past,
then I would call that
out in the cover letter in particular,
and I don't know, talk about how it energizes
you or excites you or whatever.
For me personally, it might scare me
off applying for this, honestly, but hey, that's just me.
Something else interesting here is they talk about trends
in particular, in trends, techniques, and technologies.
So this is something you could demonstrate through-
Perhaps it's your dribble account,
you're trying out new stuff a lot of the time,
perhaps the blog on your site,
or maybe it's just something you call
out in your cover letter as like,
oh this is something that I'm really interested
in right now in experimenting with,
that could be a way to get that in there.
Then they say that 2D and 3D animation
experience is a bonus.
So if you have this, absolutely make it obvious
in your portfolio, call it out in your cover letter too,
but because this is a visual thing,
definitely demonstrate it in the portfolio.
For responsibilities, we're going to be executing
all stages from concept to final handoff,
and conceptualize original web design ideas.
So again, web design being called out here as a core thing,
and they say that brings a simplicity,
so this combined with their mention of clean
up here means, you know, you can sort of get an idea
of the sort of style of design they're looking for.
That brings us user-friendliness to complex roadblocks.
So anywhere in your projects
you can talk about solving complex pathways
and making it really simple for the user.
That will be great, like, language
to use and something to call out
to show them that you match up with this.
Again here, they're talking about the full process.
We already touched on that.
They talk about presenting and defending designs
to peers and executive level stakeholders.
They said you are defending a design as well,
sounds a little intense to me,
but this is a great chance to say in a cover letter or talk
about your role in a company and how you worked closely
with any executive level stakeholders.
Like for me, if I was applying to this,
I could probably talk about how,
in every company I've worked at,
I've had a good relationship with the CEO
and enjoyed talking about design ideas with them.
Something like that.
That's true, by the way.
So just like in the Pilot job ad, you'd probably benefit
from having a project that shows how you would set
up these design guidelines
and get other people on board with using them.
So that is a look at three different job ads
from three different companies and three slightly
different approaches that I would take to applying to them,
if I was going to do that.
I hope that was useful
for you to see what stands out to me when reading
through a job application, what I pay attention to,
what I call out and how I'd work that into the way I set
up my portfolio, or what I write in my cover letter.
Anytime you can make sure that your cover letter or,
you know, whatever communication it is that you're having
with the company when applying to this job,
touches on the very clear things they've laid
out in their list of responsibilities
and expectations of this role,
the more that they will make a match
in their mind between what they need from this role and you,
and that's what you want to be creating, right?
Having written a marketing designer job description myself,
I can tell you that everything
in these job ads has been very carefully considered,
and so try and use similar wording
or just make sure you're calling
out these skills as much as you can.
I noticed that the Webflow one,
just like we do at ConvertKit actually talked about,
even if you don't meet a hundred percent
of the qualifications, you should still consider applying,
and that's absolutely true,
that you still definitely have a chance
of getting a role, even if you can't demonstrate
every single little thing that they're asking for,
because a big part of what a company is hiring
for is not just where you are right now,
it's where you have the potential
and the room to grow into as well.
So keep that in mind, but obviously as much as you can call
out parts of your past experience and skillset that align
with the job description, you should.
I hope this was useful.
If you'd like me to do it again some time
please let me know by leaving a comment,
or calling out any different things that you noticed
in going through these job descriptions.
Would you have taken a different approach to me?
Let me know in the comments,
please give the video a thumbs up
if you did enjoy it though
and hit subscribe if you're new around here
because I make new videos about design and design careers
and that that whole world every single week,
and hopefully I'll see you back here
for the next one, have a good day.
See you next time, bye.
(gentle melodic music)