Animator Resume: Examples and Tips

Animators play a crucial part in developing excellent visual content in different media. To flourish in this role, you should have creativity and an understanding of visual communication, and bring them to fruition. Usual requirements for this job include a bachelor’s degree in a related filmmaking discipline, along with computer expertise and knowledge of editing and animation software.

To outshine other applicants, use our resume examples and tips to create your own professional animator resume.

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Mid Level Animator Resume Example

Top 4 Characteristics of a Best-in-Class Animator Resume

  1. Summary Highlight your skills, employment history and achievements in a few sentences. Focus on capabilities that are suitable for the position, such as character design work and your proficiency with different animation styles. Then, combine these skills with experiences that give more detail on your career. For example: “Driven Animator focused on character development and high-quality animation. Conversant with a wide range of animation techniques and software programs.”
  2. Skills Analyze the requirements for the specific animator job you’re seeking, and pinpoint keywords that match your strengths, such as “skilled at completing projects accurately” and “rotoscoping and VFX compositing.” Don’t forget to include practical and intangible skills that are useful for animation work, such as patience and attention to detail, computer literacy and time management ability.
  3. Work history When providing an overview of your previous roles, emphasize your achievements rather than daily tasks. Use details and numbers to give your accomplishments more impact. For example: “Developed over 120 new video shorts utilizing existing character animation” makes a better impression than “Built upon existing character animation to create new stories.”
  4. Education List your degree in computer animation, fine arts or graphic arts, as well as any training or certifications you have in these fields. Also include a link to your professional portfolio if you have it.

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Find the Right Template for your Resume

Searching for the perfect resume template? Search no more. Here’s three professionally-designed resume templates you can use for an animator role.

Fresh

Our popular template presents a concise snapshot of your work history and accomplishments using strong borders and a mix of color and black-and-white text.

Impactful

This template uses strong resume fonts for the job applicant’s name and a colorful two-column layout to present a strong visual impact.

Original

This clean professional template uses a four-quadrant design to focus on your summary and skills.

For even more templates, pick from MyPerfectResume’s free resume templates.

Do’s and Don’ts for Your Resume

  • Do present both hard (technical) and soft skills in your resume. Animation work calls for audio/video editing and knowledge of cutting-edge software like Adobe Flash, 3D Studio Max, but it also encompasses soft skills such as attention to detail, patience, and communication and interpersonal skills. Make sure to include both types of skills in your resume; for a better look, present them in separate categories (e.g., “Hard Skills” and “Soft Skills”).
  • Do check your resume for typos and other mistakes.Having glaring typos or other silly errors in your resume can torpedo your job application — surveys show that a majority of hiring managers throw away resumes if they have these mistakes. Review your resume before you send it, and make sure your information is 100% accurate and free of mistakes.
  • Do employ action verbs to give life to your resume.Using action verbs to describe your work experiences will energize your resume. For example, a phrase like “Developed and designed combat and character animation” gives recruiters the impression that you’re at the center of your achievements, rather than “Was responsible for designing combat and character animations.”
  • Don’t make your resume too lengthy. The longer your resume, the higher the chance that employers skip over critical details about your career. Recruiters usually take an average of 7.4 seconds to read a resume, so look to limit yours to one page, keeping your work experience to the last ten years. Zero-in on accomplishments rather than listing every responsibility you’ve had. Keep your bullet points and sentences concise and to-the-point, focusing on skills and experiences that directly address what the specific job requires.
  • Don’t use the same resume for all your job applications.Every job opening will have different requirements — one animator position might be looking for someone that can design realistic action and motion in background assets, whereas another might look for someone who can translate the artistic vision. Customize your resume based on keywords and job descriptions for the desirable company using our resume builder.
  • Don’t forget to add relevant activities, training and certifications.Your resume is not just about your educational qualifications or work experience. You should also feature extracurricular or volunteer activities that relate to the job (e.g., volunteering as a videographer for a nonprofit organization or taking part in an expert animation workshop).