How to Write a UX Writer Resume [+Examples]
If you want a UX writing job, your UX writer resume must show your ability to improve the user experience for products and services to achieve business goals. Moreover, suppose you can focus on tangible improvements tied to metrics that you made, whether for a login modal, signup modal onboarding flow, or even conversation design for a chatbot. In that case, you’ll have a head start.
This article contains examples of the best professional UX writer resumes and practices to assist you in landing a job. Here is a list of the subjects we will be studying in-depth:
- Great examples of UX writer skills on a resume
- What abilities and skills that you need to include on your resume
- What you can do to set yourself apart from other candidates
- Resume tips for UX writers, including what to include and what not to include
How to Write a UX Writer Resume
The process of writing a resume is similar to the process of writing UX copy. As a UX writer, you develop relevant, concise content to assist users in completing their objectives. In this case, the content is your resume, and your user is the hiring manager. However, that’s only the last step. The first step is that you, as a UX writer, need to understand the product(s) in question (e.g., the company that you want to work at), and you are required to undertake user research (who’s looking at your resume).
Remember that when you’re preparing your resume, the hiring manager will evaluate your problem-solving abilities.
Many UX writers waste their time by referring to the following from a bird’s eye view:
- Writing blog articles
- Writing press releases
- Working on multiple projects
- Working with stakeholders
- Collaborating with team members
- Working in a high-paced environment
This is boring because it’s either irrelevant or expected. The last three points are the terms that everyone uses. If you’re like everyone, then you’re no one. Just another discarded resume.
So, where do you make a point of differentiating yourself? Do you know what information hiring managers and recruiters appreciate seeing on a resume?
- Understanding of design principles
- Know-how of creating conversational chatbots
- Website creation experience
- Ability to lead UX projects
- Ability to push large UX projects over the goal line
- Managing, editing, and creating content style guides
- Designing product information architecture
- Writing copy for error messages and empty states
- Using UX design skills to create low-fidelity prototypes
Be specific and talk about how your work has helped users.
Want to make the best resume and master the fundamental skills to become a UX writer? Our UX writing course includes everything you need to become a UX writer. Don’t forget to check out the course contents:
What is the Best UX Writer Resume Format?
There are three ways to write a resume for a UX writing role.
- Reverse Chronological (Most recent work experience first)
- Combination (ATS compliant)
- Functional (Non-ATS compliant)
All resumes are scanned by an ATS (Applicant Tracking Software), which only accepts those with the right keywords in them, but not all of them.
If you want to make your resume look good to an ATS, read the job description. Include words and phrases like “writing microcopy, developing content, updating style guide, or UX design.” This will pop up your resume when the hiring manager filters using an ATS.
What sections should you include in your UX Writing resume?
Here’s a list of things you need to include in your resume:
UX Writer Professional Header
This includes your full name, title (UX Writer), phone number, LinkedIn profile link, city, and email address, as well as your full profile. Ideally, you’ll also link to your online portfolio here.
Do not mention your whole address. However, the city and state are fine.
Now is your time to shine. List your professional work history in descending date order. Here are a few things to think about while you do so.
There is a good chance that some of your experience won’t help you. Some parts aren’t relevant to your job, even if some of that experience is directly related to UX writing.
For example, you may know how to write UX copy for conversational chatbots and set them up. However, if the company you want to work for doesn’t need that experience, don’t dedicate too much to it. It will only serve as a distraction.
Make it easy for hiring managers to understand you by being specific and transparent about what you want to do in the future. Again, remember the principles of making your work experience relevant, concise, helpful, and clear to the job you’re applying for.
In reverse chronological order, write down your experiences. Your employer needs to know about your most recent job so that they can call you for an interview. Now, not every job needs to go on your resume.
Only include your most recent and relevant job experience, followed by your previous roles. Here are some things to think about:
- What was your designation?
- Is what you did important to the job you want?
- How many years did you work in that role?
- Do you have previous experience in the role you’re applying for?
Junior UX Writer Resume Experience Examples
You began your job as a junior UX writer 10 months ago. By now, you’ve worked on many different projects, reported to a senior UX writer or manager about them, and helped push over the line a couple of big projects.
Still, you’re asking, “Is having worked as a UX writer for 10 months enough to put on my resume?”
Yes.
So, how do you make this a story that makes the hiring manager want to hire you?
This is what you need to add:
- The problems that you solved
- The impact that they had
- The benchmarks that the team set for you
- Tools that you used (e.g. Figma, Miro, Google Sheets, Airtable, Hotjar)
- Certifications and community contributions
If you solved problems that led to more revenue and exceeded benchmark expectations, your experience is always valid. A UX writer who can make a difference in a short amount of time may even be seen as more valuable.
Senior UX Writer Resume Experience Example
Senior UX writers often have over five years of experience writing everything from simple experiences to high-level UX writing. They work with product designers, UX designers, product managers, engineers, and other stakeholders. A senior UX writer has a team of entry-level and junior UX writers in their UX team, each with a different job or task. They all work together.
But before you write your senior UX writer resume, there are a few things you need to think about first:
- Don’t list all your responsibilities and accomplishments.
- Keep your experience relevant to the job that you are applying for.
- Make your resume ATS-compliant so you can stand out from the crowd
- Keep your title consistent (e.g., don’t put Senior UX writer if it says Senior Content Designer on your LinkedIn profile).
People who work in the UX field at a high level write about many things on their resumes. Again, relevancy is the key here, so make sure your words are important. Make small changes and tweak your cover letter and resume for each job role. You must have these things on your resume as a senior UX writer:
- The number of people who reported to you
- Your methodology for delegation and in what setting (e.g. Agile, Scrum)
- Impact your work had on revenue
- Collaboration tools that you use (e.g. Miro, Figma, Airtable, Hotjar)
- Relevant certifications and contributions to the community
- How you keep the content style guide relevant
- Your experience with conversational chatbots
- Your ability to properly scope projects and meet or exceed timeline expectations
- How do you advocate for the UX writer role
- How you conducted UX research to get qualitative and quantitative data
Listing UX Writer Resume Skills
When you list your UX writer’s resume skills, they must go under each role’s bullet points. Don’t include it as a separate section. When you Google for resume examples, they’ll have skills often listed separately. This doesn’t mean it’s right.
Hiring managers want to see the impact of the skills you have. Reading the word “Figma”, “Content strategy”, or “Interaction design” under skills gives the hiring manager zero context to how you used those skills. It’s wasted white space on your resume. Again, you only have one page to convince them you’re the ideal persona for their UX writer opening.
Here are some skills you can add with context – showing impact – underneath your relevant roles.
- Content strategy
- Hiring and onboarding new team members
- Understanding of user research and UX design
- Empathy
- Stakeholder management
Listing UX Writer Resume Education
Only list degrees that are relevant to UX writing. If your educational background doesn’t match the job, don’t tell them about it.
Putting a Bachelor’s Degree on your job application won’t help you get the job. Be clear. What did you do for your thesis project? Or another big school project that’s relevant?
For example, the following isn’t helpful:
“Bachelors in English, California State University.”
Instead, talk about your academic achievements and subjects that show you know about UI and UX.
Like this:
“Bachelors in Computer Science, California State University and Certified UX Writer”
The computer science degree tells the hiring manager you’re familiar with web interfaces and love technology. The Certified UX Writer implies that you like to learn and have taken a credible step to specialize in the role you’re applying for.
Listing UX Writing Achievements
As a UX writer, what makes you different from other people?
They matter only if your skills, qualifications, and certifications have led to great results for previous employers. You may have had the same job responsibilities as another UX writer in the same resume stack, but if you got better results, you’ll get hired over them.
For every good thing you do, you need to show a standard measure: a real number.
How did your job generate revenue when you worked at the previous company? Increase retention? Reduce support requests? Can you show it?
There are many resumes for UX writers that say things like:
“Worked in a cross-functional team to write UX microcopy to improve user experience”
The hiring manager just rolled their eyes at that one.
These things are indeed important, but what did the user experience say about it in measurable numbers?
Hiring managers and recruiters care less about what tools you use and more about how your work makes a difference.
You must also explain why you put those numbers down on your resume, so make sure you do that, too. Many numbers may impress your potential employer, but which makes the difference? Again, think of what’s relevant.
Here are some great examples:
- Rewrote onboarding experience copy, leading to a 20 percent increase in new signups and over $500,000 in additional yearly revenue.
- Updated support chatbot conversations resulted in a 40 percent decrease in live agent responses, saving the company millions in revenue.
- Wrote empty state copy for the editor feature, leading to a 20 percent increase in product usage time during an average user session.
Listing Interests
We haven’t yet found a UX writer’s resume that lists their interests as a separate section of their resume. Employers don’t even bother to look at it. They care about how well they do, how many people see them, and how good they are at what they do.
Leave this part out.
Listing Languages
Many jobs require you to speak and write in English. And if you know another language, you immediately stand out. Many companies want to make their product more accessible globally and need UX writers who understand and can write in multiple languages. It’s a significant advantage if you can do this. It can make up for a considerable lack of other experience. You can even get hired over someone with several more years of experience than you.
Just make sure that if you list that you know another language, you can write competently. Too many people list languages that they can’t perform job functions in. It’s deceiving and leaves a bad impression on your potential employer.
Also, many European countries, like France, Spain, and Germany, prefer to hire people who can speak their native language well.
UX Writer Resume Example
UX writer resumes can be hard to write. This is an example of a good one that I found and like. Granted, the resume should only be one page. If you reduced this resume to one page, then it’s even better.
Every line says how the candidate can help. In addition, they don’t waste resume space by including an objective, a separate skills section, or any other information that isn’t relevant. The only thing I’d change here is to break the paragraphs into shorter bullet points.
They also put their skills, knowledge of software, and other relevant experience into their work job details. Kudos.
UX Writing Job Application Experience
You may have already applied to UX writing jobs, but you have not heard anything back. It doesn’t matter how many degrees or certifications you have if you can’t format your resume correctly or if you’re mass applying with the shotgun method. If you’re using a shotgun method, you may even get results like this when applying for your first UX writer job:
- Applied for more than 100 jobs in the last few months.
- 50 people turn you down.
- No one asked for an interview.
“Something isn’t right. ‘Why aren’t I getting a response from them?’” you ask yourself.
Change your plan. You need to look at the company’s job roles and make your resume and cover letter unique for each one. Then you’ll see results like this:
- 50 resumes were sent out
- 15 people turn you down
- Interviews for the first round took place with 5 people
- 2 interviews in the second round
- One last-round interview
- One job offer
One job offer for every 50 applications doesn’t sound like a lot. This might look like a low conversion rate. But it’s not. Compare it to the numbers from the shotgun approach. Moreover, you’ll finally get your foot in the door for the UX writer position, which makes your resume much more attractive the next time you apply for similar roles.
Five UX Writer Resume Tips
Here are five writing tips that will help you write an excellent resume for a UX professional:
1. Make a unique cover letter for each job
Make your cover letter for a UX writer unique to your desired job. It should show how good you are at working with people and how you can help your new employer.
2. Make sure your UX Writer resume is up to date for each new job
You’ll have different job descriptions and roles if you have many job opportunities. Changing your resume based on the job you want is a good rule of thumb. Suppose the job is for a senior UX writer at a fintech consumer app. If that’s the case, you should change your resume accordingly. Applicants who tailor their cover letters and resumes to the job roles they are applying for get more attention from hiring managers.
3. Link to your UX Writing content portfolio
You can’t undervalue the benefit of keeping your website or a simple portfolio hosted in Google Drive using Google Slides. Think about it for a while. Many UX writers don’t have their websites. The one who does will stand out from the rest. Creating a content portfolio will help you get the job you want, even if there is a lot of competition. This is a list of links to portfolio websites of writers who can charge high prices in their field.
4. List the relevant work history
Take care not to write anything on your resume that you won’t be able to back up later on. These are jobs that are related to your work history. Ensure you don’t talk about UX experience for health tech if you don’t have enough experience there. You should know a lot about the job you want to do.
5. Before submitting, proofread
Are you serious? Despite your UX writing abilities, did your resume contain lengthy phrases and spelling errors? However, you are applying as a user experience writer, correct? You cannot afford to have any mistakes on your resume as a UX writer. Yes, your resume’s UX writing should undoubtedly be engaging. Regardless of your ability level, a single grammatical or spelling error is sufficient to cause rejection.
UX Writer Resume Don’ts
A few other don’ts for your UX writer resume include the following:
Resume objective and summary
Why would you add a resume summary? This occurs frequently with a few lines stated at the top of a résumé. Your resume already contains an overview of your work experience related to UX writing. There is no need for a summary of a summary.
Headshot
What information does a headshot provide about your experience? Nothing. There is no reason to include a photo if you are applying for a job unrelated to acting or modeling. Also, if they want to, they can locate your headshot by visiting your LinkedIn profile or conducting a Google search for your name.
Old experience
If you’re anything like me, you’ve accumulated more than 6 to 7 years of experience in UX writing. The reality is that nobody cares about what you did seven years ago. What matters most is what you did recently. Remember to highlight who you are today, not that you worked at a restaurant during college.
Where Can You Apply with Your UX Writer Resume?
Your resume is now your most powerful marketing tool for securing high-paying jobs.
This is your opportunity to apply for UX writing positions listed on the following job boards and foreign freelancing marketplaces, including:
FAQs
Here are questions that users frequently ask about UX writers:
What are essential UX writing skills for improving user experience?
Essential UX writing skills include clarity, conciseness, empathy, and the ability to anticipate user needs. Strong grammar, attention to detail, and the ability to write in a user-centered way are also important.
How does user experience (UX) writing differ from traditional copywriting?
UX writing focuses on crafting text that guides users through digital interfaces, enhancing usability. Unlike traditional copywriting, which often persuades or sells, UX writing aims to simplify tasks and improve the overall user experience.
Why is user interface text important in UX writing?
User interface (UI) text, like buttons, tooltips, and error messages, plays a key role in helping users navigate and interact with digital products. Clear and intuitive UI text can reduce confusion, improve efficiency, and lead to a better user experience.
How can effective UX writing improve user satisfaction?
Effective UX writing enhances the user journey by providing clear instructions, reducing friction, and making digital interactions smoother. This leads to higher user satisfaction and a more positive experience with the product.
What role does empathy play in user experience writing?
Empathy in UX writing involves understanding the user’s needs, pain points, and emotions. By writing with empathy, you can create text that resonates with users, making interfaces more intuitive and user-friendly.
If you are new to UX writing and are looking to break-in, we recommend taking our UX Writing Certification Course, where you will learn the fundamentals of being a UX writer, how to dominate UX writer interviews, and how to stand out as a UX writing candidate.
