Costume designer resume examples from 2026

Put a resume summary on the top of your resume to highlight your accomplishments. A resume summary sums up your experience and skills, making it easy for hiring managers to understand your qualifications at a glance. Here are some tips to write a strong, impressive resume summary:

Step 1: Start with your professional title, or the one you aspire to.

Step 2: Detail your years of experience in costume designer-related roles and your industry experience.

Step 3: What are your biggest professional wins? Here is your opportunity to highlight your strongest accomplishments by placing them at the start of your resume.

Step 4: Don't forget, your goal is to summarize your experience. Keep it short and sweet, so it's easy for recruiters to quickly understand why you're a great hire.

Hiring managers spend under a minute reviewing resumes on average. This means your summary needs to demonstrate your value quickly and show why you are the perfect fit for the costume designer position.

Many resumes are filtered out by hiring software before a human eye ever sees them. A robust Skills section can let recruiters (and bots) know you have the skills to do the job. Here is how to make the most of your skills section:

1. Look at the job listing and skills listed. You need to include the exact keywords from the job description to get your resume in front of an actual human. Do you have those skills? Fantastic! Be sure to list them.
2. Include as many relevant hard or technical costume designer skills as possible for each job you apply to.
3. Be specific with the skills you have and be sure you are using the most up to date and accurate terms.

These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some costume designer interviews.

Next you should include your work experience. Structure your work experience section by listing your most recent experience first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order.

Start with your job title, company name, city, and state on the left. Align dates in month and year format on the right-hand side.

Include only recent, relevant jobs. Avoid including work experience over 20 years to avoid ageism.

Beneath each job, you should have bullet points to emphasize why you're the perfect fit for the costume designer.

Remember, your resume is not a list of responsibilities or a job description. This is your chance to show why you're good at your job and what you accomplished.

Use the XYZ formula for your work experience bullet points. Here's how it works:

• Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
• Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
• Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

This creates bullet points that read Achieved X, measured by Y, by doing Z.

Here are effective examples from costume designer resumes:

The education section should display your highest degree first.

Place your education section appropriately on your resume. If you graduated over 5 years ago, this section should be at the bottom of your resume. If you just graduated and lack relevant work experience, the education section should go to the top.

If you have a bachelor's or master's degree, do not list your high school education. If your graduation year is more than 15-20 years ago, it's better not to include dates in this section.

Here are some examples of good education entries from costume designer resumes:

Certifications can be a crucial part of your resume. Many jobs have required certifications.

To list, use the full name of the certification and the organization that issued it, along with the date of achievement.

If you have any of these certifications, be sure to include them on your costume designer resume:

1. Certified Interior Designer (NCIDQ)