why doesn't anyone wanna hire me?

I've been unemployed for the last year or so because I'm on permanent disability. But I've been trying to get back into the job market because I just got married to a girl overseas and I want to bring her down here. I managed to explain the employment gap by filling it in with my freelance work. Granted, I used templates for most of my sites, but the employers don't know this. I've applied to at least a dozen jobs that I'm well qualified for in the last couple weeks.
Please take a look at my cover letter and resume and tell me what you think. Here is my cover letter:
Dear Hiring Manager:

Recently I have been looking for a dynamic and challenging position where I can utilize my expertise in graphic and web design, and your advertisement seems to offer such an opportunity. I bring to your company over six years of progressively advancing experience in marketing, along with award-winning performance in web and graphic design, and a broad range of IT skills and experience.

Please view my recent project at http://www.unitedsign.net , in which I re-engineered the companies foundation for doing business online, as well as established a long-lasting corporate brand.

My level of marketing, and graphic design, coupled with my ability to take the corporate message and create an appropriately targeted web or graphic design, is exactly what a company such as yours needs. I can hit the ground running and deliver results quickly.

Also notable are my broad range of IT skills that I have obtained through formal education as well as work experience. This would allow me to contribute to your company in more ways than one. At college, I graduated on the Director's List and Highest Honors with a degree in Computer Networking Systems. I am also an A+ Certified Service Technician and Network+ certified tech.

I would appreciate the opportunity to meet and further share with you my qualifications and extensive design portfolio. Please review my enclosed resume. You can view my website at http://www.emagine-media.biz Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

*** PRESONAL INFORMATION REMOVED ***

Encl. Resume

Here is my resume
http://www.emagine-media.biz/Kry.doc

What I look for in a designer isn't only related to their design skills. Your portfolio should ideally take a number of your projects, and discuss why certain decisions was made on the design.

Most clients just look at the design, but if you're applying for a job you're (hopefully) dealing with someone who knows their stuff. If you can communicate on a design level, as well as a more intellectual level, you might have more luck.

Perhaps they clicked "ENTER" on the unitedsign link in your email and saw the broken image and noticed the flash header didn't load. If you're going to include a link to a website you've built, best make sure there are no simple errors!

your resume is bloated and formatted horribly....especially for a designer. There's nothing in it that draws my eye to say in less than 5 seconds "hey, this person knows design".

By stating you're an energetic self starter (which every job applicant is :rolleyes: ) in your resume, you've already shot yourself in the foot. Those type of things should be kept to your cover letter.

And honestly, i think you shouldn't have posted your full name and address here as search engine's will pick that up and if any employer does a google search on you, they'll find your whining post about how you suck as an employee.

So, first step, stop whining and get your resume in order.

Do you think you could produce from scratch any of the templates you've used? I'd try to sound more focused on a specific skill set, either production or design. Not both. Not many employers want an all around rather than someone who can fill a specific need. Have you had any interviews? How do you feel they liked you as a person vs. a designer?
Do you need praise or a pay-check?
In the mean time I'd recommend designing and building a different home page navigation every night to sharpen your skills and increase your speed.

My advice would be to have a look at some top designers going around. There are alot of great designers out there and you find that the ones that succeed are usually ones that either are super tight with there design and execution and or come up with fresh ideas. Doing work solely based on templates is defiantly not a good idea if you want to impress other designers because they know all the shortcuts and can usually figure out the process of other peoples work. Anyways, stick at it there is always room to improve and its a sweet job if you can get into it.

This belongs in the boardroom > Thread Moved.

Go ahead guys polpulate the forum with your wisdom.

ok here is my revised resume
http://www.emagine-media.biz/resume
Please let me know what you think

Perhaps you should be more of An Artist...

You have a spelling error in your cover letter:

"in which I re-engineered the companies foundation"

should be

in which I re-engineered the company's foundation

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Originally Posted by hanratty21

Perhaps you should be more of An Artist...

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lmao..


ba dum tisch.....

better make sure your work is as good as those templates

you Lack Polish

some of the websites list in your portfolio are no longer the same as the sites you created.

http://www.emagine-media.biz/coolworld/flash.html the partnerships button is the only one with out diagnal lines. also when you mouse over it it drops about 2 pixels.

Also stop using templates. its obvious and a turn off.

your work needs MORE COW BELL!!

http://www.unitedsign.net/

That splash page looks very familiar... *cough*2advanced*cough*

LMAO...awesome.. no such things as rips/copies anymore.. but seem heavily influenced to me.. ;)

Wow, i butchered that link, way to go me.
2Advanced Archive

wow

well answer the op question, i would heavily recomend that you stop using a templated cover letter.

its a unique job offer that requires a unique cover letter.

best of luck!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by creativeinsomnia

http://www.unitedsign.net/

That splash page looks very familiar... *cough*2advanced*cough*

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That's exactly why nobody will ever hire you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lefteyewilly

wow

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So we've heard whats wrong with this (and I agree, if you're going to use templates at least make them yourself), but would someone like to link some 'good' examples of online resumes, covering letters that us aspiring new designers can compare our work to (and no I don't mean rip off lol).

I'm still working on mine.