Is there a set way of writing up your resume for game development related careers? After graduating from high school, I started typing one up. I add new things to it whenever something comes up (i.e. a new, good level for my level design portfolio section). So far I just have Personal Information, Education History, Work Experience, Personal Accomplishments, and Career Goals ... and I have it all laid out really smoothly, but I've never really found any good source for finding out if there is already some specific way I should be designing the whole thing.

I'd think [but don't know as I don't do gamedev hiring] that a resume is a resume. Anything that applies to conventional jobs applies to game jobs as well. Most [non-game] programming positions require code examples, most art positions art samples...

I'm more so asking about the actual layout of how one is supposed to type it all up and put it together. I know what kind of samples I will need, and I'll be providing them in my portfolio when I ready to shop my resume around.

Try going on google and searching for CV/resume along with some keywords that will be in resumes similar to yours (like "programmer", "C++" etc.). There are loads of other people's resumes online on their homepages, so have a look at a bunch of them until you find a style you like.

A good tip is that if you have a careers service that all your students can go to, do not copy the sample CVs and cover letters they give you. Everybody does this so if someone else from your school applies for the same job it'll make you look stupid if you have similar cover letters and resumes.

Quote: Original post by Lord_Gradient
I'm more so asking about the actual layout of how one is supposed to type it all up and put it together. I know what kind of samples I will need, and I'll be providing them in my portfolio when I ready to shop my resume around.

*nod* and I was kind of implying that any 'normal' resume format tutorial should be sufficient. There's about a Hojillion of these, most of which should give the same info GameDev members will give, but hopefully in a nicer format.

Check out Monster.com. They should have plenty of resources available.

Personally, I prefer to have less on my resume than more. I title my sections "Relevant Work Experience", "Relevant Education", etc. It respects the time of the HR person who has to read through piles of resumes, and also creates interest in what else I may have done that I deem "irrelevant" to the given job. That gets me the interview.

The entire function of a resume is to get you a resume, not to review your life achievements. Work with that in the back of your head. Since switching to that technique, my resume's been batting 1.000.

Yeah try to keep it to 2 pages.

Make sure personal info & career goals are really concise.

Only put a summary of your level designing in your resume - if they want to see/hear more they'll ask; before you apply for something, if you have a decent amount of content, burn it to CD and include it with your resume (or email it).

Almost as important as your resume is your cover letter - don't forget about it; make sure you'll be able to relate to the stuff in your resume from your cover letter.

Try to tailor your resume to each specific position you apply for - i.e. if they want a level designer, elaborate a little on that section; if they want a c++ coder, make sure you include all your c++ experience, and so on.

The hiring process is more of an "elimination" process. The end user of your cover letter and resume is the final team lead or production director. But there is a slew of people in between you need to go through before you get to this end user. And each of those have the mandate to reject your candidacy, and each of them will go a little deeper in your cover letter and resume. MAKE YOUR PACKAGE PEELABLE LIKE AN ONION!

The cover letter is addressed to the poor lad who has to go through a big pile of resumes and must decide in 2 seconds or less who to put in the "maybe" pile and who goes in the bit bucket. Make this step easy put in the most relevent information there, be it in a table that lists the needed skills for the job (as per the job description) in the left column and how you match those skills on the right column. Here is an example that uses text instead of a spreadsheet, but it achieves the very same results:

http://www.resumepower.com/Project_Manager_Cover_Letter.htm


The resume itself should be structured the same way. A staffing coordinator will look at the "maybe" pile and spend 1 - 2 minutes at most before making a decision. Put the most relevent stuff at the beginning. More details as to what you are good at. Next you should describe why you think you are good at it; put in relevent experiences, projects and assignments which were completed successfully and quantify your results. Then list where you worked before and state the projects you worked on and what responsibilities you had. Then finish it with your degrees, affiliations, and other semi-professional activities. Here an example:

http://www.resumepower.com/IT_Executive_Resume_Sample.htm

Hope this helps.

-cb

Much as you think your life rates more space, keep it to one page. If you can't convince us in that short amount of space, you won't ever.