Would anyone be able to offer up some advice on my resume as well as have any pointers/tips when applying to a game designer job?

I've been applying everyday for over a month for positions ranging from internships to full time game designer positions.

Any advice would be helpful!

Game Dev Resume.docx

1 hour ago, Atwo Studios said:

Would anyone ... have any pointers/tips when applying to a game designer job?

I wrote several articles   on   that topic.

1 hour ago, Atwo Studios said:

I've been applying everyday for over a month for positions ranging from internships to full time game designer positions.

Then you are undoubtedly applying to jobs that are much too far away from where you live. Location, Location, Location.

18 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

I wrote several articles   on   that topic.

Then you are undoubtedly applying to jobs that are much too far away from where you live. Location, Location, Location.

Then what would be your advice?

The resume needs a massive overhaul.

Your "skills" section is a common mistake. As an interviewer they tell me very little, you claim "C# 4 years", and "Java 1 year", but I don't see them. Many of your skills are not relevant, listing "Microsoft Office"? You might as well also list "Google Docs" and "Can Write E-Mail" as skills. Cut the whole thing.  If you want to mention using a tool or technology, incorporate that into your descriptions of what you did.  Instead of "designed the layout of the UI", try "Developed the UI layout using GameMaker:Studio to flesh out the prototypes, then implemented in C#", or whatever you actually did with the tech.

Your projects are your biggest asset, make that your first segment.  I'd incorporate your "Role" line into the text of what you did.  Instead of calling it "Misc", use the space to expound on what you did.  Each of those currently has a single sentence of what you personally did.  State more that you did, focusing on skills you want to use again in the future.  Perhaps two lines on what the project was generally, and perhaps five lines on what you (not the team) accomplished.  Give the URL for each project. (Don't give a hyperlink since many people receive only the printed page, give a URL that is easy to type.)

Your education goes second because you are either a fresh graduate or graduating soon.  Include 5+ lines regarding projects you completed that are relevant to the job.  Don't write things like "CS405" or "Algorithms and data structures", instead write projects like "wrote a distributed ray tracer in Java using a work pool to distribute the work, and implemented spatial hashing to reduce lookup times." or "As a senior project with six others, wrote a color matching game for Android. Ownership over UI included ..."  Include details that show you can do the job you are looking for.

Employment comes next. 

Being "co owner" of a hobby project isn't really a job nor regular employment.  Employment is where an organization pays you money to work for them for standard work hours. Cut that.  If your hobby project were successful you would have had an actual business and wouldn't be looking for a job.

The intern designer for about 3 months is odd.  It doesn't look like Treehouse Gaming is an actual company. It looks like they are a group attempting to get some kickstarter money. If they did not pay a regular paycheck every 2 weeks for those 3 months, cut it and leave the project.  If they did pay you regularly as an employer, still consider cutting because their online presence is awful.  It is highly suspicious that you kept that job while you were in school and while you maintained the job at a kitchen.  If you decide to keep it, get rid of the "Roles" blurb and give 3-5 lines of what you personally did on the project.

The chef work is good. It shows you can hold a job and can do some things.  Cut the world "Roles" and describe more about what employers care about. Mostly at the entry level they're looking for a reliable worker, and 5 years at the job while attending university says a lot.

The Co-Curricular section would normally be unnecessary and irrelevant. Keep it only if you can't come up with other relevant experience or cannot expound on your other projects.

As Tom's excellent FAQs describe, you probably won't get hired as a "Game Designer".  That is a senior level role, game designers are usually placed in charge of $10M+ segments of projects. Your CS degree strongly implies you're looking for a programmer job. Consider getting that instead.  Sometimes there are lesser designer roles like level design and character design. They are rare, but they exist. You are far more likely to get a job as a programmer, and once you're in you can transition into design as you excel in the workplace.

Also, there are relatively few studios in your area.  Use your social networks and find access to the people at the company.  Find someone who knows someone who knows someone, and use that chain to get in to those companies. Estimates vary, but career research is that one hour of that style of networking and finding friends-of-friends is worth about ten hours of applying randomly.  Get to know the people, find someone, and attempt to get recruited by from someone who works there rather than being an unknown generic applicant. You may need to move before getting a job, but if you'd like to stay in your area you'll need to work hard at getting the job in the industry.

3 hours ago, frob said:

The resume needs a massive overhaul.

Your "skills" section is a common mistake. As an interviewer they tell me very little, you claim "C# 4 years", and "Java 1 year", but I don't see them. Many of your skills are not relevant, listing "Microsoft Office"? You might as well also list "Google Docs" and "Can Write E-Mail" as skills. Cut the whole thing.  If you want to mention using a tool or technology, incorporate that into your descriptions of what you did.  Instead of "designed the layout of the UI", try "Developed the UI layout using GameMaker:Studio to flesh out the prototypes, then implemented in C#", or whatever you actually did with the tech.

Your projects are your biggest asset, make that your first segment.  I'd incorporate your "Role" line into the text of what you did.  Instead of calling it "Misc", use the space to expound on what you did.  Each of those currently has a single sentence of what you personally did.  State more that you did, focusing on skills you want to use again in the future.  Perhaps two lines on what the project was generally, and perhaps five lines on what you (not the team) accomplished.  Give the URL for each project. (Don't give a hyperlink since many people receive only the printed page, give a URL that is easy to type.)

Your education goes second because you are either a fresh graduate or graduating soon.  Include 5+ lines regarding projects you completed that are relevant to the job.  Don't write things like "CS405" or "Algorithms and data structures", instead write projects like "wrote a distributed ray tracer in Java using a work pool to distribute the work, and implemented spatial hashing to reduce lookup times." or "As a senior project with six others, wrote a color matching game for Android. Ownership over UI included ..."  Include details that show you can do the job you are looking for.

Employment comes next. 

Being "co owner" of a hobby project isn't really a job nor regular employment.  Employment is where an organization pays you money to work for them for standard work hours. Cut that.  If your hobby project were successful you would have had an actual business and wouldn't be looking for a job.

The intern designer for about 3 months is odd.  It doesn't look like Treehouse Gaming is an actual company. It looks like they are a group attempting to get some kickstarter money. If they did not pay a regular paycheck every 2 weeks for those 3 months, cut it and leave the project.  If they did pay you regularly as an employer, still consider cutting because their online presence is awful.  It is highly suspicious that you kept that job while you were in school and while you maintained the job at a kitchen.  If you decide to keep it, get rid of the "Roles" blurb and give 3-5 lines of what you personally did on the project.

The chef work is good. It shows you can hold a job and can do some things.  Cut the world "Roles" and describe more about what employers care about. Mostly at the entry level they're looking for a reliable worker, and 5 years at the job while attending university says a lot.

The Co-Curricular section would normally be unnecessary and irrelevant. Keep it only if you can't come up with other relevant experience or cannot expound on your other projects.

 

As Tom's excellent FAQs describe, you probably won't get hired as a "Game Designer".  That is a senior level role, game designers are usually placed in charge of $10M+ segments of projects. Your CS degree strongly implies you're looking for a programmer job. Consider getting that instead.  Sometimes there are lesser designer roles like level design and character design. They are rare, but they exist. You are far more likely to get a job as a programmer, and once you're in you can transition into design as you excel in the workplace.

Also, there are relatively few studios in your area.  Use your social networks and find access to the people at the company.  Find someone who knows someone who knows someone, and use that chain to get in to those companies. Estimates vary, but career research is that one hour of that style of networking and finding friends-of-friends is worth about ten hours of applying randomly.  Get to know the people, find someone, and attempt to get recruited by from someone who works there rather than being an unknown generic applicant. You may need to move before getting a job, but if you'd like to stay in your area you'll need to work hard at getting the job in the industry.

I appreciate the advise, has this type of set up for a resume worked for you while aqcuring a job at a game studio?

I have gotten advice from many different sources many of whom have gone to school for game design but actually have never gotten a job in the field. 

I will defiantly redesign it an post it again, I'd appreciate more feedback on if you have the time!

But thanks again!

- Anthony 

Much of it comes from having looked over many resumes. I've been at this for two decades and have interviewed many candidates over the years. I've talked with many people about what they thought about applicants based on resumes and CVs, and I've formed my own impressions as well.

For completeness, I'll explain more.

The "skills" section is nearly useless. Some people list an enormous number of tools and technologies in an effort to be selected by database tools, and I can't complain too much about that. If you want a section like "skills keywords" with every word you can imagine, knock yourself out.  For me as the human reading it, it does little good.  If I see "C++ 7 years", does that mean they read some books on it during high school, used it a few times in college, and nothing more? Or does it mean they used "C with classes" for a few years in industry without actually knowing the language? Or does it mean over those years they made an intense study of the language, read the various standards, and actively work to increase their knowledge?  When someone writes that they used Unreal, does that mean they downloaded it and gave up after trying to understand how blueprints work, or that they cobbled together a few small projects, or does it mean they actively read through the source to understand how pieces are put together?

Skills are far better seen in context. If you used tools or technologies in specific projects, call it out specifically. If I can see you had a one year project that used an engine, call it out. List what languages you use in projects in addition to the tools.

The choice between putting education first or work history first is all about which is most relevant.  Education history is more important when you enter the field because it shows your biggest recent accomplishment.  After a few years your workplace accomplishments are more recent and more telling about your current skill set.

The content of each line should tell me what you actually did on each project so I can understand both your skill sets and your aspirations. I also invite people during interviews to explain what they want to do in the future, to help people who have been pigeon-holed to escape. Someone may have spent five years working on network synchronization and develop skills in the area, but they would much prefer to move into a GPE role. It also serves the purpose most people were hoping for in the skills section.

The content should help me answer two questions. On the employer side, I'm interested in (1) will you do the job, and (2) will you fit in?  Your work history gives good guidance on if you can do the job. If you've done the job before it is the best evidence that you can do the job. If you haven't done the job before, I look for similar projects that suggest you could do the job, work that suggests you are smart, work that suggests you are reliable.  The question about fitting in does not mean "young, white, and male", it means if I think you will fit with the culture. If we're trying to fill in a highly skilled team of introverts, hiring a boisterous extrovert could cause a disturbance. Similarly, if we have a team of high-spirited socialites, adding an introvert could break up the camaraderie. On the flip side, sometimes the studio is looking to break up groups or to add diversity, and we're hunting for that social need in addition to the technical need.  But since you as the candidate don't know those details, you should put in your most natural face. 

You as the candidate have different questions, like if you think you can do the job, if you think the studio would be a good fit for your life, if it satisfies your individual needs. Your needs are likely a mix of pay, stability, personal growth, career growth, social needs, and your own values.  Those are for you to investigate about the company.

Embedding what you used in the statements of what you did serves an additional purpose. If I want to see if you've used a tool or technology, I have to actually spend a moment to read what you have accomplished.  Since I invest more time seeing the details (rather than quickly scanning and discarding it) I am more likely to consider the application more deeply.

Finally, generalized resumes serve as a starting point, but since you should be working your social network it should be highly tailored to each job.  Some job hunting is done with a broad net, you cast it out and apply to many places, but you have no specific aims. This is among the least effective job hunting methods.  Other job hunting is more like spear fishing. You invest significant time and effort in isolating and preparing to capture a single job, through social networking and working your contacts and researching the company, you prepare a sharpened attack carefully crafted for the target job, and do all you can to get the job.

You should also go get a copy of the book "What Color Is Your Parachute?" It has been a best-seller for about 40 years and every library and used book store has a copy if you don't want to buy it new. Get a recent edition and study it.

The book covers many topics, particularly about identifying your own needs and what you need to get from the company, to a lesser extend it covers what the company wants from you. It also covers in-depth methods to do the most effective job hunting, and warns you of the least effective methods. You should still do the less effective methods, but only when you have no more leads in the more effective methods.

On 4/28/2018 at 3:42 PM, frob said:

Much of it comes from having looked over many resumes. I've been at this for two decades and have interviewed many candidates over the years. I've talked with many people about what they thought about applicants based on resumes and CVs, and I've formed my own impressions as well.

For completeness, I'll explain more.

[...]

Thank you so much for all the advice you are giving me, I do appreciate it as well as anyone else that reads this, I hope they do appreciate it too. I understand a lot about what you are saying in terms of what an employer would be looking for versus the employee as well as different methods to find a job. Coming out of college or University there was very little help on how to build a resume geared towards the gaming industry versus a resume lets say that would be for accounting so I was basing it off of what advice they gave me as well as any kind of research I could uncover on the internet. 

You had mentioned a few things in your first message about my resume that I could clear up that could hopefully result in better advice for a more well done resume.

I think the biggest thing was my internship as a game designer. I did fulfill an internship during that period of time working about 35 hours a week on the project, the internship was unpaid but fulfilled the credit needed for my degree. I still would work at my chefs job but just less hours as I was going to school and working on an internship. 

Yes I did get my degree in Computer Science but my Minor or Concentration was in Game Design, I wasn't sure if I should have stated that in the first draft of the resume but I re wrote it in this new version of it.

You had given me a link to a website that list Game Studios in my, I don't think that website is very accurate. I am based out of Michigan and those game studios are either out of business or not working on any new projects. 

I re wrote my resume and hopefully this one makes more sense for an employer. 

Another question would be do I need a portfolio and what exactly do I put on there versus my Resume? 

Thanks for your help,

Anthony

Game Dev Resume.pdf

I much prefer that one. If you are looking for a junior designer position, like level designer or such, that could be good. Of course, different studios and different interviewers look for different things, and companies have different needs whenever they hire someone. I'll want to customize it for each  position.

I'd still consider going the developer route because there are so many more jobs.  One designer can generally work with 10+ other developers (programmers, artists, and animators). Openings are similar, perhaps ten to one.  Since you have a CS degree, prepare a programmer-focused resume and apply to programming jobs as well.

4 minutes ago, frob said:

I much prefer that one. If you are looking for a junior designer position, like level designer or such, that could be good. Of course, different studios and different interviewers look for different things, and companies have different needs whenever they hire someone. I'll want to customize it for each  position.

I'd still consider going the developer route because there are so many more jobs.  One designer can generally work with 10+ other developers (programmers, artists, and animators). Openings are similar, perhaps ten to one.  Since you have a CS degree, prepare a programmer-focused resume and apply to programming jobs as well.

Thank you, I'm glad that it makes a lot more sense now. 

I agree that I probably should apply for a developer position but I have more experience in the designer position over the developer position. Fortunately there have been quite a few associate/junior designer positions available to apply for, the bad news is that I was using my first iteration of my resume to apply for them.

Thank you so much for all the advice on how to build a proper resume! I really do appreciate it!

- Anthony

Hey Frob,

I just would like to let you know that I scored 2 interviews this past week for associate game designer positions since changing my resume to the format you suggested. 

Thank you so much for the advice and hopefully this thread can help other people who are looking for advice on resume building or applying to jobs at a game studio.