Your CV is a crucial aspect of landing your dream job in the games industry! Your passion for games and games development goes a long way, but nailing your CV will get you that all important first interview.
General Layout
Personal details & profile
Technical skills
Relevant experience
Education
Any other experience
Hobbies and interests
Personal details & profile
Make sure your CV is clearly laid out so it’s easy for employers to find what they’re looking for at a glance. Your personal details should be clearly displayed at the top, along with any links to your portfolio, show-reel or website. Make sure that your links work – employers will not have the time to chase you for the right link.
Give a brief overview of yourself, talk about some of your best personal qualities and make people interested in learning more about you as a person. It’s important to keep your personal statement short and not waffle. This is your one opportunity to sell yourself and tell the employer what you have to offer the company.
It’s also your chance to show your passion for the company. Are you a fan of any of their games or products? Have they done something recently which you’re impressed by? Tell them why you want to work there, and why they should hire you. Avoid writing cliché statements such as ‘organised’ or ‘team player’.
Skills
Your technical skills are important, but don’t need to fill a page! Summarise your knowledge in a table or as short points, giving employers a quick visual reference sheet of your key skills. Highlight key areas you have experience working with, including relevant software, tools & programming languages. If you are a specialist in any areas, such as physics programming or character animation, make sure it’s top of the list here!
Employment history / Experience
As a recent graduate it is unlikely that you’ll have any professional industry experience, but if you’ve interned for a studio or have any games industry experience, shout about it! If you have commercial art or programming experience, pull out the relevant information for the position you want, read the job spec carefully and give examples of the skills you have learnt. For example, what languages you used, software you’ve experienced with, how you worked with other people, what your key responsibilities were and what games you’ve worked on.
Don’t panic if you haven’t got any experience in the games industry yet! Focus on other jobs and work experience you’ve had, and talk about what skills you gained from these and how you could apply these to a job within the industry. Skills like communication, teamwork, problem solving and leadership are valuable and highly transferable, so talk about them!
Education
When it comes to education, you should start with your most recent/highest qualification first, such as an apprenticeship or a masters or undergraduate degree. List all relevant modules – they tell employers so much more about your knowledge and abilities than just the name of the course will. The higher the qualification level, the more space it gets on your CV. Minimize the space used for A-Levels and GCSEs unless they have direct relevance or are complementary to the roles you want.
Hobbies and interests
Employers want to know why you’re different from other graduates, yet almost everyone will put something like ‘watching movies, listening to music and socialising’ in this section. On a games CV< this should be seen as a perfect opportunity to sell your passion and interest in the games industry. What games do you enjoy and why? What projects do you work on in your spare time? Do you do game jams and attend dev events? What groups, networks or collectives are you involved in?
