The Calling Card

Recruiting can be a shocking, interesting, fascinating and always entertaining aspect of my job. Add in the creative and the artistic elements, and you have a fantastic storm that is recruiting in the video game world. I have to say right up front – that I LOVE my job. I think I have the best job at the company- but that does not mean that it is always the easiest.

Sometimes I have to speak another language- the language of resumes. Resumes should be easy to read, easy to follow, and have some sort of chronological, experience, or project- based pattern. I understand that we work in a creative space. I get that sometimes our job titles don’t always best represent what we do/did or how we pulled it all together – but please get it pulled together on a resume. It’s your calling card. Your resume is the first (and sometimes the last) impression that we get to see of you.

There are some common mistakes or just poor choices that seem to permeate the resume-writing world right now – and I want to dispel the myths, rumors and poor grammar in one swoop of my giant red editing pen… This is your resume writing tip sheet.

Tip #1: Resumes need to follow a pattern. Make it chronological, or informational, but make sure it has a flow that anyone picking it up and reading it can follow. If I have to hunt for your current position, or what you did- it’s too much work already.

Tip #2: Whoever said open space is a bad thing should be shot! I’d rather see bullet points, those fancy diamonds, or even indent and use the tab button. But make sure there is some white space on the page. The eyes need a break – and it will also create the much needed pattern listed in Tip #1…

Tip#3: Grammar/Spell Check –simple and to the point – USE IT. You would be amazed at how many spelling and grammatical errors there are in resumes these days! I thought the computer was supposed to eliminate the majority of these issues. Read your resume out loud to yourself. If you pause, stumble or if your word choice sounds funny to you – guess what – it will happen to me as well. And then I question what you were thinking… A second set of editing eyes won’t hurt either.

Tip#4: Emoticons/Slang /Texting language- this one is easy. Don’t use them. I don’t need smiley-faces or laughing cats in a cover letter or on your resume. This is business. This is not the time to have a LOL, LMAO, BRT, BRB, or a WTF. Save that for our witty banter in emails or IM’s when we start working together. It’s really about knowing the time and the place for things. This is not the place for initials. The only time it is acceptable is for known industry terms like PS3, MS office, 360, LUA, UI, MEL, etc. Those are common industry abbreviations and therefore acceptable.

Tip#5: Have your name on your resume, along with a current address, phone number and email address. Either at the top, or at the bottom in a footer, but put it on the resume itself. Cover letters get separated and not knowing who or what I am looking at spells trouble for you.

Tip#6: Running is not skill, nor is the “internet”. Come on people- we all can do this. In this age, especially at a technology company – I expect that everyone can navigate the internet. My mom can do it… and she sometimes talks to the computer –so your computer-savvy does not make you special. Unless you’re programming in C++, Sql, php, and all the other fancy acronyms that we DO look for on your resume.

Tip#7: Last but not least- the “objective” line. It’s useless. No-one puts “I want to work for a crap company, putting out crap games”… everyone wants to work on a great title, at a great company, with great people- blah, blah, blah. You can leave out the platitudes. We know we rock. 🙂

Have a good one, hope this helps, and until next time….