Repeat Advice: Assembling Resumes, Cover Letters, and Websites

This blog post is written while the author is gearing up to take a break from volunteering and mentorship, and is part of a series that distills the most common advice she gives on a regular basis.

Having been in the workforce for 15 years at the time of writing, I have made my peace with writing resumes and cover letters. If I were a multi-hyphenate like Elle Woods I would submit video essays about myself to every job (or just show up with a marching band), but unfortunately I don’t think either of those options would go over well, so I am stuck describing and re-describing my experience for the foreseeable future.

The Hacks Don’t Work

I’m going to put this up-top and keep it simple: do not use generative AI to create resumes or cover letters for yourself. Even ignoring the power consumption and plagiarism concerns for the tech, there is an entirely self-serving reason not to do this.

GenAI doesn’t actually “think” or “process” in the way that people believe it does. This is a pretty vast oversimplification, but it is basically just beefed-up predictive text. You are generating the statistical average of text, based on an extremely large dataset. If everything becomes the average, how is your generated resume supposed to stand out among all the other generated resumes?

If your worry is overcoming a language or professionalism barrier, then my question is: are you going to run every single thing you are trying to communicate at work through genAI? What happens when you need to speak on a call? What happens when you’re working with proprietary information?

It is okay to make mistakes. It is okay to write something clumsily, or to not feel fully-confident with a skill the first time you try it. I would so much rather work with a teammate who is trying than to talk to them through a machine.

And, this is not an idea I can take credit for but it is certainly one I repeat often: if you didn’t bother to write something, why should I bother to read it?

A Primer on Resumes and Cover Letters

A resume is a summary of your (relevant) experience. It is generally broken up into sections (objective/summary statement, skills, experience, education, awards, volunteering, etc.) and the common wisdom is that folks with <10 years of experience should keep it to one page in length. I am now going to rapid-fire my opinion on a few common debates.

• Is the chronological format or functional format better? I personally use chronological, but when I was in a place in my career where I was doing a lot of contract work with redundant functions, I used functional. If you’re applying to large studios, who almost certainly use ATS systems to at least auto-fill their internal forms, then consider sticking to chronological.
• Should resumes be plain? I always have a lightly-formatted text version of my resume ready for the aforementioned large companies with ATS systems, but the one I submitted everywhere last time I was job hunting was a PDF with a bunch of pixelated raspberries on it. My preference is to let folks know what kind of personality they’re dealing with right away.
• Do I need a certification for my resume? Probably not. Certifications are great for highly-specialized jobs at large companies; less so for folks looking to break into the industry or to change roles. My advice is generally to not think about getting certified until you’re in a position to ask a company to pay for it.

The debate around cover letters as of late is whether or not they’re even necessary. Some recruiters like them, some don’t — I usually try to submit one, but job hunting is such a painful slog that I can’t say I’ve ever been consistent. It is generally acceptable to craft a loose template for yourself, so that you don’t have to write the whole thing from scratch every time.

Functionally, a cover letter should add context to your resume, and be an opportunity for you to describe how your experience applies to the specific job posting. Most that I’ve read and written consist of an introduction paragraph that tells the reader who you are, one or two body paragraphs that contextualize your experience, and an outro that describes why you want this specific role at this specific company.

Some roles also require a portfolio. This is a small, digestible collection of work that should be representative of your process and the kind of day-to-day output your employers can expect.

How to Read a Job Posting

A job posting (sometimes referred to as a ‘JD’ or ‘job description’ in parlance) will usually have a little bit of fluff about the role, required qualifications, optional qualifications, and a bunch of legal disclaimers at the bottom. It should also include valuable information about whether or not this role is remote, hybrid, or in-office and hopefully, the salary range.

The fluff might have a little bit of context for the type of team you’re applying to join or which project this role is for, but I usually skip that and go straight to the bulleted lists of required and optional qualifications, so I can use them as a checklist. Pay attention to the vocabulary JDs use and look for common industry words that you can use when drafting your resume, so that reviewers can understand your experience in the context of making games (or whichever creative industry you’re applying for; this advice is pretty broadly useable).

As a rule of thumb, I tend to tell folks that if they fit ~60% of the qualifications and the job is level-appropriate, go ahead and apply.

Make sure you pay attention to the desired format for resumes/portfolios, if provided. You want to make a good first impression, which means paying close attention to how reviewers want information presented and making it easier for them to see that you’re a great candidate.

Drafting Your Materials

Generally, you should always write your application materials while keeping in mind the point of view of the recruiter or hiring manager that will be reading it. This becomes harder when you consider that, in the aftermath of tens of thousands of games jobs lost and in an economy where over a thousand people might apply for one listing, you probably have three seconds at best to catch a recruiter or hiring manager’s attention. This means your resume needs to have all the most important information relevant to that posting in the most visible spot, and any portfolio you make needs to get the reviewer to the content they need to see by using the fewest clicks possible.

My recommendation is to worry about content first, and then figure out your format later. An extremely basic resume should have the following:

• Info: Your name, phone number, e-mail, title (or desired title), and LinkedIn should be clearly visible at the top of the document. I recommend using a professional e-mail that is dedicated to work-related communications. Please remember to redact your phone number and personal info if you post this document online.
• Experience: This is a summary of your employment history. It should include the name of the company, the dates (month and year) of employment, and a bulleted list of responsibilities. Your bullets should start with a strong verb and include not only what you did, but how it positively impacted your workplace.
• Skills: This is a short list of hard skills you have (coding languages, software you work with, methodologies you understand, etc). Please do not include soft skills (communication, problem solving, leadership) in your skills section — instead, demonstrate them in your experience section.
• Education: Any formal institution you attended, any certificates you got from those institutions, and dates (month and year) attended.

There are also some optional sections you can include.

• Objective: The objective statement or summary is a sentence or two at the top of the document. It is handy if you have a wide variety of experience across different titles and industries, and want to add a little context for a potential reviewer.
• Awards: List the award, the year you got it, and the organization that granted it.
• Volunteer: List the organization, years of service, and what your role was. If you are a recent grad or don’t have a lot of work experience, you can format it similarly to the experience section.

Like I said, we’re focusing on content first. When you’re working on your draft, don’t think about page count or what might go in a sidebar — just get everything down on a page and let the density and relative importance of each section dictate where it should go and what kind of template you want to use.

Once you have all of your content, reviewed it yourself and/or asked peers to look over it, you have a master resume. This is a document you can cut information from to better fit specific job postings that you’re applying to. Those job-specific resumes will be the basis for your cover letter. You can also basically copy-paste it to your LinkedIn.

As above: cover letters are an opportunity to add context to your experience, not just restate it. You are trying to explain why you are a good fit, based on your qualifications, to the call for talent that the studio has put out. This is an especially good time to demonstrate your understanding of the type of organization you’re applying to. To use myself as an example, I spent my early career as an animator at an animation studio and needed to explain both the relevance of that experience and my understanding of how that experience was different from being a producer at both indies and AAA studios.

To restate from earlier, cover letters are generally 3–4 paragraphs, with three distinct sections.

• Intro: You’re introducing yourself properly, not as just info on a header. “Hello, I’m [name] and I am [title] at [organization]. Here is a short summary of my focus areas as a professional.”
• Body: This is the ‘contextualize the experience’ bit. Highlight the things most relevant to what was in the job posting, as well as anything your resume didn’t have room for. “In my role as [title], I was responsible for [x, y, z] and would be excited to bring that experience to [project]. Here are some challenges we overcame. Here is how I want to grow in the role you’ve posted.”
• Outro: This is where you do a little light brown-nosing and tell the reviewers why you want this job at this company. “[Company] has a great reputation for investing in the growth of its devs, which is something I’m really looking for in my next position because [reason].”

A word of caution here: make sure that you are explaining why you are passionate about the work, not necessarily the product. It is all well and good to express how much you love a game, but working on it isn’t the same thing as playing it. What is it about the thing you will be doing 35+ hours every week that excites you, on this specific team?

In a similar vein, let’s talk about tone. I have spent a not-insignificant amount of time reviewing applications with long-form answers, and can tell you that I as a reviewer am immediately put off by things like negative self-talk or an overly-familiar, jok-ey tone. It takes some time and a little trial and error, but it will ultimately serve you to figure out what your version of professional sounds like. A professional tone is polite, concise, and generally free of slang or inside jokes. You are writing to convey information to an audience you might not have met before or who you wouldn’t interact with in a social context — not to entertain.

Websites and Portfolios

Admittedly, I have not had a portfolio in years, because I took a career pivot away from animation and illustration. There are people far smarter and more experienced than I who have written about how to put together discipline-specific websites, reels, and portfolios, so in this section I will stick to very general advice that you can use while you hunt for that knowledge.

Let’s revisit the idea of an information hierarchy: the most important information goes in the most visible place. Your main page should have all the key content a reviewer needs, without any need for click-through.

Seek out the websites and portfolios of the people who have the jobs that you want. How do they present their work? What kind of details do they include? And the hardest question of all: what level is their work at?

You see, you’ve fallen for my trap! We’re going to address the very, very uncomfortable question of readiness.

The fact is, a lot of applicants are not ready for the jobs they are applying for, and are caught in the ouroboros of needing experience to improve while not being able to get said experience because they have not improved. Too often, this begins to weigh on their self-confidence and makes them feel like their work isn’t good enough, period. Worse, applicants then begin to spin in circles trying to improve everything all at once, or grinding skills without any real purpose, and that doesn’t get them anywhere either.

So! What do you do?

Stop, and gather information. All those reference portfolios and resumes you’re looking at, what specifically do they have that you don’t? I come from a visual arts background, so I can use that as an example: don’t stop at ‘they’re better at drawing.’ What is better? Do they have a better grasp on values, on anatomy? Is their work laid out more professionally? Are their prop drawings more descriptive? If they’re putting their drawings on a certain type of background, can you puzzle out why they’re doing that? What is their work trying to achieve, and how are they getting there?

This is also where your networks and professional communities can come in. If you can’t quantify how to get from point A (where you are now) to point B (job-ready portfolio), it’s time to reach out to someone who can. Remember: if that means cold calling, reach out to the person with a specific request and how much time/effort you’re asking from them.

Don’t be afraid to slow down, take a breath, recharge. Don’t be afraid to try and find work to get your bills paid while you work on your materials. This industry is not going anywhere, and you’re not doing anyone any good slamming your head against the wall.

Making Peace With Rejection

Getting rejected is really, really hard. Getting rejected multiple times is even harder, and there can be added financial pressure if you’re looking for work to get your bills paid. Careers are a big part of an adult’s identity, and games jobs are often dream jobs. I have been rejected more times than I can count, and cried about that fact multiple times.

The framing that has made rejection just a little more bearable for me is that a rejection is not usually a no, it is a not right now.

When companies list a job, they can’t list it with all the context that the reviewer will have. Some things have to do with the makeup of the existing team, some with office politics, some with NDAs. Reviewers are also humans, and you have no way to understand what might give them the ick, so to speak, or if they’re feeling more or less charitable towards strangers that day. Someone else in the pool may have a better recommendation. The position may just be listed for legal reasons while there was already a plan in motion to fill it internally.

There are a thousand things out of your control in the process of applying for a job, and a rejection is not a reflection on you. It is a reflection on how your current circumstances line up with the need of that specific posting.

Conclusion

I wish I had something inspiring to say at the outro here, but the fact is that marketing yourself and applying for work is a slog. It’s exhausting, and can be emotionally draining. But, it is also true that the only time you’re guaranteed to fail is if you stop trying at all.