THERES HUNDREDS OF GAME INDUSTRY ROLES…
The games industry relies a lot on networking and reaching out, especially on LinkedIn and social media sites. Often times, this and your resume should have a simple title that describes your current role (or role you’re seeking) in the industry.
A big issue that many individuals fall into is the trap of not understanding roles properly. something too broad like “artist” is no good; what kind of artist are you? 2D? 3D? VFX? Something that doesn’t match actual common role titles is no good either.
This fantastic link by CREATIVE ASSEMBLY is similar to what I utilized when I was first searching for roles. While I did dabble a bit in 3D art and was able to put it in my resume, my main focus was character and concept art in the 2D space. Concept art is far different from illustrations, so I had to break concept and character art separately; I’ve made both ready-for-game 2D art assets and concept page sheets for environment and characters.
One of the biggest pieces of advice that is consistently given is to NARROW DOWN TO YOUR SPECIFIC ROLE. Personally, I like to list 2, max 3, roles at a time. Currently I’m listed as a character and concept artist. The rest of the details can be broken down further on my resume. Yes, I am comfortable with environment, but it’s not my main focus. I do speak enough languages to translate and do QA work, but my LinkedIn focuses specifically on that.
For RESUMES, always make sure that your title reflects the job you are applying for. It’s a bit contradictory to what I said before, I know. But if you’re applying to a translation position despite being mainly an artist, it’s important that your resume is tailored to the job, and that will include focusing on the fact that for this role, you’re a translator (and so forth).
CREATIVE ASSEMBLY‘s fantastic image showcasing large roles of the industry.
In the end, if your name is too long it isn’t going to fit in small spaces like the Linkedin message option. If it doesn’t have actual role titles commonly used by the industry, it also shows that you have inexperience within the industry and with specifically what you aim to do in the pipeline of a game studio.
NOW, WHAT ABOUT GENERALISTS?
I’m sorry to not be able to give a nice clean answer on this one. Some professionals swear that focusing on a specific role is the way to go, as it demonstrates that you are focused and rapidly increasing your craft (as explained to me by a AAA 3D artist from amazon). Some also say that generalism is the way to go, as it proves that you can accomplish multiple roles and are thus able to fill multiple shoes for one salary.
In general, I personally find that focusing on a role is fantastic for AA or AAA titles and large studios, and that mentioning you’re a generalist or familiar with other aspects of the pipeline is good for small and indie studios. Regardless, if you are a generalist you should still be tailoring yourself to the role at hand and highlighting your strongest roles.
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