Resume and Portfolio UC Santa Cruz CMPS 170 – Game Design Studio I 14 October 2014

UC SANTA CRUZ Upcoming deadlines  Thursday, October 16 / Saturday, October 18  First game pitches in class  See notes online for format  Must create slides using Google Slides presentation software, save them in Google Drive  Presentation order now on Piazza  Friday, October 24  First draft of resume and portfolio

UC SANTA CRUZ Game Lab Access  By now you should ideally have been approved for access into the game lab  BE 368, BE 366, BE 364, all on third floor of Baskin Engineering building  Three step process  Receive approval for use of the space (should be done)  Follow link in you receive, and approve  Have your keycard upgraded to use omnilock  … or, receive a keycode  Do this step with BSOE facilities, office on 3 rd floor of Baskin Engineering

UC SANTA CRUZ Resume  A resume is a short document with the goal of getting you an interview for a job  In academic circles, also known as a curriculum vitae, or cv  There are no hard and fast rules on what should be on a resume  Similarly, there is no perfect resume. There are always tradeoffs.  However, resumes tend to follow well-established conventions

UC SANTA CRUZ Required elements  Name  Mailing address  address  Phone number  I have heard stories of students not getting internships because a recruiter couldn’t contact them quickly before an internal deadline

UC SANTA CRUZ Links to external websites  Linked In  These days, a good Linked In profile is mandatory  Nearly all potential employers will seek out this profile  Portfolio  Link to your portfolio website  This is mandatory for game industry jobs

UC SANTA CRUZ Education  The emphasis here is on what is most important to your job hunt  The only degrees that matter here are your bachelors degrees  The name of your game design degree is:  Bachelors of Science in Computer Science: Computer Game Design  Can also write: BS Computer Science: Computer Game Design  Put on resume:  BS Computer Science: Computer Game Design, expected June 2015, GPA xxx/4.0  Include other degrees if you’re double-majoring  IMO, it’s OK to omit GPA

UC SANTA CRUZ Skills  Languages: C++, C, Javascript, Java, CSS, Lisp, Objective-C,...  Important: put C++ first for games industry jobs  Put Javascript first for webdev jobs  Technologies: Visual Studio, Eclipse, GitHub, Xcode, Photoshop, Illustrator, Ant, Blender, Maya, …  List any tool/technology/framework that takes substantial effort to learn well  Platforms: iOS, Android, Unity, Corona, Unreal, HTML5/Canvas, etc.  These are very important, as many people do keyword searches on these terms

UC SANTA CRUZ Work Experience  Conventional wisdom is you list every job you’ve ever had  I disagree: most student jobs are not relevant to IT jobs  My rubric: If it would be a waste of time to discuss in an interview, then don’t include  Include:  Internships or jobs with IT or game companies  Work for IT group at UCSC  Summer jobs in IT  Typically don’t include:  Delivering pizza. Most retail jobs. Being a camp counselor.  Just not relevant to IT jobs

UC SANTA CRUZ Work Experience  For each job:  Title of job  Name of company  When  Description of duties, with emphasis on specific tasks performed.  Be sure to use industry specific jargon to describe efforts  Clearly describe what you did personally  Use sentences starting with “action words”  Developed, Tested, Designed, Managed, etc.

UC SANTA CRUZ Projects  Describe major projects you have performed  Games or IT projects  Name of project  Describe technologies/platforms used  Describe project  For group projects, make sure your specific contribution is listed  Feel free to include small photo or screenshot  Be sure to mention if the project has been released (e.g., to Google Play, Apple App Store, etc.)  Many people like to see evidence of taking a project all the way through to completion  Link to website for the project (if exists)  Link to Github for code is great

UC SANTA CRUZ Other elements (optional)  If you have a major outside interest, include  For example, are you a national class yoyo performer?  Are you highly ranked in chess?  Examples of achieving excellence at a regional or national level  Will often be used as conversation starters  Objective  The kind of job you’re seeking  Can often include this in a cover letter  Space is often better used fleshing out project descriptions

UC SANTA CRUZ Do not include  Do not include  Lists of classes  Projects are more informative  High school  Unless there is some relevance to the IT job  Community college degree  Unless degree is very different from game design degree  References available upon request  Of course they are  Photograph  Typically not done, and they’ll find this on your LinkedIn profile  List of hobbies  Usually there are better uses for the space

UC SANTA CRUZ Appearances count  Many companies will reject a resume if there is a single spelling error  “If they can’t get this right, their work will likely be sloppy”  Graphic design  A resume with nice graphic design will be more attractive to read  Better conveys “can work on games” than poorly laid out resume  Especially for design positions, there is a tacit assumption you know the basics of graphic design

UC SANTA CRUZ Portfolio  A website designed to highlight your projects  Again, no firm rules  Main elements  Generally want an image carousel and/or video per project  Some description of the project itself  Emphasize your specific contributions, and technologies used  Link off to project website  Can go into much more depth  Many portfolio website examples