Hey everyone,
I'm looking to get some feedback on my resume. It's gone through multiple revisions, and I'd like to get as many perspectives on it as possible.
Edit: Thanks for all of the help guys!
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Resume Feedback
I can understand why you redacted your phone number and email, but why did you redact your website? If there's nothing on there relevant to your job application, don't put the website on the resume at all. If there is - like a portfolio - why not include it? When I am reviewing resumes, I often go to websites to peruse the applicants portfolio, if applicable.
As for the resume itself:
- The projects listed in your "project highlights" don't have particularly interesting or in-depth descriptions of what you actually did on them that is interesting. For my part, I would rather see a single interesting thing described for each project than a list of buzzwords. What makes your game engine an engine and not a renderer with some scripting support, exactly? Focus on what is interesting about the "numerous AI behaviors," or the decision making system (what did it make it's decisions on, what criteria was used to evaluate decisions, et cetera)?
- "Game engine" is not a technical skill. Graphics and gameplay are...borderline.
- As with your projects, post what is interesting or unique about your work experiences. What did you do there that was cool, that sets you apart from other candidates for this job? The fact that your job was full time and part time is yawn-worthy.
Overall, your resume lacks any sort of spark to set you apart. You don't talk about (or make available) your projects and the cool or challenging problems you solved. You don't talk about the useful and impactful things you accomplished at your job (something must have got you a high standing on the merit board, right?)
As it stands, if I want to know the answer to those questions I have to bring you in and ask you. And I'm not likely to do that; you could have just as well answered those questions in the resume itself and I might have bought you in instead of the next guy who did do that.
Author
Thanks for the reply.
I can understand why you redacted your phone number and email, but why did you redact your website? If there's nothing on there relevant to your job application, don't put the website on the resume at all. If there is - like a portfolio - why not include it? When I am reviewing resumes, I often go to websites to peruse the applicants portfolio, if applicable.
It's all up there now.
The projects listed in your "project highlights" don't have particularly interesting or in-depth descriptions of what you actually did on them that is interesting. For my part, I would rather see a single interesting thing described for each project than a list of buzzwords. What makes your game engine an engine and not a renderer with some scripting support, exactly? Focus on what is interesting about the "numerous AI behaviors," or the decision making system (what did it make it's decisions on, what criteria was used to evaluate decisions, et cetera)?
Ok, I'll take a look at this and make it more descriptive. I'll edit the original post with an update when I post the revision.
"Game engine" is not a technical skill. Graphics and gameplay are...borderline.
Game engine programming/graphics programming isn't technical? Can you elaborate? Perhaps I should rename this small section to something more appropriate?
As with your projects, post what is interesting or unique about your work experiences. What did you do there that was cool, that sets you apart from other candidates for this job? The fact that your job was full time and part time is yawn-worthy.
Hmm, I'll think of something. I guess I can remove the full time / part time bit as people can figure that part out themselves.
Overall, your resume lacks any sort of spark to set you apart. You don't talk about (or make available) your projects and the cool or challenging problems you solved. You don't talk about the useful and impactful things you accomplished at your job (something must have got you a high standing on the merit board, right?)
As it stands, if I want to know the answer to those questions I have to bring you in and ask you. And I'm not likely to do that; you could have just as well answered those questions in the resume itself and I might have bought you in instead of the next guy who did do that.
The projects are now available. I was on the fence about posting my website on this forum as it's not entirely complete, but it's up now regardless.
Cool; I like that you made the source available, that is usually the most interesting part to look at (at least as far as programming candidates go).
Game engine programming/graphics programming isn't technical? Can you elaborate?
Those are both technical, but they are not technical skills. They are too broad and could mean too many things. It's like listing "stuff' as a skill. Be more specific.
When I look at resumes, I try to figure out a few things:
1) Does this person know what they're doing?
1a) what is their skill level?
1b) What's their project track record?
1c) Is their experience relevant to the position?
2) Can I depend on this person to take ownership of a task and see to it that it gets done on time and to a high degree of quality?
3) What value can this person bring to the team? What can they do? How do they help me make more money than what I pay them?
If I was hiring for a programmer:
As it stands right now, your resume would be quickly discarded without a second thought. I'd look for stronger candidates. Who knows, maybe you are a strong candidate, but your resume just doesn't tell me that. All it has are a bunch of short non-descript terms for things I'm vaguely familiar with. Take "OpenGL deferred renderer, shader permutations (GLSL), and multiple lighting models." for example. It doesn't tell me much, if anything. What's involved with that stuff? What did you do? why did you do it? what problem did it solve? did it work? What was the result? Pretend I'm an idiot HR manager with a vague head for business and zero technical knowledge. How does this illustrate to me how you'd bring value to my company? Connect the dots, spell it out for me -- or I may either not connect the dots or connect them in ways you didn't want me to. (it's like programming! leave no room for guessing and assumptions!) What if my company doesn't use OpenGL or GLSL? Does that make your skill useless? You also barely mention everything. When you say, "2D collision detection", I have no idea how involved that is. Did you just do a simple function to test for overlapping axis aligned boxes, or did you do something as elaborate as creating something like Box2D? I have to assume its the former, which leaves me underwhelmed.
I also wouldn't care one bit about your jazz certificate.
The purpose of a resume is to get you an interview. You have to give me enough meat to chew on to consider you to be a viable candidate. That doesn't mean you write an essay or your life story, you just give me enough to go off of so that I can say, "it wouldn't be a waste of my time to interview this person. Let's bring them in!". Then, at the interview, you sell yourself and you do it hard. Don't go to an interview without a clue on what to say or do. Don't expect a bunch of one-sided questions from employer to employee, be the one to pitch yourself! Introduce yourself, demonstrate your value, see if its a job and company you would want to work for, then close the sale. Ask for the job.
Author
Thanks for the response slayemin. I made another revision of my resume with your input (and multiple others, of course) in mind.
Hello Phil,
i would change the order of things
1. Job Experiences.
2. Skills overview
3. Education
4. Project
5. Language
I don't know if it's better 1 or 2.
Then i would try to make the CV a bit longer. No more than three relevant projects and maybe at the beginning a little resumè of your key strengths, skills, features, behaviour. What are your communication skills and personal attitudes.
See you,
Merlino
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