Professional Development - CVs
CV research-
There are two types of CVs that professionals in the creative industry create. Those are formal CVs and Design CVs, both of which are somewhat similar to each other but serve different purposes in the job application process.
A formal CV usually follows a more conservative layout, with a definite structure that is suited to job application keywords. It is formal, with only the bare minimum amount of information to catch and keep the employer's attention. When making a formal CV, many choose to use platforms such as Word for its layouts, formatting options and pre made templates suited to CVs. These templates are generally quite standard, so it is important to customize them slightly to be your own, however, formal CVs are not usually the places to show off artwork or any other complex visual elements.
On the other hand, a design CV showcases more personality and creative ability. They incorporate create elements and help advertise the artist's visual style to prospective employers. Many of these CVs are made using software such as InDesign or other alternatives, which offers greater control over visual elements and more freedom to customize your CV. With this being said, try not to over design your CV as some companies use AI to read through CVs and having something too complicated could immediately put your application in the reject pile.
There is no right or wrong answer to what kind of CV you should make, Most job CVs in the games industry sit somewhere between these two types of CVs. It really depends on what job role you want to go into and what other professionals in that field prefer to use.
Examples of working professionals and their public CVs-
Companies studios I'm interested in
After university I would like to look for jobs within the TTRPG industry, specifically as an illustrator or concept artist for independent studios. I have chosen this as my main focus as I feel my skills better align with worldbuilding and book illustrations as opposed to videogame pipeline work. I have personally met individuals from both SoulMuppet publishing and Games Omnivorous in the past, and the type of games they produce have a wide range of art styles which is something I would be interested in doing in the future to give a bit of variation to my work. Both of these studios are very small in terms of their team, which I feel I would prefer over a large company, as a lot of these Indie studios can be a lot more experimental with their work and cover more unique themes. I would much prefer this to working on a big IP as I would like to say "Hey I was apart of something super cool and unique".
Even if I did not end up working with these guys, I would like to find a company that produces quite unique and story rich games as creating artwork for worldbuilding is one of my favourite things to do.
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| SoulMuppet games- https://soulmuppet-store.co.uk/pages/about-us |
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Games Omnivorous -https://gamesomnivorous.com/pages/about |
Artist public CVs
Doing some research into industry professionals for TTRPGs and freelance artists, I can see most individuals have both a formal CV and a Creative CV. When it comes to formal CV's, LinkedIn seems to be the most popular way individuals are showcasing their CV as it is more direct for employers to find. However, as you can see below, most of these individuals also have a website containing information about their skills, experience, and link to their Portfolio.
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| Trevor Roberts - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-roberts-21962089/ |
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| Anastasiia Ivanova: https://www.artstation.com/aseagull |
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| Anastasiia Ivanova: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aseagull/ |
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| Isaac Meardon: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Thz9vAiJLdt2yfuFD1QKCA1Rap8Rfo0g/view?pli=1 |
Social media - [ WIP]
Blogs, instagram, bluesky announcing when projects launch and devlogs behind those projects, builds a network
With this in mind, It would likely be worth creating both a Formal and Creative CV. I think having a LinkedIn would be very useful to me, as this also allows my profile to be found by more people. Taking into consideration what these individuals have done, I should make sure to link all my relevant social medias and my portfolio site so that my artwork can be easily found by employers. I will also make sure to keep my actual CV very brief, only including information that is absolutely necessary. However I do think It would be beneficial to include examples of my previous published projects for employers to review.
Job roles, what do they ask for?
Looking for some examples of job listings to inform what skills and information I should be including in my CV, I highlighted two listings from the company Wizards of the coast for their Art Administrator and Art director roles, which is similar to what I would like to do in the future.
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| https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4358900678 |
What skills is this job asking for?
Software : Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Microsoft office
Skills: Communication, feedback, creative skills, IP implementation skills
Ideally they also want the applicant to have 2+ years in commercial illustration
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| https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4366272811 |
What skills is this job asking for?
Software: Excel, outlook, Teams, Acrobat, Data Asset Management Systems
Skills: Art handling, art production and asset management as well as organizational, time management and communication skills.
They would also like applicants to be able to work well in teams, have good customer service skills and be familiar with wizards of the coast products.
In terms of experience, they want at least a university degree in graphic art or something related to art.
What kind of CV will I choose as my main CV?-
Taking all of this into consideration, I think that making a Creative CV would be a good main option to present to employers as it immediately helps them see what kind of artwork services I can offer. As the role of an illustrator or concept artist is the job I would like to do in the future, my unique art style will be one of the main points to consider when employers look at my CV. With that being said, in most of the examples I researched, these professionals also have a formal CV on sites like LinkedIn to help with networking in a more formal capacity. I think having both options at my disposal will broaden my range of places I can apply to.
When actually making my CVs, I would like to use LinkedIn to showcase my formal CV which I will create using Word [Or a word alternative], and InDesign to make my Creative CV which I will showcase on my Artstation. This seems to be the method most professionals in the creative industry seem to follow.
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| Miguel Nogueria - A freelance concept artist. This is his creative CV on his website, which was linked on his Artstation |
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| His artstation |
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| A section of his Formal CV on his LinkedIn, which was also linked on his Artstation [which I will also make sure to do when creating my own artstation] |
Structure of a CV-
Below are some notes I took from the session on information to bare in mind when creating my CV.
Always arrange your information from most to least important.
Name / portfolio link / contacts / LinkedIn/ location
Experience and achievements
Transferrable skills
Experience / part time jobs
Game jams
Indie projects
Personal achievements
Skills
software skills
Workflows
Soft skills -
Don't do a skill tree, its hard for employers to understand what you mean if you are rating it out of 5.
Education
University courses
College courses? - probably not necessary
Take small courses, this will help add to this section - You could format this in a timeline of different courses you've done
Try not to be too wordy, make it so people can scan through and understand what skills you have.
You can put your creative CV on your own website, building your own brand.
CV Dos and Don'ts-
Do:
- Keep it short, around 1 page, and keep it clean to read
- Tailor it to the role you want to do, look at others in the field, how did they make their CV, what skills do you need to know
- Have contact details clearly displayed
- Add your achievements and courses, especially personal projects you've published, game jams you've attended, or courses you've completed
Don't:
- Don't use the word aspiring to describe yourself, just say you are an x/y/z kind of artist
- Don't use skill trees
- Be honest with your skills, don't name software you don't know how to use
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