Career Advice

Many people in the gaming industry, especially those aged 16-24, are struggling to find fulfilling jobs. Whether it’s because the job market is oversaturated, or because they don’t feel they have necessary skills for their preferred roles, it’s becoming an increasingly bigger problem.

Transferrable Skills

As a gamer, you have an ever growing list of skills that employers look for in every role across all fields. Just because gaming is a hobby, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t discuss those valuable traits in an application. In fact, it often makes you as qualified, or even potentially more qualified than your competition.

Examples of skills you have that employers look for:

Teamwork - As gamers, we’re constantly having to work together with different groups of people. This is essential in almost all fields of work. Showing that you can work in a team, regardless of who is a part of that team, is very attractive to potential employers

Communication - Similar to teamwork, you have to constantly communicate with new people, and maybe even people that don’t share the same views as you. This is a very important skill for employers.

Resilience - Games are frustrating. But all of us stick it out (apart from the occasional rage quit), so that puts our tolerance levels leaps and bounds in front of other applicants

Independence - Although we have a lot of co-op opportunities, many games are also single player. This requires you to work entirely independently towards an end goal. This means you have self discipline and the ability to get on with a task without needing any external input. This is one of the top desired skills employers want.

Computer Literacy - This one seems kinda obvious, but a lot of applicants won’t have the same understanding of computers as you do. You know your way around a pc and it’s likely you’ll have some experience in excel/google sheets. Employers love this.

Efficiency - Unless we’re wanting to 100% a game, we’re probably gonna cut some corners. Whether it’s exploiting a glitch or simply choosing the quickest route, we’re pros at being efficient.

Organisation - If you’ve ever hosted a games night with your friends, you’ll have great organisational skills. Trying to get a bunch of people (likely in different timezones) to play a game at a set time is a big task. So if you’ve managed that, you’ve got organisational skills coming out of your ears!

Leadership - Similar to organisation, if you’ve hosted a game, you’ve got leadership skills! Make sure to tell employers all about how you’ve led things and how successful those events have been.

Creativity - Many games require creativity. Whether it’s building houses, or completing a tricky level.

Problem Solving - Games are built on problem solving, and problem solving is a key skill that employers look for in their ideal candidates.

Getting Experience and Where to Look

You may still need some experience for some roles, so there are different routes you can go down to get this experience:

College
University
Internships
Apprenticeships
Free online courses
Volunteering

There are lots of websites to look for jobs, but the most widely accessible one is LinkedIn.

When using LinkedIn, make sure to keep your profile up-to-date, and to personalise it as much as you can. Potential employers are less likely to hire people with incomplete profiles because they look like spam accounts.

LinkedIn has a handy job search tab that helps you filter by job, industry, location, skill, duration, or all of the above. It also recommends jobs to you based on your profile.

FutureLearn is a very good website for free online courses in niche areas. These kinds of courses will set you aside from other applicants.

You can find internships and volunteering opportunities by just googling the role you want, followed by internship/volunteer. Although these roles are generally unpaid, they are good for experience and for deciding whether you actually want to go into that industry. And if you’ve got free time, it’s definitely worth it!

Resumes and Cover Letters

Resumes are very important and are often what employers use to filter out applicants in the first stages. Here’s a few tips to make yours stand out:

Make sure it is readable
- A lot of employers will put your resume through a scanner to make sure you have the key skills and experience for a role. If yours isn’t readable, it’s less likely you’ll hear back.
Tailor it to the job
- There are some roles that might require a more colourful or eye catching resume, or some of your experience may not be relevant. Customise it to fit the role.
If you’re applying for a creative role, use bold colours and include a professional photo of yourself
Keep it concise
- Use bullet points rather than sentences
- Most employers will only look at the first page
Make sure to name the file ‘[Your full name] + Resume’
- Eg. Joe Bloggs Resume
- When employers download your resume, they will have hundreds of others to go through, so make sure they know which one is yours!

The best way to stand out when applying for a job is to write a cover letter that is tailored to the role.

This is how it should be laid out:

5th January 2023

RE: [job title],

Dear [Company name] Team,

[Briefly outline why you’d be a good fit]

[Experience you have that is relevant to the role]

[Additional experience that may be relevant (not necessary)]

[Why do you want to work for the company]

[Generic closer] For a greater presentation of my background and qualifications, please review my attached CV and links to content I have created. I am eager to speak with you and greatly appreciate your consideration.

Sincerely,
[Name]