Gamedev Resume Mistakes to Avoid

Recruiters read CVs all day, and the same avoidable problems come up again and again. None of these are difficult to fix. Most take minutes. Here’s what actually costs people interviews, and what to do instead.

Grab your CV and work through these one at a time. Most of what follows takes minutes rather than hours, and the cumulative effect is significant.

1. A Vague Professional Summary

Your summary is the first thing anyone reads about you, and it’s the section people most often get wrong. It should tell a recruiter what you do, at what level, and with what tools, within a couple of lines.

Two things to avoid. First, the objective statement (“seeking a challenging role where I can grow my skills”). It tells the reader nothing they can act on, and it uses space describing what you want rather than what you offer. Second, generic filler phrases like “works well in a team or independently” or “blue-sky thinker with a can-do attitude.” These appear on so many CVs that they carry no information at all.

Compare these two openings:

“A high-achieving professional with a strong work ethic, able to work well in a team to consistently achieve my goals and improve my skillset.”

“A software engineer with hands-on experience across all levels of testing, including performance, functional, integration, system, and user acceptance.”

The second one tells a recruiter whether to keep reading. The first could describe anyone. Write yours so it names your discipline, your seniority, and your most relevant technical specifics.

2. Not Tailoring the CV to the Role

Sending the same CV to every studio is the most common reason strong candidates get filtered out early. Your CV and cover letter should be aimed specifically at the role and the studio you’re applying to.

The practical method: read the job description carefully and note the terms it uses. Engines, languages, platforms, genres, tools, methodologies. Then make sure the equivalent terms appear in your CV where they’re genuinely true of your experience. Recruiters search and scan for exactly these keywords, and a CV that describes the same experience in different vocabulary can get passed over.

Tailoring also means reordering. If a role emphasises multiplayer networking and you have that experience buried in your third bullet under a previous job, move it up. What appears first gets read.

3. Exaggerating or Lying

It happens more often than you’d expect, and it’s a poor way to start a working relationship. Overstatements tend to surface eventually, whether in a technical interview, a probation period, or the first time you’re asked to do the thing you claimed to know. The later it’s discovered, the worse the consequences.

If you lack direct experience for a role you want, the better approach is to be specific about adjacent skills and transferable work. A CV that says “two years in Unity, currently learning Unreal through personal projects” is more credible, and more useful to a recruiter, than one that lists both as equal competencies.

4. Job Descriptions That Run Too Long

Copy-pasting the full responsibility list from a previous role’s job description is a common shortcut, and it works against you. Nobody wants to read a wall of duties, and duties don’t differentiate you from every other person who held that title.

Keep responsibilities brief and select only the ones relevant to the role you’re applying for. Then spend the space you’ve saved on achievements. If you implemented a feature that made the team measurably more efficient, shipped a system that survived launch, or reduced build times, say so. Achievements are what distinguish you; responsibilities merely establish context.

On length: two pages is the sensible maximum for most candidates. Senior leadership roles can justify more, but even then, brevity is a feature. Excessive detail distracts from the case you’re trying to make.

5. Typos and Grammar Errors

These signal a lack of care about the application, which is exactly the wrong impression when attention to detail is part of nearly every gamedev role. Proofread it yourself, then have someone else read it, since you’re too close to your own text to catch everything. Spell-checking tools catch most of the rest, and there’s little excuse for not running one.

Pay particular attention to studio names, engine names, and job titles. Getting the name of the company you’re applying to wrong is a hard error to recover from.

6. Poor Formatting

A CV needs to be easy to read, both on screen and on paper. That means a clear layout, conventional readable fonts, sensible spacing, and consistent hierarchy. Decorative fonts and dense multi-column designs tend to work against you rather than for you.

Send it as a PDF. It’s the standard format, it preserves your layout across devices, and it avoids the formatting drift that happens with editable documents.

One thing worth understanding: many studios use an applicant tracking system, and these often parse your CV into structured fields before a human sees it. Complex layouts, text inside images, tables, and unusual column structures can all cause that parsing to garble your information. A clean, linear layout with standard section headings survives this process reliably. Elaborate design does not.

7. Incorrect or Unprofessional Contact Details

Obvious, and still a recurring problem. Check your phone number and email address carefully before sending, more than once. A CV that impresses someone who then can’t reach you is a wasted effort.

On email addresses: a joke handle you set up years ago undercuts an otherwise professional application. Something built from your name is always the safer choice. Numbers are fine if your name is common enough to require them, but a handle like “johntheemperor” invites a judgment you don’t need. Use a variation of your actual name and move on.

8. Links to Dead or Empty Profiles

Search your own name before you finalise your CV, and see what a recruiter would find. Then link only the profiles you’d actively want them to look at.

The most common version of this mistake is a GitHub link with nothing behind it. Recruiters do click, and an empty repository list or a single project with no commits in two years is worse than no link at all, because it invites a comparison you lose. The same applies to a portfolio site with three placeholder pages or an ArtStation profile you abandoned.

Link what’s current and worth seeing. For most people that means LinkedIn, a portfolio or personal site, and a code repository or ArtStation profile if it’s genuinely active.

9. Unnecessary Personal Information

Marital status, date of birth, height, gender, religion, and nationality are relics of older CV templates and have no bearing on your ability to do a gamedev job. In many jurisdictions it’s also unlawful for employers to base hiring decisions on these, which means including them creates awkwardness rather than advantage.

Use the space for skills, projects, and achievements instead.

10. A Careless File Name

You’ve probably got several versions of your CV, since you’re tailoring it per application. The file name you actually send still matters. A recruiter receiving “my cv 3rd draft BEST ONE almost final.pdf” forms an impression before opening it.

Name it plainly: “John Doe CV” or “John Doe CV Environment Artist”. It takes seconds and it makes the whole application feel more considered.

A Note on Photographs

Whether to include a photo depends on where you’re applying, which is why it’s worth treating separately rather than as a straightforward mistake.

In the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, the convention is to leave photos off. Recruiters there generally don’t expect one, and some companies actively prefer CVs without photos to reduce bias in screening. In much of continental Europe, and in parts of Asia, a professional photo remains normal and its absence can look like an omission.

If you’re applying internationally, the practical approach is to keep two versions. When in doubt, a CV without a photo is rarely penalised, and the space is usually better spent on content.

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Common Questions About Gamedev Resume Mistakes

How long should a gamedev CV be?

Two pages maximum for most candidates, and one page is perfectly acceptable earlier in your career. Senior leadership roles can justify going longer, but brevity still helps. Excessive length dilutes the strongest parts of your application rather than strengthening it.

Should I include a photo on my CV?

It depends on the region. In the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, leave it off, since photos aren’t expected and some employers prefer CVs without them to reduce screening bias. In much of continental Europe and parts of Asia, a professional photo is conventional. If you apply across regions, keep two versions.

What file format should I send my CV in?

PDF. It preserves your layout across devices and is the expected standard. Keep the internal structure simple so applicant tracking systems can parse it: avoid text inside images, complex tables, and unusual multi-column layouts.

Do I really need to tailor my CV for every application?

Yes, though tailoring doesn’t mean rewriting from scratch. Adjust your summary, reorder your bullet points so the most relevant experience appears first, and make sure the terminology matches the language of the job description where it genuinely applies to you. That usually takes ten to fifteen minutes per application.

Should I list responsibilities or achievements?

Both, weighted toward achievements. Responsibilities establish what your role covered; achievements show what you actually delivered. A short responsibility summary followed by two or three concrete accomplishments per role is a strong structure.

Should I include a GitHub or portfolio link?

Only if it’s active and worth looking at. Recruiters do click these links, and an empty repository list or a portfolio with placeholder content is worse than no link. If the profile is current and shows real work, include it prominently.