[Portfolio] Vincent Kruger

edited in Portfolios
Hello everyone.

So my studies are ending this year which means I need to start job hunting soon, and thus I am busy refining my CV per the suggestions of this thread.

I will use this thread to post my CV, a link to a website with my stuffs and any ongoing progress I might make.
For now I just want some feedback on what you would like changed/removed from my CV, before I start sending it, since it might end up in some of your inboxes and I don't want to annoy anyone.

Old CV
New CV
Newer CV

For Education, do you feel I should rather only put down the institute and course I was studying, and have accompanying documents with the respective course details? I am wondering because this will shorten the CV quite a bit and get it to that 1 page dream ;). Also I will add references, but I want to confirm that it is okay for me to put them down as a reference.

I am still busy setting up my personal website, using carbonmade, which I think is fine but I am open to suggestions. It is still very early and I am going to add more projects soon, and also more images/GIFs (with a G) so that it is easier to determine what you might want to take a look at.

Portfolio WIP

Also portfolio wise, should I only post game dev related projects, or anything I feel might contribute (CG Projects, regular windows applications etc)

Thanks for reading!
pdf
pdf
VKrugerResume.pdf
218K

Comments

  • Hi @vince, Welcome! You have very decent Matric results - hot damn! Your UNISA results are also very good though I am not sure that you need to necessarily squeeze in all your marks into your CV. It does look very neat and structured though so someone correct me if I'm wrong here. Maybe include personal skills/Interests or Hobbies that you want to share to break a bit of the formal

    Your Portfolio should be your best/strongest works and focus on what skills you want to showcase. You can put prototypes and WIP projects as long as they serve their purpose of impressing the guy on the other side.

    And go chat up people before the end of the year - the more contacts you have will improve the chances of landing a gig somewhere!

    Good luck!
  • Hey man thanks a lot for the feedback.

    I agree I also feel it is unnecessary to display all my marks, I can rather provide them on request/have them on my website.
    Then I can also fit in a section on of skills/interests as you suggested.

    Thanks for all the advice and feedback! Will definitely keep it in mind.
  • edited
    I generally don't think the marks matter at all, but in your case the marks being relatively high might be a bit impressive. It may be better just to say something along the lines of "8 distinctions; Top student overall".

    I also don't think it's necessary to list every subject you've ever taken: most of them mean very little to anyone who hasn't taken that exact course anyway. I think it's more useful to list your majors, and any subjects you want to draw attention to that you think would make you do better than other applicants.

    I don't think your portfolio should advertise you as a "junior" game developer. If you're a junior, I can tell from your work or the lack of experience in your CV that you're a junior. From a personal branding point of view, I don't think you should be the one telling the world that you're a junior; the only time I think this is appropriate is if you're telling people what your actual job title is (and even then, most people just say they're "an artist", not "a senior/junior artist").

    Similarly, I wouldn't advertise that you're a student. (Whether you're a student, imo, won't get you hired. Your work needs to be good, full stop -- not good "for a student". In which case whether you're a student is irrelevant and, if anything, probably counts against you.)

    I think the industry usually calls the position a "game developer", and not a "games developer". I've heard it called the latter before, but always by people I understood not to work in the game industry. I don't know if it's just me.

    I don't think a contact form is as strong as having a Twitter profile or an email address, personally.

    I love that there was a gif in the Terradig page. I think these should be the first thing you see. I don't think anybody cares about seeing your Start Game screen, unless you designed a super bad-ass screen. I feel that ideally every piece of media you show of your game is something that either excites players or demonstrates your skill in a positive light. I'd suggest a gif for every thing that you have in your games that you've seen make people go "WHOA O_O" when you've shown it to them, and at least one (even just 2 seconds, if 2 seconds is enough to know what's going on) that shows what the gameplay is actually about. I think this is pretty important as a designer/programmer especially; screenshots can sell art, but it's your gifs that sell your mechanics, feel and game design. (Your having the links to have people download obviously sells it all together, but I think you ideally want to have people excited about your skill enough to even want to download a prototype).

    Those are just thoughts I had about how you present yourself. Hope they help. (I have thoughts about your R2D2 model too, but it doesn't like you're aiming for an art position itself.)
  • Wow thanks for the awesome feedback man!

    You made some really great points that I wouldn't have thought about myself, and I will most likely apply most of them.
    I am going away for a week tomorrow so next week I'll have the CV updated with the feedback I got.

    Portfolio wise I am planning to add Gifs/Videos for all the projects I showcase so that it is more eye-catching and shows off some more game-play/design.
    Contact page wise I will add a direct email link and I'll look into setting up a twitter account and linking that as well.

    Again thanks for the time you took looking at my stuff and writing your thoughts down they certainly did help.
  • Hey guys I updated my CV a little and added a whole lot more to my portfolio site. Please check it out and give me your thoughts.
  • I've just looked at the CV and my first thoughts are that I'm not really interested the marks you got - it takes up a large part of the page and instinctively I skipped over it and didn't even read the subject list. What I would have been more interested in is your work experience. You have the space (aim for 2 pages) and so you should list things that you did in the job, relevant to what you're applying to do (eg, making some stuff up below):

    UNIOR LECTURERWW.IT.IQ2015-2016
    During my last year and half of studying, I was a junior lecturer giving class to 1st, 2ndand 3rdyears on C# Programming and Games Programming.
    - Produced course material and presented to classes of 20 or more
    - worked closely with a diverse team
    - helped students produce interesting/challenging games
    - ability to challenge students while still providing technical assistance when they needed it


    Basically, what did working there make you learn/make you better at that makes me want to employ you?

    (And you might have to think laterally. I worked as a dental assistant for a couple of years and that's often on my CV with different listed points, depending on the position. In some cases I talk about dealing with stressed patients - ie: I'm going to handle stressed clients in a business situation just fine. In other cases, I'm mentioning the meticulous cleaning and attention to details with patient notes - important skills in many roles)
  • edited
    Hey

    Thanks for the feedback. I hear what you are saying and I see how it would be more valuable to provide that information rather than subjects and marks. I will change it so that I can elaborate more on what I did and maybe add some non game dev related work experience to the list as I see how certain points there(which I will highlight) is still seen as valuable.

    Thanks a lot!
Sign In or Register to comment.