Gaming on your CV

[dkmech]

I've recently sent a letter to PCGamer, and it's been published in this issue

Here's the letter:

Dear PCGamer,

Will there ever be a time when “a keen RTS player” will be a welcome addition to ones CV? Don’t laugh. Hear me out.

It is accepted that being a captain of a school football (or any other sports for that matter) team carries certain responsibilities (like organising pub crawls) and will be a welcome addition to a CV. Even being a team member gives one team-working skills. But what about being a leader of a Counter-Strike clan? The endless war arranging, booking of servers for matches, recruitment and training of players, putting together teams for matches and often treasurer duties – all in a days work for a CL. Of course some of these duties may be delegated - a useful skill in its own right. If someone thinks this isn’t a lot of hard work, let me be the first to throw a stone at him.

But what of the games themselves? Even without the educational value of many a historical game we can see many useful skills being sharpened. Resource management (RTS, management sims, even CS), prioritising, working in teams, perseverance, analytical thinking, leadership, teaching (many a MMORPG noob were showed the ropes by a more experienced gamer), etc. Even disregarding 3D awareness, typing and hand to eye coordination we have a large array of skills being honed in gaming.

Reason I wrote this was that I was preparing my CV and in the bit about hobbies and interests i had to think of stuff i like that isn't games related (and there is enough of it, its just that i do like games too). What if instead of hiding the fact that we play pc games we were able to declare the skills we got there. Not an excuse to submerge into a virtual word, but a right to say proudly that you run a clan or a guild or even moderate a forum.

What do you think?

[bertie]

I thought about this a few years ago - it's a nice idea but I realised it ain't really gonna work in the real world :/
Unless your employer is a CS nut

[Kezzer]

Perhaps we should start a new generation and introduce it into CV's

[shiato storm]

anyway its not grammatically correct...

...many a historical game...

should be: many an historical game...
this is because there is a vowel immediately following the 'h' in 'historical', if I am not very much mistaken.

i don't think its a wise move to stick 'I'm a PC gaming nerd' in nice times new roman typeface half-way down the page displaying your worht to your prospective employer. Rather than say what its for [gaming] perhaps just show off by saying you have good IT, leadership and organisational skills and explain - briefly - how you arrange on-line meetings, or 'social events'...?
or through your years of experience working in IT you've gained considerable depth of understanding on...[insert appropriate descriptions here]...

[bsodmike]

The h isn't silent tho?

[Zak33]

still needs an H though.

Its a good idea....if you play team games incude it. I reckon you'd be shocked how many people DO play PC games....just wont admit it

[dkmech]

Hey, for a foreigner i reckon i am doing alright grammar-wise. An ambiguous "an" is the least of my worries

[Paul Adams]

What if instead of hiding the fact that we play pc games we were able to declare the skills we got there. Not an excuse to submerge into a virtual word, but a right to say proudly that you run a clan or a guild or even moderate a forum.

What do you think?

I've done this since my second dispatch of my CV

My first job I got straight from uni back in '96 and before I'd gotten into online gaming - but I started playing Ultima Online a year or so later and saw the huge "hidden community" already in existence which I joined.

When I moved to my second job, under "hobbies and interests" I put down Ultima Online as I have heard some interview styles are to pick up on the specifically non-academic and non-work related things you decide to mention and ask you to explain about them, or in some cases have a common interest with the interviewer.

A friend put down his interest in motorbikes and spent most of a 1-hour interview discussing them with the interviewer who was very passionate about them, for example (he got the job too ).

Now I'm in my 3rd job and my CV has mentions of Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes and World of Warcraft

Not sure it's so much a guaranteed "selling point" so much as experience in the field or qualifications, but useful for interview-fodder and gives the interviewer a chance to flesh out his impression of your character.

It's sometimes the things you don't expect which people pick up on - my first job was first-line tech support and was given to me because I could prove I had knowledge of DOS and batch files, but more importantly (to them) I had a few years experience with customer service in a supermarket so was used to dealing with people.
(Yes, more important then my Computer Science degree - they weren't bothered what I got as a result so long as it was not a "fail".)

[Butuz]

Not sure its a particualrly good idea to list every single game youve ever played in your CV (unless your going for a job as a profesional gamer), but maybe mentioning you play online games cant do any harm as said above, you never know the interviewer might be a massive game fan and hey presto your getting on like a house on fire.

Butuz

[scottyman]

as a tech - it's quite amusing as it increases your "Geek Factor" - I wouldn't list them - merely the sub-types. i.e. RTS, RPG, FPS and Online FPS and MMORPG -
when the interviewer asks - you can explain the acronyms, and blush while they have a good chuckle.
I tend to list them in the middle amongst the sports and the more intellectual pursuits. I don't list many of the silly ones - but keep paintball in there for a laugh. It's not often that they read them -
but certain hobbies and sports stand out - chess and golf as the two main ones.

[Silence]

On the CV i used to apply for my current job i put down that I play computer games, and was asked about this in one of the interviews. I said that computer games were not just entertaining, they can be character building and important for stress relief. Due to the nature of the job i was applying for, the 'relieving stress' bit was picked up on, and i talked quite comfortably for 30 mins with the interviewer about the importance of good stress management

[Steve]

I tend to list them in the middle amongst the sports and the more intellectual pursuits..

In my spare time, my activities include Chess, Cricket, Swimming, fighting terrorists online, and chairing the local young persons discussion group.

(I do none of the above - used to be a good swimmer though.)

[shiato storm]

...yes, I frequently play games where I am a murdering theif and I run around robbing old people, stealing cars and driving over people in the process. all in the name of getting up the ladder in a gangster-ridden town. . . erm...!
or perhaps you envisage yorself on a warm tropical island in the pacific, only to be rudely hurled from your ship and made to blast your way through dozens of nasties - all still on gloriously detailed islands of course...

The h isn't silent tho?

doesn't matter...

[DaBeeeenster]

We've had a nightmare trying to fill a position at my company. The addition of something like this would actually have been a positive, although we are a very small company and I DO play a fair amount of CS:S

Seriously tho, we've had people applying for Java developer roles with a hotmail address on their CV. I mean, we want people who are INTO java/web development, and take an active interest in their field of work. Having a hotmail address says a lot about the candidate, IMHO.

When applying for jobs, employers want to know what sort of person you are. Putting "reading" and "going to the cinema" down on your CV is not particularly useful, and I definitely prioritise people that put something a little more enigmatic and quirky down in the "other" part of their CV. It says a lot about the candidate IMHO.

Having said that, large firms may look in this in an entirely different manner; it's a case of tailoring the CV to the company you are sending it to I would say.

[ajbrun]

What are you saying about the hotmail address? Are you saying it should be a more professional looking address like "myname@myname.com", or are you saying you've seen CV's with "iwanttodie@hotmail.com" as the address?

I've not really written a proper CV yet, but when I do, I'd probably leave the gaming out of it TBH. It'd obviously depend on what the job was. As I have no idea on what to do in the future and am studying a very generalised computing course at uni, I could do a lot of things. If I thought about it, I'm sure I could put "gamer" in a professional way, but there's still time and things will change I'm sure.

[scottyman]

if you're hiring someone calling themselves a developer - there's no excuse to have hotmail.com in any circumstances - i.e. they should be showcasing their work and their skills. i use a dropbox account on my own mailserver as a catchall on jobsites where the e-mail address is cloaked. (i.e. those jobsites where they tend to farm out your address to all and sundry, when you get spammed about 50 times a day for the same jobs all at about 15 grand less than your starting price!)

considering hosting is sod all for a basic package (including horde webmail or similar) and a domain name registration is bugger all also - there's really no reason not to.



btw - it's a bit sad - but here's my interests section from my cv: it's actually before the introduction now
Golf, computer gaming (FPS, Online, and RPG), website development, hiking, reading, underwater hockey and travelling.