Resume help

[cody kennebeck]

Hello, I'm sure this is a long shot but I felt I should try to ask anyway. For a bit of context, I am graduating from college this Saturday with my degree in Human factors and minor in UX design. It is a childhood dream to be a part of the video game industry and I have been applying to dozen of places over the last year. I have one problem. I didn't want to chase this dream until the last year severely hampering my chance is getting an internship to get field experience. Despite this I applied for likely over 200 positions and internships across a large variety of companies(I stopped counting after 100 but it has been easily double the time). I felt I must doing something wrong.  I asked for some insight from a hiring manager at a different company and the big thing he told me is that he looks to my work experience. Then he will decide rather to read any more or not. I, like I presume many college graduates, don't have any experience in this type of field if any at all. He then tossed my resume and didn't read further not even bothering to read my portfolio or cover letter. To be fair he explains that he doesn't wanna hire the kid stocking shelves at Walmart to be a UX designer. If that's where it ended I would likely agree with him. I know however that it doesn't, so I'm trying to make moves to combat this mindset I feel it is safe to assume many hiring managers have. Here they are.

 

1) Add a "Relevant experience" section to the start of my resume. Effectively being a highlight real for my portfolio using things I have done throughout college. Such as the paper that I did in my human factors class that was used by my professor for her graduate level class, My research project on ergonomics and controller design, my work designing modular light systems for the under water robotics team, and my 3rd prize winning creative writing. Hopefully this will persuade people to read more and show that despite me hunting for my first real position, I am still up for the task.  

 

2) Turn my portfolio into a website. Allowing me to make it look far more presentable than the google doc I am currently using. The home page being a short bio about me and my skills, and then the navigation being usable to view a variety of projects I've done in my life time, primarily highlighting design and creative works. 

 

Id love to hear any feedback you have. Thank you for reading.