A part of my job as tech lead1 is to help my team find the right new people to work with us.
That process always starts with reading and, to put it bluntly, ranking applications.
While doing that, and going through hundreds of applications, I have made some observations which, looking back to my earlier days as a Software Engineer, I think might be helpful for others too in getting through the hardest part of applying for a job: standing out and having your application noticed.
You can’t gain work experience overnight, but many of the things you can do are rather straightforward and available to everyone.2
Here we go.
1. Most job applications are carbon copies of each other
If you want to stand out, this is great news for you.
I’m not exaggerating a lot if I say that 90% of job applications start with the same greetings, and are then followed by the same description of how the candidate is excited to work at our company and how they are passionate about our games.
Don’t get me wrong: I am happy that you to be excited.
But I don’t need you to sell me my workplace. I already like it here.
The applications that catch my attention have a human feel and show something true about you.
So, here’s my first tip: I want to see the real you. If we hire you, that’s the you we’ll be working with, after all.
What does that mean in practice?
- Write like you speak. Avoid fancy words, unless they are part of your everyday vocabulary and that’s how you always communicate.
- Don’t outsource the writing to AI. Using AI tools like Grammarly3 to correct your spelling and to make your text more readable is fine and even recommended. But the text should be still in your voice, just polished.
- Don’t hide behind your words, use them to show us who you are.
Those reading your application are people just like you. And humans love connecting with other humans. So, write like you would to a friend or a colleague. That will keep us reading.
“Hello” is better than “Dear hiring manager.”
“Also” is better than “Additionally.”
“I’d like to join your company” is better than “I am excited to express my interest in joining your dynamic and creative team.”
2. A cover letter is your chance to explain yourself
If your career path has been one straight line from one well-known company (= known by the person reading the application) to the other, working in roles that match the one you are applying for one-to-one, by all means, skip the cover letter and just send in your CV.
We are not picky, and don’t need a cover letter “just because.”
If the CV says it all and what’s there matches with the job, sure, I’ll want to talk to you.
But that’s not the case with most CVs.
Let’s say that all your previous workplaces were in a different industry from ours. We don’t have the time to ask you questions, so at the back of my mind, I will have a nagging feeling that there is more to the story — but I will still discard your application.
It doesn’t have to be like that.
You have a tool for handling this scenario: the cover letter.
Use it (in your voice, following the tips above) to openly share your career path.
Maybe you are a career switcher and have only recently found out that game programming is the best path for the next step in your work life. Tell me how what you’ve learned in your previous work experience will help in this new line of work and what you are doing to make the transition.
Maybe you’ve been perfecting your game programming skills while working other jobs, as there hasn’t been a suitable position available for you in the past. Tell me how you’ve practiced in your free time, and what you’ve learned through it.
I love the idea of someone trying different things (I’ve done some of that myself), but as a professional, I am responsible for hiring someone who can do this job and ace it.
If you are that person, I need you to convince me.
If you don’t, we both lose!
Which brings me to the next point:
3. Be as clear as you can about your selling points and how they match the role
In other words, do your homework.
Every role has its own set of requirements, and it saves everyone’s time (yours, mine, our hiring team’s, and so on) if we can quickly judge whether there’s a match this time or not.
This works both ways: We are looking for a person who will thrive in the role, accomplish great things, and have a good time doing so. And you are looking for a workplace where you can do just that — I hope.
In practice, it all starts with knowing who you are and what sets you apart.4
So, before updating your CV and writing your cover letter, ask yourself:
- What am I good at?
- What proof do I have for that? (= What have I done so far? Go deeper than just listing job titles. Think about what you did in those jobs, what you learned, and so on…)
- What do I want to do next?
- In what areas do I want to grow?
Then, look at the job application again, this time more carefully, and compare your notes with what the team is asking for.
No, you don’t need to tick all the boxes (hiring teams are greedy, and we tend to list all kinds of nice-to-haves), but everything in the list is there for a reason. It tells you about us. From our job ads, you can see what we value and what it might be like to work with us.
If you don’t like what you see, don’t apply. You’d be miserable.
If you like what you see but are still very far from the description, don’t apply. Wait for a different role to open up, or send an open application explaining where you are currently and what kind of work you are looking for.
If you like what you see and tick the boxes at the top of the job ad’s requirements (we put the most important stuff first), it’s time to go through your CV, polish it, write a cover letter (points 1 and 2), and finally send them over.
So, in your CV and cover letter, what do I look for?
Like I said above, my goal is to find someone who can not only do the job but also be happy in it.
And to save time and stay happy myself, I look for shortcuts that tell me you might have the skills and attitude.
When hiring for a mid-level role (e.g., “3+ years of Unity experience”), the number one shortcut is your work experience. Tell me the companies you’ve worked for, what you (not your team, but you as a part of the team) have done in those roles, and what you learned from those positions.
Also, remember that I’m looking for skills relevant to the job, so you don’t need to list everything. Just the relevant positions. If there’s anything unclear, remember what I said about the cover letter — it’s a great place for explaining unclear things, such as:
- holes in your career progress,
- why you have been working two roles at the same time (…maybe you have your own side business, in which case I will be curious to hear if you’ll be able to fully commit to us or not),
- why you are applying for a role that, based on your CV, looks like a step back (e.g., going from CTO to programmer)
For a more entry-level programmer position, the principle is the same: I’m looking for a quick way to assess your skills and attitude. However, as you can’t have the work experience, I’ll be looking for other shortcuts.
Projects you’ve worked on yourself are great.
These can be school projects that you are particularly proud of, hobby projects, or open-source contributions, as long as you clearly explain what you did, and what you learned from it.
Education matters, but mostly as just another shortcut. To put it bluntly, if I see that you have a Computer Science diploma, I am more likely to assume you know your design patterns, the principles of object-oriented programming, and so on.
If you don’t have the education, other shortcuts need to be stronger to compensate. It’s not a blocker.
4. Send good great code samples
Job ads might not explicitly ask for code samples. Send them anyway, because we’ll want to see them.
Also, don’t say things like “I can send code samples if you like.” Someone else will send us a link to their code samples right away, and we won’t ask for yours.
Code, for a programmer, is what an art portfolio is for an artist.
If your resume reads as a straight progression of relevant work in big, well-known companies in the same industry as the job you are applying for, you might be able to skip this. But if I don’t know those companies by name, I will need to see your code.
In the games industry (with the game engines we have today, such as Unity), this is especially true.
My 17-year-old son is making amazing-looking games in Unity without any coding background. He mostly copies tips and tricks from YouTube and then tweaks them to do what he needs. He is smart, but I wouldn’t hire him — yet. I’ve seen his code.
That’s why video reels, screenshots of your games, or even links to published ones don’t tell me anything about your programming skills. Show me the code.
But hold it just for a bit…
Everything I’ve said in the previous points also applies to your code samples.
The people checking your code are busy. We are humans. We look for shortcuts.
That’s your chance to stand out.
Make your code not just good but great. And make it easy to access.
Let’s get practical:
First, if possible, use GitHub. We all know how to navigate the service, so it’s easiest for the potential recruiters to find your code there.5
How to make your GitHub account stand out?
Go back to your GitHub profile and look at it, asking yourself this question:
If someone has 5-10 minutes to look at this page, how likely is it that they will look at the code I want them to see? And if they do, will it look the way I think it does?
Most GitHub accounts just show the repos the owner has been active in recently. Those may not be the best ones for showcasing your skills!
Don’t expect me to go through all of your code.
Send me straight to your best work.
In GitHub, a nice way to do this is through a profile README file where you introduce yourself and point the visitor to the relevant code. And by relevant, I mean code that shows something interesting about you.
Then, do the same in each project, describing what they are about, why you wrote them, and how to navigate through the codebases6.
If you can’t do that straight in GitHub, use the cover letter.
“Here’s a direct link to the code in my GitHub repo I’m most proud of,” followed by some context to explain why you think that code is relevant will make me read your work.
Finally, I’ve noticed that first impressions matter also when it comes to code. Bad formatting, leaving in a lot of commented-out code, and small (?) things like that will get in the way of me noticing the better qualities of your code.
I do my best to look beyond the first impressions. But by making sure the code samples you share are as good as you are capable of making them, you again have a chance to stand out!
- Organize your classes in a logical directory and package / namespace / … structure
- Follow a style guide (for Unity, Microsoft’s C# Coding Conventions are a good starting point)
- Comment what needs to be explained, but not more
- Don’t leave in extra line breaks or commented-out code
- Always use braces on if-then7
With all these superficial things out of the way, what’s left is making sure your code is actually good. And that’s what our profession is about, so I trust you’ll know what to do8.
And a bonus. If you are a Unity developer and your code example contains unit tests, I can guarantee I will look more closely!
Finally
After all the tips, you might feel discouraged and ask yourself: “Does it make sense to apply at all?”
Don’t stop there.
If there’s a job opening that matches your interests and you believe you can excel in it, companies want to hear from you.
I’d love to see you get hired in a role that’s well-suited for you. Maybe at some point, it’s with us, and we get to work together.
Also, remember that there are always more good candidates than we can hire. So, if my team doesn’t pick you, take the lessons learned and try again in your next application — and remember that it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. There’s always next time!
Hopefully, these tips will help you get noticed and improve your chances of getting hired. Every application is a chance to practice, as is every job.
Never stop learning.
Footnotes
- I work at a very nice Finnish game studio called Futureplay, check us out. ↩︎
- One caveat: as I say in the title, these tips will help you get me to notice your application. I can’t claim that they work universally. But with that in mind, take a look and see what makes sense to you. Apply that, and best of luck! ↩︎
- Don’t accept everything Grammarly suggests. I used it with this text, for example, but intentionally decided against some of the improvements as they would have changed my tone too much. ↩︎
- Pro tip: it’s not your passion for games and game development (at least if I trust what job applications say). ↩︎
- If you have nothing good, or new enough, to post on GitHub (for example, it’s common for more senior programmers that all of their recent code was written at work), use some other means of sharing code. Do you have even short samples you can send through Google Drive? Can you make some? ↩︎
- This is a friendly gesture towards every reader of your public code, not just recruiters, actually. ↩︎
- This depends on language (as not every language uses curly braces), and there’s a lot of debate on the question. Personally, in languages like C# or Java, I find this an important practice. ↩︎
- If you don’t, don’t apply yet. Practice and then come back! ↩︎