Fran Court

Better yet, put it right at the top in a prominent place so it's impossible to miss.

If you’re applying from a different industry, a cover letter goes a long way to explain why you’re applying. Where possible tailor it to the company you’re applying to as its quite obvious when you’re just sending the same thing to everyone. They’re a good addition in general.

Applying for games? If you’ve never worked in games its useful to make it clear why you do want to work in games and why its something you’re passionate about in a few lines in your cover letter.

If you’re adding work experience it’s helpful to add your role and responsibilities there for reviewer to see if you have previous applicable experience. Just a company name and job title isn’t as helpful as some studios have different R+Rs for job titles.

Try to make sure your portfolio is a pdf rather than jpg or png because a lot of recruitment software can’t parse that text and makes presentation weird. You want to avoid making reviewers have to type out your portfolio link. Make links clickable too if possible.

Although you might be looking to impress with your art skills I'd recommend keeping a CV clean and presented simply (still can be stylish!) rather than lots of busy patterns/textures/drawings. Be sure the information is clear and easy to parse, it's more important than jazziness!

Avoid using bar charts to show skill level, it really doesn't mean anything! Just list skills/software you have experience in, or beginner/intermediate/expert is ok, although this in itself can be swayed by the applicants opinion of their own skill. Basically, avoid bar charts.

List your most recent experience at the top of the list, not at bottom. Put experience b4 education if you have (not always necessary but a bonus). Essentially make it as streamlined as possible for the person reading to know what you're doing now with the most experience.

With your portfolio, if you have XP in a few areas such as illustration, 3D or UI, if possible separate those out into categories so I know what to look through, if you have a lot of examples in your portfolio it will save your reviewer time of looking through other things.

Where possible, avoid applying for all levels of the same role or 10 different departments at the same time. It seems as though you're just spamming or not commited to the role they're evaluating you against. Make sure your CV/CL/Portfolio is targetting that particular role.

If you're applying for UI/UX design roles it's helpful to include some information about your process in your portfolio with projects, including some descriptions of what you did and some earlier stages like wireframes/sketches etc. Process is helpful to show.