Dungeon Masters learn a ton of skills that are also useful outside of the game. Employers want to learn about your skills. You might be wondering: Should I put Dungeon Master on my resume?
Yes, putting Dungeon Master on your resume can be very helpful in finding a job. Dungeon Mastering is a useful social and leadership skill that most employers will appreciate. Putting DM on your resume also helps you stand out and makes your resume memorable.
Of course, not everyone knows what a Dungeon Master is and why your skills are useful in the workplace. So you’ll need to clarify what skills you’ve mastered and how they are useful to the job you are applying to.
Your resume is one of the first chances an employer gets to see your personality. You should change and alter your resume to suit the job you’re applying for. If you think the company is looking for a skill in particular, make it stand out. It’s better than having a long list of skills and shows them that you could be the perfect candidate.
To make things a bit easier, I’ve created a list with 10 Dungeon Mastering skills you can put on your resume. You can pick the ones that fit your job requirements best:
1. Social Skills
I don’t know about you, but I’ve made some strong friendships through playing Dungeons & Dragons. Socializing with friends and having fun is what the game is all about. So why not utilize this skill development within your resume?
The ability to talk and interact with the people around you is vital no matter what job you’re applying for. Employers actively seek out staff that can engage with each other and the customers they’re dealing with. By mentioning the highly social aspect of Dungeons & Dragons on your resume and how you can communicate to a variety of people, employers may find your traits more desirable than other applicants – especially if the job is in sales.
2. Leadership Skills
All of your players are talking at once. Three different ideas have been bounced around. The bard’s reciting a story, the warlock has remained silent, and the bandits are idly paused while the party is squabbling in the field. It’s at these moments where most Dungeon Master’s step into the leadership role and help the party organize themselves.
Employers love having natural leaders as management, proving that you can coordinate small ‘teams’ may be very appealing for certain job roles. Including your use of leadership on your resume can also help if you want to climb the career ladder but are applying for a generic job.
3. Team Building Skills
Like leadership skills, being able to build team spirit, is just as effective on a resume as being able to command a team. Most party’s start out as a ragtag bunch of misfits with no reason to act as a team. And it usually falls to the DM to create an experience that builds trust and collaboration.
Being able to adapt and work within a team is vital for most jobs so employers will be looking for anything that will help efficiency. Putting team building skills on your resume will certainly help separate your resume from the others’.
4. Problem Solving Skills
Though not as obvious as your players’ problem-solving skills, playing as a Dungeon Master has refined your problem-solving capabilities. To throw challenging obstacles at your players, be it intricate riddles or tactical boss fights, requires problem-solving from a unique angle. To create problems for your players, you must not only solve them but try to break them too, therefore requiring a great deal of problem-solving.
Being able to solve problems under pressure is a great practical skill many employers desire. Including the use of your problem-solving skills within your resume can only be beneficial for your job application.
5. Improvisation Skills
The gnomish barbarian wants to slide down the gator’s gullet, using its own tooth to tear it open from the inside, what do you do?
Improvisation is about being able to think on your feed. But it is also about thinking outside the box, and coming up with a variety of ideas quickly. If the job your applying for requires you to adapt to new situations, definitely put it on your resume.
6. Storytelling Skills
“Fire and brimstone swept across the barren wastelands, sulfur grappling your lungs, squeezing out your last breathes of air and singeing your burnt skin. You have now entered Roual’s domain of dread.”
Dungeon Masters have a great role; weaving words into stirring stories. This skill only improves with practice. But not many people – outside of DM’s that is – have spent time mastering it.
Being able to use your imagination is an especially craved skill in the creative industries, even extending to marketing and sales. If you can apply your descriptive and mood-setting skills to real-life practice, you could make a great salesperson. After all: Marketing IS storytelling.
If you can enthrall a customer into buying your car with just a few sentences, employers will want to snap you up immediately! A very unique and highly sought after skill for your resume.
7. Mediation Skills
How many times has the party’s rogue wanted to steal the precious item, but the barbarian has already entered rage? Sometimes it can be quite hard to mediate your players when they have conflicting ideas and, with time/experience, many Dungeon Masters can develop good methods of defusing conflicts and resolving player problems.
Mediation skills are vital for all walks of life, especially within management positions or dealing with angry customers. Showing off your ability to deescalate potentially hostile situations is a great way to catch your employers’ attention and can improve your chances of being hired.
8. Math Skills
Roll a D20. Did you get a crit? Oh okay, roll 4d6, double the results, add them together and then add your modifiers. Arguably, the least appealing part of Dungeons & Dragons, maths is an essential skill for killing them pesky skeletons! Some campaigns focus more heavily on maths then others, tracking exact carry weights or how to split three days food rations between six characters and the sidekick NPC.
Many employers actively look for good maths skills from their potential employees, the greater the skill, the better. By putting Dungeon Master on your resume and highlighting the many mathematical benefits of playing the game, employers might be more swayed to choose you over your competitors – especially in the retails industry!
9. Planning And Preparation Skills
A massive part of our job as Dungeon Masters is also a very respectable skill. We spend a lot of our time planning and preparing sessions for our players, having back up plans for if our rogue friends decide to derail the campaign once again.
A super-useful skill if you are applying for management positions or stock management. After all, what supermarket would hire someone who poorly plans and over-orders stock that would be wasted?
10. Visualization And Experimentation Skills
Dungeon Masters use visualization skills to conjure up whole worlds and epic battles. But visualization is also a technique that top athletes use to imagine success and improve performance.
Experimentation is an important phase within research and development, yet we use it all the time by implementing new homebrew abilities and items. It’s almost like Dungeons & Dragons can provide many useful real-world applications!
Obviously, experimentation would be a great asset to any research and development jobs, even extending into being useful within the scientific job market!
Other Reasons To Put Dungeon Master On Your Resume
Show Off Your Personality
Being a geek is much more accepted in today’s culture and geeks are often associated with high intelligence and high focus. Not bad traits to put on your resume, eh? Obviously, you’ll need to phrase it more eloquently on your resume, but discussing your less-than-mainstream interests will not only catch the reader’s attention; it will make your resume more memorable. Standing out from the sea of resumes will sky-rocket your chances of success.
Putting Dungeon Master on your resume also shows your passion for your hobby, which might peak an employer’s attention. Passion can be very appealing. It shows a strong sense of self whilst displaying your character (Excuse the pun).
Creative Fields Will Love You
If you’re applying for an especially creative job field, all the experience you’ve gained as a Dungeon Master will prove your talents. If it wasn’t for mentioning my experiences with Dungeons & Dragons, I wouldn’t be writing this post!
Coming from a Games Design student, it is extremely helpful to mention D&D in your resume. Not only could you find more players and/or games to play in, but employers who know about the game know how creative it can be. So you would have already made a great first impression!
A Resume Is Also For You To Check Out Your Employer
Many people who write a resume are only thinking about meeting the needs of their employer. But that might not always be the best strategy. What if you end up working for someone with no imagination, who believes D&D is evil? Would you really want to work there?
In short, if your would-be employer doesn’t appreciate what you have to offer, it’s better to find out sooner than later. That way you can spend more time finding employers that do appreciate you and your unique talents.
By Daniel Ball
Related Question
What are the best jobs for a Dungeon Master? Dungeon Masters are social, creative, storytelling leaders. They will likely do well in caregiver jobs, sales, marketing, creative jobs, research and development, and sciences. They can both work in teams and take on projects individually.