How to put DnD on a resume

If you’re wondering how to put DnD on your resume, no need to roll the dice 🎲 🧙.

We’ll cover:

  1. Should you include D&D on your resume at all?
  2. Where should you include your D&D experience?
  3. What language to use when sharing your D&D experience?
  4. How to avoid referring to D&D?

Should you put DnD on your resume

If Dungeons and Dragons is a big part of your life, definitely include it in your resume or CV. It shows who you are, will be a great conversation topic and will win major points with other geeks in hiring process.

But there’s a right and wrong way to do it. Below, I’ll walk you through my perspective as someone who has reviewed thousands of resumes, interviewed hundreds of people and hired dozens (and met my wife at a game night and has read The Wheel of Time thrice).

Example resume line from r/DnD. If you wand to put DnD on our resume, this is NOT the right way to do it.
Example resume line from r/DnD. This is NOT the right way to include D&D in your resume.

Where to put DnD on your resume

Treat your D&D experience the same as any other hobbies:

  • Poker
  • Board games
  • Video games
  • Reading interests
  • Creative writing
  • Improv comedy
  • Music performance

Where you put any hobby on your resume depends on your level of commitment and accomplishment. Your main choices are under the following sections in your resume:

  • Hobbies or interests at the end of your resume
  • Accomplishments if you can describe an impressive quantifiable outcome
  • Professional experience if it was part of your professional responsibility

Three factors should determine where you include D&D (or other hobbies) in your resume:

  1. Your level of experience with DnD
  2. What job you’re applying for, and how DnD relates to the skills required for the job’s success
  3. What section of your resume you include DnD under, which depends on (1) and (2)

In most cases, you’ll want to put DnD in hobbies. If it’s directly related to your job (like at a Fantasy bookstore, a gaming company, or a marketing job related to gaming), you can include it under experience.

How to include DnD on a resume

Here are a few examples of what it looks like to put DnD on your resume, together with analogous non-D&D examples for each case.

Section / Use when…Example / Analogue
Hobbies: DnD is a regular part of your life“Dungeon Master at weekly DnD group”

“Marathon running”
Accomplishments: You’ve accomplished something notable or quantifiable.“Dungeon master for 500+ D&D sessions, and creator of RPG blog with 100K monthly visits”

“Among top 2% of 1.5 million PredictIt users for political betting, with $10K in lifetime profits“
Skills: Your experience in DnD transfers directly to the job you’re applying to.When applying to a leadership training/facilitation role:

“Experience facilitating creative problem solving as Dungeon Master for 200+ D&D role playing sessions”

“10 years of improv comedy, including 1K+ sessions and performances, and facilitating 100+ improve workshops”
Experience: You will use your DnD experience in your target jobWhen applying for writing role at a video game company: “Facilitated 500+ role playing sessions as Dungeon Master, and self-published three LitRPG novels on Amazon with 10K total sales”

When applying to marketing at a video game company: “Created an eSports instagram account with 10K followers”
Samples of how to include DnD experience in different sections of a resume.

When not to include DnD in your resume

It’s almost always appropriate to include DnD as a hobby. If you’re considering including the experience in another section of your resume, just follow this checklist and you’ll be fine:

  • Don’t disguise it. Don’t try to mask that you were playing an RPG. If you have a line that says, “facilitated weekly creative thinking and problem solving session,” someone’s going to ask about it. You’ll lose all credibility – just as like someone listed their poker game as “organized weekly mathematical risk assessment and decision-making training exercise.”
  • Only include as an accomplishment if you can quantify the experience.
  • Only emphasize DnD when it’s related to the job.

Other resume and career resources

If you have other career questions, let me know here and I’ll add them to my list of topics to write about.

Also check out these resources: