Tip #1
Have A Specialty
Your portfolio should fit the position for which you are applying. While many game industry job seekers consider themselves generalists, or have a variety of skills first, most game companies need to know that you can fulfil the specific role that they need. Anyone looking at your portfolio should immediately be able to identify what your specialty is, without having to dig or try to interpret.
If you are applying for a 3D environment artist position, then your portfolio should showcase multiple 3D environments; you should not mix your environment art with unrelated work such as UI, character models, design documents, or examples of project management. This shows an unclear and unfocused approach that will likely get your portfolio passed by.
Tip #2
What if you have more than one speciality?
Categorize your portfolio with a separate catagory foreach specality, with links to each category in a navigaitonal bar. When applying for a job, send a direct link to the category that relates to the specific role. This gives the reviewer the choice if they want to review examples of your unrelated work.
For instance, if you have specialty skills in 3D environment art and programming, have a sections of your portfolio dedicated to each, without mixing the two together. If applying for a 3D environmentalist position, send a direct link to your environment work, showing it as your primary skill. Allow functionality if the reviewer wants to look at your other work as well, but don't mix the environmental work and programming together.
Tip #3
Organize by specialty,
not by project
It is important to show that you've worked on and completed shipped games, however this is information you can include in a credits list and your resume. Your portfolio showcase your skills. On a project you may have to ware many hats, but when applying for a job, you need to be able to clearly communicate skills and abilities the job description asks for. If you worked on a project where you held more than one role, then organize your portfolio by category, and split the category into sub-categories based on that specific role on the project.
Tip #4
Think about the User Experience
You don't have to be a UX designer to know how to make your portfolio easy to navigate. You are a professional (or aspirational) professional in the game industry, which means you should know and understand interactivity and intuitiveness. Avoid making your reviewer have to work to find what they need on your portfolio. Having your name, specialty, contact information and resume easy to find and access. Make it easy to find your work, and have a natural flow across all content.
Tip # 5
Show Your Workflow
Just like math class in high school, you need to show your work. Don't just show the finished piece, but also break it down to show how it was put together. In reverse order, from the finished piece to how it originated, show each step taking in the creation of the work.
For instance, when showing a 3D character model, start with the final model, then below it show the high to low res model, then the model textures, then below that show the wireframes, then the concept art from which the model was based.
This will show that not only do you know how to put the work together, but that you know how to create it properly, and with efficiency.
You don't have to be a UX designer to know how to make your portfolio easy to navigate. You are a professional (or aspirational) professional in the game industry, which means you should know and understand interactivity and intuitiveness. Avoid making your reviewer have to work to find what they need on your portfolio. Having your name, specialty, contact information and resume easy to find and access. Make it easy to find your work, and have a natural flow across all content.
Tip #6
Give Credit
When working on team projects, not all of the work shown in a specific portfolio piece is your own. Sometimes you use someone else's concept art as the basis for a 3D model or someone else created the model and rig you are animating. While your portfolio should focus on the work that you did do, it is also important to call out the work that is present in the piece, but you did not do, otherwise you might be seen as misrepresenting yourself, or worse, taking credit for someone else's work.
Have text present that calls out what you did, and credits the work done by others, specifically calling out the work they did, and their full name. If you used content from another website, not only should you cite the source, include the website, author's name, and a link to the direct work or webpage it was pulled from.