Art by Romano Molenaar
Applying
When you've finally found an interesting studio, you will need to apply to it if you want to have any chance on getting a job. Studios rarely contact people themselves, and certainly not if you're unknown. Contacting them is the best thing you can do. Don't sit around passively; act actively.
The How
There are several ways to get in touch with a studio.
• #1 Recruiters.
Recruiters and headhunters are usually independent parties who search the Internet on the look out for talented individuals. Recruiters usually recruit developers for various companies and are nothing more than an intermediary between the candidate and the company.
Once someone is hired, they have nothing left to do with the recruiter anymore.
Recruiters can be quite expensive for the company that uses their services. If they land somebody a job, they claim a bonus from the company the person will be employed at. Because of this, usually only large and well established companies make use of their services.
The only way to get in touch with a recruiter is to find one somewhere on the Internet, or to get in touch through a mutual friend, or via anonymous job websites (see #2).
• #2 Job sites.
The games industry has several specialized job sites with hundreds of game-related jobs. Most of these sites only focus on a specific region in the world.
• Gamasutra.com
• Gamesindustry.biz
• GameJobs.com
• GamesRecruit.co.uk
• HighEndCarreers.com
• Gamedev.net
• Jobs.CGSociety.org
Of course there are more than just these, and plenty of mod and game development communities also have commercial job forums.
boards.Polycount.net and Mapcore.net are examples of this.
There are a few aspects of job sites that you should be aware of.
First of all there are two types: the anonymous job ads and the direct job ads.
• Direct: The site simply lists both the jobs, and the companies the positions are with. The listing is purely informational and applicants can directly contact the company themselves.
Gamasutra uses this method, as do all forums with job listings.
• Anonymous: The site lists the jobs but never the companies behind them. These are posted by job agencies and recruiters who represent the studio. In order to apply you first need to contact the agency or the recruiter, who then may or may not pass your application through to the company behind the job you applied for. The site and agency acts as an intermediary between the applicant and the company and occasionally filters out applications that don't stand a chance so the company doesn't get flooded by unnecessary applications. One positive point is that they help the applicants looking for a job that would suit their needs. This is basically similar to what a recruiter does. Gamesindustry.biz is an example of this practice.
Also important to be aware of is that both these types (with the exception of forums) usually charge the studios a fee for every job ad they send to the site. Because of this, usually only larger companies use these kinds of services since only they have the money to afford it. That means that the jobs listed on these sites are far from all the available jobs in that region, it's just a fraction of what's out there.
The best example of this is Gamasutra. The few dozen jobs they feature are obviously far from all the open positions on the entire Northern American continent. Also, nearly all of the jobs they list are at well established and wealthy companies. Again, this does not represent the actual industry. If you're looking for smaller studios you're best bet is to either focus on forums, or fall back on your network of contacts and studio websites.
• #3 Studio websites.
Contacting a studio directly is one of the best ways to approach a studio. It gives you a chance to bypass all the extra steps like recruiters and job sites, and directly contact the studio. Visit the website of a studio you are interested in and see if you can find a way to contact them. Gamasutra.com and Gamedevmap.com are two sites that list companies per region. They are perfect to get a list of the websites of all companies near you.
Also of note is that if the website does not feature a job section it doesn't necessarily mean you can't email them. There is nothing wrong with sending an open application letter even if they don't have any open position. For three reasons:
• Most companies just don't update their website frequently. It often happens that the open positions stated on their websites are already filled or that there are new ones available they haven't put up yet. The only way to find out is to contact them.
• Even if the company really has no open positions it still isn't a bad idea to get in touch with them. It puts you in the
spotlight; they will notice you and hopefully remember you.
When, in the future, they have a new open position, they might remember you and contact you again.
• If you are interesting enough, the company will always have interest in you. If you are really interesting, the company might be interested in hiring you regardless. Even if they weren't specifically looking for a person like you.
• #4 Conventions.
Conventions are the ideal place to quickly get in touch with a large number of different studios. Also, since you can chat face to face to representatives of the studio, it is often also a more personal
approach than simply sending an email.
Large studios often organize special recruitment events and mass interviews in their convention booth. This is especially true for
Northern American and British conventions while Europe seems to lag behind at this time.
Attending a convention isn't easy, however. Usually they take place far from where you're living and not everyone is given entry.
• #5 Friends and contacts.
Knowing someone inside a studio can help a great deal, provided you have the right friends and contacts. Most jobs are never
announced but given to people who were recommended by friends who are already working at the company. Knowing the right person can help you get in touch directly with the leads so your email doesn't get lost in dozens of other application emails in the human resources manager's mailbox.
Also, a company wants to be absolutely sure they hire the right person for the job. The more guarantees and proof they have, the more likely they are to hire you. It's very hard for a company to determine the true person and personality behind the applicant. No matter how much they interview someone, it's always a bit of a gamble for them. Having a friend put in a good word for you will invariably increase your chances.
In addition, especially at bigger studios, most employees get a healthy one time recruitment bonus every time they land somebody a job at their studio. Because of this, most people you know should be more than happy to get you in touch with their leads or whoever's in charge.
Friends and contacts usually do best in getting you a job. Whatever way you choose, remember that making direct contact is always better than indirect contact. Recruiters and anonymous job sites are indirect ways of contacting a company. All communication will happen through, often biased, intermediaries and that can obstruct the recruitment for several reasons.
• Impersonal. Your resume and application is one out of a dozen potential candidates they forwarded to the studio that contracted them. You do not stand out, Your application will be just yet another email in their inbox.
• Slow. All communication first has to go through a middle party. This extra step can delay all communication by days, or even weeks in some rare cases. Sometimes, by the time the invitation for an interview comes through, you might have already found a job elsewhere.
• Miscommunication. The intermediary may not pass on all
information correctly. Every time information gets passed through an extra channel, information becomes deformed or gets lost. It is not much different with recruiters or job sites.
• Persuasion. Since recruiters and job sites are paid a commission for every person they land a job, their prime motivation is to do so for as many people as they can. In general, there are of course exceptions, but they care more about how many they can land a job rather than
whether or not it is the right job for the applicant. They might
become persuasive towards the applicants and try to talk them into a job that may not be entirely what they looking for.
On the other hand, intermediaries can also offer some benefits.
• Questions and Answers. Intermediaries basically work for you. You are a customer. If you've got questions about anything related to the games industry, no matter how stupid it is, you can ask them. They are professionals who are paid to help you: use that service
whenever it suits you.
• Apply to many studios in one click. Intermediaries send your application to a large number of studios at the same time. This usually allows you to contact far more studios in a very short period of time – especially compared to how long it would take to email each of them individually.
• Organization. Intermediaries organize interviews and other means of contact for you so you can save valuable time that you can better invested in something more valuable.
One thing to remember regarding intermediaries is that you should
preferably either stick to just one intermediary, or communicate it clearly to all intermediaries that they should first ask for your permission before applying to a position. If five recruiters all spread your application around it might seriously increase your chances of getting noticed, but if a studio gets the same application from five different recruiters, they will have to pay a bonus to each recruiter. The studio cannot determine who really was
responsible for landing you the job so all the recruiters must be paid. Paying a bonus five times may be too much for the studio and, as a result, they might decline your application and move on to the next person.
In general, do not phone companies and do not show up in person if you do not have an appointment. While some companies do accept telephone calls, dropping in unannounced is usually extremely unappreciated and you will very likely be sent home. The same goes for telephone calls. They will likely tell you to email them or send them a letter and end the call.
The worst thing you could do is to sneak in. A funny anecdote: At a studio I was once working we had someone who was so desperate to get hired that, one way or another, he regularly sneaked into the office, past all the locked doors, and into the office of the person in charge of recruitment.
Somehow, he always knew how to reach the recruitment office even though it was located quite deep into a busy section. We obviously never hired him.
One thing you should know about the hiring process of game
development companies is that it is slow. Not just slow: really slow. Of course some companies are an exception to this rule but it can take a couple of weeks before a company answers your application, if they even do...
Applications are usually reviewed by a person handling recruitment first.
That person filters out the serious applications and sends them to the corresponding department where the leads review all of them and send their thoughts back to the recruitment manager, who then contacts the remaining applicants. By the time your application has gone through this whole process, weeks may have passed.
The company may also withhold from answering the application until they have received more applications so they have a broader choice. This could take months.
Personally I have never been able to determine if there is a relationship between the time it takes them to reply and whether or not I get invited for an interview. Several times I have applied to positions and only got a reply back four or five months later with an invitation to an interview, or a denial of my application. There is no need to panic if a company doesn't answer your application within a week, or even within a few weeks. It doesn't necessarily mean they are turning down your application.
On the other hand some companies simply never reply, which is quite rude if you ask me. If it takes a long time and you are still very interested in getting a job with that particular company, a simple update request might be a good idea. After all, you never know whether or not your first communication actually arrived, maybe it got lost in the post, or in a spam filter. Do you want to risk a potential job for such a stupid reason?
Spamming a company should never be done but there is nothing wrong with a second and polite email to ask for an update on the status of your application.
The What
Before you apply at a studio do some research. If you don't know the company you're applying at, you also can't know if the job and the studio would suit your personality and ambition. At the very least you should know what games they have made in the past.
The best way to do this is to look up all companies that you might want to work for, compile a list, and sort it depending on how badly you want to work for each company on the list. Then extensively research the top five companies on your list and put some extra effort in your application to them. If the first five don't work out, move on to the next five.
How a studio prefers to be contacted often varies greatly. Some content themselves with just an email and an online portfolio. Others like to have the portfolio on a CD or expect a demo reel. In general an email is usually preferred and by far simpler, but a paper application can get much more attention. An email can easily be overlooked or get stuck in a spam filter;
which is not true of a paper application.
Regardless of the way the studio likes to be contacted, either through email or snail mail, one should always include a cover letter. Since the games industry is quite easygoing, cover letters don't have to be overly official, although this does depend on what type of company one applies to.
In general, the smaller a studio is, the more casual a cover letter can be.
Whatever the style of the letter is, it should always touch on a number of key points.
• #1 Rough sketch of yourself.
Who you are, how old you are, and where you live. Don't go into details; that's what the resume and the interview is for. Stick to the key points of who you are. Describe yourself in less than five
sentences.
One note is that in the US there are laws about discriminately hiring based on age. For American companies, it is customary to never talk about age; and the only time it is revealed is generally on the actual hiring paperwork you fill out after you’ve accepted the position. In fact, in the US, it’s illegal to ask an applicant their age before hiring them.
• #2 What are you looking for.
Applying to a job is pointless if it's unclear which job opening you're responding to. Be very clear about what kind of position you are looking for.
• #3 Rough outline of your skills and experience.
Again, don't go into too much detail because, after all, that's why you have a portfolio and a resume. You need to give the reader a quick walkthrough of what you've already accomplished and what you are good at. Get them interested in what you can do. It's especially important to put extra emphasis on the skills and experience relevant for the specific job opening you’re applying to. For example, if you are both a modeler and a texture artist but you are applying as a texture artist, then only mention your modeling skills as a side note.
Spend most of the time explaining what kind of work you have done as a texture artist and why you are so good at it. Mention anything that can be important for the job, and write down anything else as extra information that isn’t important, but can still make you look good.
• #4 Get the reader interested.
If your skills and experience from point #3 are impressive enough, you'll have little trouble getting the reader interested and you might as well move on to point five right away. If they aren't however, and this is the problem most beginners and intermediates face, you'll have to relay on your marketing skills to sell yourself. Large
companies often receive many applications daily. The person handling them might get bored by all the letters and/or emails. It's your job to wake them up, and keep them reading. Make them want to get in touch with you because you're so incredibly interesting. State good personality characteristics and achievements in a powerful, and to the point way, although obviously without lying!
There are three other tips to keep in mind if you want to keep the reader interested.
• Be concise. Don't write long, drawn-out letters/email. Stick to the points but be sure you don't forget anything important.
People reading long explanations become unfocused; they will skip parts of the information. Short but powerful text is often more efficient than long paragraphs that explain every single thing you've done in your life. If you have a lot to say, it might be a good list the key points of all your achievements in a bulleted list. Key points are easier to summarize, and to read, especially if the reader reads fast and skips over parts. Half a page of text should suffice for most applications.
• Stick to the point. No one cares where your father is working or what kind of utterly boring things you might have done at high school. Stick to what is important to the job you're applying for. Anything else will just clutter the text, keep the focus away from your application, and lengthen the letter way too much.
• Simplicity. Use well-known names and keep it simple. You
• Simplicity. Use well-known names and keep it simple. You