Games Factory Talents’ Oleg Paliy On How To Score The Job Of Your Dreams In 2024

[Music] hello world welcome back to the pg. biz podcast an all new series for 2024 as ever I'm your host Brian Bago along with the incredible Peggy and salts hi Peggy a very happy new year thank you Brian same to you and it's going to be an amazing year because it got off to such a bang we're all busy getting ready for London and hey we will be there too and we will be doing some improv podcasts and uh interviews at the event are you are you pumped Brian oh so pumped it brings together so many incredible people spark so many interesting conversations and being the outgoing sociable kind of podcast hosts that we are I'm sure we're going to find a whole raft of new guests um to invite on to the show and talk to over the course of the whole

2024 you bet and that's why we're starting here because our guest today will also be there so if you're tuned in now and you're like hey I have to talk to this guy go to London and you can right because this is also a really important topic to really move into January you know it's fresh start Brian we're thinking about what are we going to do and what are we going to do in our careers what are the talents and demand where are you going to get your next gig and to talk about it all we welcome ol ply he's CEO games Factory talents ol first of all thanks for being here and thanks for bringing the brand we definitely see where you're from why don't you tell us a little bit uh about the company to start yeah thanks Brian thanks Peggy for for having me yeah we basically um help Studios to find the talents uh help talents to find the next career opportunities where they would fit like the best yeah at the upcoming Pocket Gamer we are going to host the

Career Zone we hosted the Career Zone in Helsinki um it was like a pilot project and it turned out to be very very popular a lot of people came asked for the advice on their LinkedIn or their resume on their next career move so we were super busy so it kind of felt natural that uh we can take it to the next level now at the at the laden uh PGC actually in two weeks so excited to super excited to be here and super excited to be part of the Pocket Gamer connects that's great and we're we're delighted to have you because obviously one of the key themes of the last 12 months over the whole of 2023 was the almost weekly update in terms of the number of people who were being laid off the number of companies who were letting people go um but how's the landscape looking in 2024 what I feel strongly inside has been an entrepreneur myself I

feel that this layoffs is actually going to generate many more new startups so new Studios will will come out we have seen in the couple of last years what I've seen is mainly like consolidation of the industry so the bigger Studios were getting bigger by acquiring like a smaller Studios uh by offering these amazing packages like to attract the top Super top talent kind of away so and and they succeeded in that one now they're releasing some some people quite quite super talented people who been part of the success story so to say building like successful games and now suddenly they are like unemployed or laid off what I've seen for instance in those senior talents who who' been part of of of of successful projects I see that actually they're not that Keen on getting getting like a new job surprise

surprise right when I talk to them and um so I feel that this will actually there will be a spike of new like new companies so it's great to hear that you you're optimistic about the future of the sector that you see um green shoots new startups but for those people out there who are looking to get into the industry or looking for something new within the industry what's the key for them so you're looking for career opportunities right now get your LinkedIn pimped up I did like a very deep uh presentation on on the things what you need to do there are like five six steps super practical so definitely LinkedIn like number one second still LinkedIn is pretty standard so like everyone will look the same there with the skills and everything if especially for those people that are more on the creative side the artist um designers um get your portfolio out like absolutely um and if you're super

creative and you have time you can build your own but I would strongly recommend look at the existing uh portfolio websites like art station level at uh beans so definitely get get it there if you are more on the tech site developers technical artists uh data analysts um get your GitHub pimped up as well so build your portfolio or make your page represented on LinkedIn but then work uh make more things like de if you're on the tech site GitHub absolutely put it there doesn't take that longan but people will be looking into your code if you're an artist designer uh definitely the portfolio it's a must have it's it's so very well your CV can maybe get you a foot in the door but you you need to have that visibility and that presence out there across the internet absolutely absolutely and the recruiters I I keep keep keep saying that the recruiters

they are just people who look at the on the surface but in order for you to get to show your skills to get to like basically our advices and things that I'm saying will help you get that first interview right whether you have the course skills for that particular role might not happen maybe they need like a a little bit different skill set but anyway having like a good uh populated LinkedIn with the skills um ask for like recommendations and things like that plus the GitHub or the portfolio it will open you the door to the company at least having that first initial initial interview some great advice there o and I think a lot of people listen to this are going to put that to very good practice but what are the most common mistakes that you see people making when it comes to getting themselves out there on LinkedIn is it inactivity is it letting things get out of date what what are they doing wrong I mean I think there's many things to do wrong first of of all I think to remember that this is

yeah it's a social network but it's very professional okay not maybe like a mistake mistake but get a professional head shot it's super easy right you don't really need to go to like uh to take a photographer right you can make it one of yourself in front of the wall or like with the wall on the background and your phone but just make it look uh professional that's number one second one that I feel uh what needs to be done and what seen so many times is that I still prefer where people write in in their heading or or in their job title exactly the kind of role they are even if you're not yet don't yet have like a job don't put there that you're unemployed I would suggest that you keep the title because that's the first thing what the recruiters are going to see and the more specific you are on LinkedIn I think um it's the best actually if you look at all the all the pro projects or the roles that you have done like in the

past uh you can you could have been part of like building amazing games or super simple games doesn't really matter as long as you you go to those roles or those jobs that you've done and exactly specify what you have you done you have been programming shaders right or you have done the environment art in that project I think this is what we recruiters are looking for because you know today a recruiter would look at your LinkedIn or your for maybe like 5 seven seconds if you think about it the amount of applications that you receive so if you want the eyeballs of recruiters to stay longer that's the first thing you want to do you want the eyeballs of recruiters to stay on your LinkedIn page for more than 5 Seconds right today it's super simple how you can add the skills exactly what what you've done so C++ Java python R Maya so those things are super easy simple to to do it's very

clear for you because you've been doing this job but recruiters have never been technical artists they have never been programmers so they will be looking at the keywords so adding those keywords is super important so you've been using python you've been using r or you've been using Maya so specify there and Linkedin has it all covered so you don't really need to type it's going to suggest you those those skills so those skills in the job for sure and plus as I said right there exactly what you did what was your part maybe it was amazing AAA project for sure but there's another two or 300 people been working on it so you've done environment specify that you've done environment or you did the um combat enemies AI or something like that so really right there what is it exactly that you've done because the first thing we recruiters we'll see is that the job title the skills if it match and then we're going to read what is it that that you have done and if it corresponds or

correlates to the role I'm looking for talence I'm going to stay there and I'm going to contact you or I'm going to look at your resume if you apply for for a job show what you can do and explain it but what about the talents themselves the skill set how is that changing because we just came out of a year that was the year of AI right and uh I'm hearing so much about the importance of saying how good you are at prompting that you understand it and then there's this this amazing quote that left such an impression on me from one of our shows Brian and he said you know AI will not take your job but someone who can use AI will take your job so how's that playing out in 2024 absolutely I'm totally like a believer in it it's super important you mentioned that what are the skills in demand so I tell you from my experience from last year um or last couple of years I felt that actually the

technical art is be has become more and more like in demand so somebody who can do the art at at some level plus somebody who can understand the code the engines you know who can really like correlate so somebody in between kind of way so like finnally enough last year we had a lot of requests so we hired many like technical artists and the technical artists We There were also some artists and some tech people who turned to be the technical artist so somebody who can understand the code and also relate to the art at least understand the art styles and actually can do something more so I feel that this will be more and more in demand and especially when the AI comes to play so with the prompting that you can build that art plus you can also understand the code to a certain level at least how it functions so that you can build in this art into the code and then you can even test it so that's

I feel will be like super super super in demand so to say the industry is changing and there will be more and more um demand in my opinion for those people who can create this uh prompts and then being able to to evaluate uh like the results of it so definitely in in the way I feel it's just there hasn't yet maybe been like these job descriptions formed like that there's nobody yet looking for like AI artist but if you ask me I would say that it's just a question of time but then there's also you know UA I'm hearing a lot about retention as being the metric so we're going to be looking a lot of CRM people uh who might be needed more than before because now of course UA is different data analysts product what are the other titles the other positions that you feel are going to be in great demand this year is maybe different to other

years or simply because it's a sign of the times definitely I feel that UA will will be there like super high in demand because I think that nothing is going to beat machine you can be like a super cool UA manager but still I feel that the data will kind of win so what you need to do is definitely master and understand those tools that are using the AI of course AI is not going to be able to completely do it for you the whole like job for you but um so yes pgy you're absolutely right I think it's just gonna essentially it's going to come to all the industry like across so it will be like across the industry for sure it will not just affect only like artist I think it's just maybe because art is so much more visual that that's why we see it more so

to say because there's been a lot of pictures and that been like AI generated maybe just in the media it was covered more but um it will essentially come across everything and if you have that skills and if you really understand and you follow the trends and in your own specific field if you master uh those things like exactly like you said the prompting um it will be in demand I guarantee 100% you have to have the skill set but I also hear a lot about the culture fit and I'm wondering is that lip service or do Studios say yes we want talent but we also want talent that that fits our culture I mean they don't want to just continually hire and then you know find it doesn't work out and there has to be hard skills and and soft skills are you seeing that are you seeing more of an emphasis on that and how do you hire for those soft

skills it's a great question pgy what can I say I mean uh for sure like core competences need to be in place right something if you're a programmer artist designer UA manager so you need to to master your core skills um but I think that soft skills are equally important okay I tell you this this interesting story so we we we haven't been able to hire like a super talented environment artist for a long time with like triaa experience it's just super difficult to to hire there are these people that what they are looking for but maybe they didn't want to move or they maybe they didn't like the project so there's so many factors kind of way and then in the end of the day in one of our events I said that look how about we run this competition and let everyone you have this test that you give to these talents how about we just put that test and let everyone who is who wants to to

contribute and contribute they did it and they hired the talent who had zero experience in the games industry okay they didn't hire him for the senior uh like environment artist they hired him for the junior they said you know what but I said that look if I would have ever come back to you and said and showed you any kind of portfolios who has not only triaa experience but zero experience in the games industry what would you tell me you would tell me like o you're wasting my time what are you talking to me so what has happened is that the person was so committed and so really wanted to be part of it so passionate he had the skills but he he had never worked in the in the industry so he was accepting the fact that he joined as a paid intern like or or a junior or something like that so he didn't so he actually did like a step back or like even two step Backs from the other industry just to jump in and in six months he was already like working on that triaa project

environment artist you see so I feel it's a lot to do with um yeah like with exactly those soft skills you see Peggy like the teams that are a little bit more open-minded I think they're going to win more because if you get somebody on board who maybe technically is not perfect fit and there are candidates that have the perfect skills but that just doesn't Bond and you don't have like a good feeling that it's going to work out I think those that hire people that you have a great feel like you have a great feeling you're not sure about the the core competences but then the person if he she is committed and the culture is there and it's a proper fit it's going to work even better you can teach new skills you know but attitude is is something that is is much much harder to shift so just as a quick followup to that then I how would someone who's looking for a

job who wants to engage with with uh a recruitment agency how do you bring that out you know you've talked about the portfolio you've talked about you know your online profile through Linkedin but how do you convey that attitude outside something like a competition a jam if there's a will there's a way right I have seen so many people who were just so committed and they wanted to join that studio to work on that game because they love the game they played it and they eventually made it maybe not in the first attemp so definitely I would say that absolutely again LinkedIn right you can set the job notifications for the for the studio to to see whenever a new role like comes out of the studio you're only LinkedIn you can see who are the recruiters in that studio so connect with them of course if they don't have the roles open it will be a little bit maybe more difficult to break into but

if you stay up to dat and um you keep in touch I think that the networking is super super important you see like you can show your skills you can meet these people in the different conferences okay maybe Pocket Gamer or or there's a bunch of other conferences so see where they're going definitely like network with them because you will stay on top of their like on top of their mind don't just get stuck and fixated that okay I'm just going to be this and nothing else maybe then you stay within your comfort zone and maybe actually that change is going to be good for you maybe you're going to love it maybe you're going to once you start looking into the codes um or doing something else right we have seen many times like this data analyst they turn out to be great developers and some developers actually become like great data analysts because you still need the same skills you still need to have that analytical mind so in a way maybe you're not going to break in how you currently see yourself feed as an artist or as a developer but you can

feed there as a technical artist or maybe like a data analyst which maybe in the end of the day you're going to enjoy even more very very useful advice and it kind of brings me on to a slightly different take on that which is for smaller Studios you know where um you you or smaller teams I should say where you have to bring additional skills you know so you may be a programmer but you might be asked to help out on social media or do a bit of Community Management how important is it that you you know spread yourself across maybe several disciplines is is that valuable for Studios out there yes Brian this is excellent question the bigger the studios are the more specialized they are the more specialized you need to be so if you are going to be like look at these bigger Studios that develop the triaa games you may be just the vehicle or the props or just like a character artist very super narrow Arrow if you enjoyed it so you can go super deep to

being something like super super Specialist or then there's uh smaller students they are looking for more more skills more General because things may change and they're looking for more generalist and I would say it's like um I like to think about this in that way you're either a diver or a surfer you see and there's nothing wrong with either of those right I'm more like a surfer it's diff super difficult for me to just focus on one thing for a very very long time but I see a lot of people who are actually super excellent in in in that so they are like just different like maybe it's also different brains how how they work so I would say that Brian absolutely the smaller the studios the more generalist skills um are needed and I think that it's actually uh great opportunity for somebody who has not yet discovered what is it that you exactly want to do you see maybe you want to be

a technical artist maybe you can do the Community Management maybe you want to be like on the programmer side because in the smaller Studio you get to do multiple things and it's so much more easier than to shift because there's no hierarchy right you can go and directly talk to I don't know CEO or lead game designer and then then you can do that shift so in a way that if you haven't yet discovered what is it exactly that you want to do what is your passion and what what where you want to focus I definitely say like smaller smaller Studios so more generalist type if you already know that you just going to be building vehicles and you just want to focus more and more Super like narrow on on that one then definitely look for this AAA like uh like big studios they will appreciate you being this like specialized what a great description it's I I had a former boss who described it as being t-shaped which is a bang on brand for for game Factory talents but you know so you've got a broad range of

um very shallow experience but you specialize in you know one or more areas um but I I much prefer the diver and the surfer um description so which are you Brian are you a diver or a surfer oh I am I am so h a surfer yeah there there's no question Peggy you know it's uh I I saw one um career coach describe as a multi-passionate generalist which I think is pretty much bang on so I might have to update LinkedIn after this after this call you've been talking about how you need to go after the studio go after your goals you know pursue what you want to do and and ping people and get in front of them now I'd like to turn that around flip it how do I engage with recruiters like yourself how does that work yeah with recruiters like us I think that um we're also people right we are working on multiple assignments

right from different Studios so things can change quite quite a bit so I would say that um keeping in touch definitely there's uh we have a lot of new opportunities coming up like all the time I love the idea with the LinkedIn so you can just stay up to date with all the new job opportunities there are then two times a year always in April and October we host GameShop fairs this event has helped a lot of people find their new like job opportunities we Ked off the Discord we have about 5,000 game developers so we actually um run these um portfolio review sessions there are some super senior art directors and art leads who contribute and do like uh like can give you the feedback on on your portfolio on your resume so it's also called games Factory Talent on Discord I think it's a community and we are planning to keep building it like even

more so that peers can help out you can get some feedback you can get some advice and um of course you can get to like connect with us and I couldn't hope for a better segue because yes we will have how to connect with you in the show notes obviously but we have an opportunity to connect with you in real life at the Career Zone last year I heard from the team and I saw it myself but I heard from them in particular that it was a hit it was crowded it was the place to be what can we expect from the Career Zone this year so this year we have something even more exciting um we've been also building our own like matchmaking tool I would I like to think about it as um how would I say like um like a Tinder so that you have the skills and uh basically you can create their like a simple profile about yourself specify

the skills we listed all the skills there are in the games industry skills your specialities seniorities things you are proud of your personal achievements so take time it's going to take you maybe half an hour to to complete it but after you have done it the companies at the Pocket Gamer that are looking for talents to join to help them build great games um Can publish their roles there or make their roles available and basically it's a recommendation it will recommend you based on your skills and and your profile what are the roles that match you that you should now at Pocket Gamer come and meet these companies either book A book a meeting with them or you can visit their stand um like doesn't matter basically there's a meeting system that that you can meet and the vice versa so if you're a studio you're attending by publishing the role there as a a company it will also recommend you it will show you the

attendees of Pocket Gamer that have the skills that you're looking for for that role so basically you will be able to see who's coming that have the skills to like to connect and basically those people that are on the Career Zone digitally who who build their profiles they are the ones that are open to like new career opportunities so it makes it easy for uh for for companies and talents to just engage and for anybody who's going to be attending Pocket Gamer uh connects in London later this month you need to be registering now yeah you want to get on there you want to get your details in and make sure you're prepared because one of the key things I've always found about events is that you want to show up with a game plan with a goal in mind absolutely yes and it's on the Pocket Gamer website as well so the link is there and the beauty of this one it also has the digital pass so even if you are not able to make it to Pocket Gamer but you're interest interested about career opportunities from the studios attending you can even

build like you can get like a digital pass and get so whoever anywhere in the world you have to be on that list if you're looking for the next big career opportunity perfect so something there for almost every listener I'm sure but anyway before we let you go through there's a couple of questions that we ask all of our guests H the first is what game are you playing right now what's obsessing you at the moment what you playing too much of when you should be going out and helping people find your jobs and and then the second one is favorite game of all time so what are you playing right now yeah I'm playing uh Europa universales from Paradox interactive that's the game nice there's no other game that can beat it I used to play chess when I was at school actually competing uh but so I don't like these games where I need to move fast it's not for me I need a lot of time to think about it so strategy game yeah aaiv fabulous and and and is is that your

favorite game of all time or is there no my favorite game of all time was um Kings Bounty from this new world computing the company doesn't exist anymore but it was also a strategy game from like 1991 or something like that K Bounty yeah that's that's the game of all times fantastic you know what I'm going to have to go and track it down online because I'm not sure I've played it it turned out to be uh then it transformed into um this Heroes of Might and Magic so I think this was the very first version of it it was super simple and it was on the commander like 64 and then years years later of course it turned out to be like um uh yeah I think it was a predecessor to like the very first version of that Heroes of Might and Magic yeah that's great well listen like thank you so much for sharing all of that wisdom all of that insight into you know getting a new job finding a new

role in 2024 we really appreciate it um we're looking forward to seeing you at PTC London yes and hopefully we'll be able to invite you back onto the show at some point in the near future and find out more about what the new year is offering and what's bringing to the table for anyone out there who is looking for a new role in the meantime thank you so much for joining us thank you very much for having me thank you Peggy thank you Brian thank you this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love to hear from you we want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality of the mobile games Market in all its wonderful complexity and strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at podcast pocketgamer.biz you can find us

on Twitter at PG Biz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website if you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts you can find them at pocketgamer.biz for/ podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms so subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said look for us on YouTube if you want to read it hey you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website tune in again for the next edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you in the near future until then I'm Brian Bago I'm pegan Sals and that's a wrap until next [Music] week