The Impossible Quest: Getting a Job in Games

[Music] hi i have the pleasure to introduce you to a little session today the impossible quest getting a job in games my name is masha and together with this group of industry professionals we will try to break it down for you into some practical tips and tricks from our site we want to show you seven different angles on how to pursue set impossible quests here are a couple of things are good to know so first of all this intro and the sessions are pre-recorded but our speakers will be available in the chat during their talks so make sure to ask a couple of questions and we will try to make sure to answer them as good as we can this is a micro talk session and that means it consists out of seven talks and each talk is going to be seven minutes long and a while after the gdc you will receive an email with a session evaluation sheet and it would be awesome if you could then also evaluate our session and for additional information about the

microtalks and in general please check the schedule online so we have a broad variety of speakers and we are located all around the world and they are going to introduce themselves in just a bit and all of us come from different backgrounds so we can bring our own unique advice to the table and our session targets are only freshmen to the industry but it's also meant as a motivation for people who might be already settled in a different field and would love to pursue their passion for making games or for game developers of all kinds that are right now looking for new opportunities we're going to cover topics and important topics such as moving networking portfolios imposter syndrome knowing your strengths and weaknesses how to be brave and many more and i'd say let's jump right into it and say hi to roni we see us later hello i'm ronnie a dialogue engineer and editor at um london a dialogue production house for video games i've worked on games like desperados 3 biomutant medium and demon souls

i'm here to talk to you about where to start your journey in video games as it's super important to set yourself up for really good opportunities while in school and even prior to going to school the first step on any journey into a career is knowing which field of study you want to go into this as a lot of us might know is easier said than done and that's totally okay it's good that you have just a general idea of where you want to end up so pick something for instance i knew that i wanted to end up in games eventually so i picked 3d animation and art because it really interested me at the time character building because it was just really important to me but then i ended up going into audio further down the line specifically into dialogue production in a way it was pretty much the same thing but just a different field going off of this though it's very possible that you'll find out what you want to do further into your studies so it's okay not to know immediately you might even find out possibly 10 years or 20 years down the line into an already established career

everyone's path is never going to be linear and definitely going to be different but the important thing is that you keep your options open to anything and everything i didn't really think that i was going to end up in audio yet here i am the next step after finding what you want to study is where to study location specifically there are a lot of places around the world for this but i'll mainly be talking about the us schools since it's pretty much the only country that i know uh i'll mainly be talking about those so during my research into finding schools for myself i found out that most of the schools that i could study game design for were on the east and west coast of america and i grew up in a really small town in texas which if you're not familiar with the geography of the states is the exact center of the country so i had to make a choice and take that really big leap of faith and move to the west coast to continue my education and to find work this is something that's very common within the gaming industry so be

prepared to move especially when starting out um you need to consider it anywhere and everywhere as a possible location for yourself and take that leap of faith to get the experience that you need luckily for this day and age the internet exists so it'll make the process a bit easier easier to stay in touch with friends and family i've gone ahead and listed out a few u.s and european schools for you guys european schools provided by my fellow speakers on this talk on top of moving locations for school it's also really important to know how much you're willing to spend for schools weighing how much you want someone to teach you the hard skills you need versus how much you're willing to learn on your own um this is university versus versus vocational available schools like universities can be full-blown with entrance barriers and everything like that which is kind of like calarts or scad to vocational schools like the one i went to in pearmind

the former will give you loads of experience and time to create work to put on your portfolio collaborate with students outside of your own field and possibly even internship programs to help you get a leg up in the field the latter will be a much much cheaper and quick way to learn hard skills but you likely won't get the to collaborate with students outside of your own field or gain luxuries like internship programs and years to flush out a portfolio costs are no laughing matter which is why it's important to consider these options they can be schools can be really really expensive when it comes to university in the states um a lot of the ones i came across were about 26k per year um so definitely look into all the pros and cons for the school that you want to go into there are ways to reduce these costs if you do choose to go to university like living off campus or scholarships even which can be a good way to reduce the costs um there are some really really niche

scholarships out there one of the ones that i've come across in texas was the tall texan scholarships for females which i qualified for because i'm just really tall there is also the option to learn on your own which is a completely viable option and totally okay um definitely something to consider as well the only issue is that you will have to have a lot of dedication and um will to willpower i guess to learn all the necessary things that you need to learn there's also it doesn't give you the networking availability and stuff like that if you have any questions on this particular topic feel free to simply dms in any of our social tags we've provided or asked questions in the chat finally there's what to do while you're at school super important try out everything and anything while at school this is the time to get really really niche it'll help you know exactly what you want to do be that working on indies or aaa's story based games roguelike

games list goes on or even start your own company honestly the world is your oyster at this time and also while it's really important to keep to your studies and make sure you learn everything you need to it's also a great time to be social because this is where your networking begins it's also really important to have friends as well but depending on your school or area that you're the world in the of the world that you're in and what it offers you these things to be social can be as simple as collaborating on projects at school or signing up for game jams one particular really good game jam location or uh information post i guess you could say is itch.io they have a whole calendar listed there for all the online game jams that they have going on another thing is you can go to meetups to know to get to know people outside of your own school and possibly even meet some folks in the industry already as klaus might mention in his talk already

it's also really important to get to know your teachers and staff around your school because even the humble list of people people you would never really expect could help you get later down the line or even vice versa i've have plenty of friends who have gotten work through their former teachers or even vice versa due to just having kept in touch over the years overall though this is the time to really explore who you are as a person and begin something really exciting so don't let those nerves stand in your way and just help out everyone anyone because you never know what might happen but thank you for listening and i hope to see some of your faces at future events hi my name is fascia camino and we already met the intro in my section i would like to talk about networking through volunteering and the graces of imposter syndrome so quickly about me i'm a game designer in the berlin-based indie game studio called machine menge and when we're not dealing with a pandemic i'm also in charge of quite a couple of cool game events such as devolution berlin games week hemisphere womanize talk and play

and a bunch of cool game jams so as i mentioned i'd like to focus on how to build your own small network and presumably through volunteering so as we heard earlier from roni it's not unusual to move to a new town for education or for a new job and i know this can be quite intimidating moving off to a foreign place without knowing anyone but the good thing is that if you move somewhere for games there is a pretty high chance that some sort of game scene already exists and now it's basically just a little bit up to you to find it and to get yourself involved um yeah and like when you suggested you can find cool events at the academic institution of your choice or through the company that you're working for they often already have cool internal offers such as game jams open mics dojos board game evenings and many more things another thing would be game jams i love game jams they are great they are so much fun and they are great way to network they are also

challenging and technical challenging but also good opportunity to get to know others and there are many different game gems with many different topics so it should be possible to find something that's particularly interesting for you and at the end of my presentation i will also have a link to sheet with useful resources for example list of game jams so make sure to check that out yeah so in general if you're looking for game related events you can often find cool events on twitter facebook meetup and discord servers i will also have a list of discord servers in that link and of course these are just a couple of examples another cool way to look for it is basically to type into google game event plus the name of the city that you're living or working in and you'll be surprised about the results and if you don't find something there then maybe in the next larger city located to you and if you then found something that's

interesting to you then also don't hesitate hesitate to actually go there okay you managed to find an event that you're interested in and you actually went there super well done already um but i know the feeling very well of thinking you don't actually belong there you don't contribute anything or you have nothing to say but trust me these events are practically made for you the minority of people have any idea of what they're doing and we all like certain parts of games or game developments and that's already enough to start a conversation it's still easy to feel quite lost on an event but the more specific advice on how to network will be brought to you later on by klaus so stay tuned for this too and i know what easily makes us feel alienated or uncoordinated at such an event as you know not to have like a real goal and therefore one of my favorite approaches to networking is especially if you're a student or if you are a junior is through volunteering

um yeah so find yourself a goal for the evening and one could be volunteering so volunteering is great and if you don't know what it is let me quickly run it down for you basically almost every event has helping hands in the background of the event to ensure that everything runs smoothly and many tasks are taken over by these volunteers at an event for example taking care of the batch booth the seating the stage preparation technical assistance and many more tasks and at these events basically everyone can apply to become a volunteer and you gain a bunch of nice advantages through that so for example a free conference pass you meet the speakers you get to see the speakers on stage you get to see behind the curtains of a game event which is also pretty pretty cool you meet the attendees and most importantly you meet fellow volunteers so yeah um and some of the goals or tasks can be door duty or greeting people handing out

programs guiding people to the right stages handing out badges and many many many more things so while you're actually having fun at this event you're being able to listen to a bunch of talks meeting cool people you're also helping to create a nice atmosphere you know a good atmosphere and making the event run smoothly for everyone and creating a great experience then for everyone too yeah and even if you're not a volunteer goals can help you to network to ease your mind basically for example a goal could be i want to talk to one other person tonight i want to get one other business card tonight or i want to introduce myself to at least one other person and that can help you to move on from there so a big thumbs up from my side volunteering is highly recommended yeah and how to become a volunteer you ask yourself and i think the easiest way to find volunteer opportunities is to basically type into google the game event name of your choice and the word

volunteer for example gtc plus a volunteer and you'll find something and don't let your impossible syndrome stop you i know of course that many insecurities still apply even if you have a goal for that evening or you still think you're not important enough to talk to anyone and i know that i'm repeating myself here a little bit but it's just so important because you definitely belong okay so second you're for sure not the only person feeling like this tonight and you can presumably even find someone looking as overwhelmed as you do and then tackle the tasks together that could be a fellow volunteer for example at least that's what i did a couple of times and it worked out pretty well for me um another thing is that please take one step at a time um you know take your experiences from one event to the next one and improve from there we all start somewhere and also do not be too hard on yourself i know it's easier said than done

and on a general note keep in mind that developers that you will meet might have produced insanely cool games but at the end of the day they are also just humans and trying not to be too starstruck was one of the best advices that i've ever gotten and they presumably like games just as much as you do and if they do not want to talk to you they will let you know um but please do not miss out on a chance to talk to someone that you're truly inspired by because you think you're not good enough or you have nothing of value to contribute to that conversation so i'd say use some well-deserved confidence please not too much and build up your own network and i'm very sure that you can do it so if you then found someone you want to work with then you might need your portfolio and that will be brought to you by raven in the next piece so thank you for listening make sure to ask all the questions and if you still have more questions reach out to me on twitter and thanks again and say hi to him

hello everybody my name is raymond i'm a level designer and i have my own indie studio called roof can't thank you so much for coming to our talk i should just introduce you to getting your own network and uh getting started once you've actually got your network it's going to be really important to be able to show people what exactly you can do and that's where portfolios come in extremely handy so i'm going to give you a number of practical tips on how to get the most out of your portfolio starting off finishing a game is incredibly difficult so if you actually manage to get through the entire game development process maybe even release your game on something like h.i.o or on steam that's fantastic to show on your portfolio it shows that you've actually gone through all of the different phases in game development and got the experience out of that on top of being extremely perseverant for being able to actually complete an entire game that's something that not a lot of people just entering the industry have so that's fantastic to show on your portfolio secondly it's going to be really important to show that you can collaborate in a team and work together with others because very likely that's what you're going to be doing at

whatever company you're applying for so if you've got any school projects that you've done together with other students if you've done any game jams together in a team that's fantastic to show in your portfolio as well now if you don't have any of this experience working in a team as has been mentioned before in this talk game games are a fantastic opportunity to get started one thing that is really important when you are showing off work that you've done in a team is to explain what exactly you did show what your contribution was for example if you're an environment artist and you're showing a screenshot of the project you did and they chose a really beautiful looking building and then some random floating cubes right next to it people might judge you on the entire thing if you don't explain that you made that beautiful looking building and some level designer decided it would be fun to place cubes everywhere because that's what we level designers love to do so basically make it very clear what exactly you did on the project and that becomes even more important when you've worked together with other people of the same discipline if you work together with three other environment artists it's even more relevant to show what is yours and what is the work of somebody now if your work is a lot less visual

for example you're a game designer you're a programmer maybe you're a producer it can be really helpful to illustrate your process to show what kind of things you thought about what kind of decisions you made throughout the process of creating this project this can really give the person who is reviewing your portfolio an idea of whether you have the kind of game development insight or the kind of problem-solving skills that they are looking for that's also really relevant to show work that you've done in your personal time things that you have spent your free personal precious time on can really show what motivates you and especially if that fits with whatever you're applying for that can be really helpful to show that you're passionate about this thing you actually are gonna hopefully be doing for money yay now all right i've just shown you a number of things that would be really good to include in your portfolio but obviously pick your best stuff you shouldn't show a whole list of 20 projects that you did out of which some are really good and some are kind of mediocre because the person looking at your portfolio is not going to have a lot of time and so if they scroll

through your portfolio and click on one that happens to not be your best project then they're going to judge you based on that and that would be a shame i've actually done this quite wrong myself at some point when i had an interview and i was asked to walk through my portfolio kind of show the different types of experiences i've had and i started with a game jam that i did which you know i liked but it wasn't my best work uh because i thought i would build it up to this awesome stuff i i really wanted to talk about and then they started asking me critical questions about this game gem that i did and i i just was like please can we move on to the stuff i'm more proud of um that was a bad idea please do not do that so you want to show your best stuff but you also want to make sure that you really take into account what exactly you're applying for if you're applying for aaa then the people looking at your portfolio are going to expect a much more specialized skill set if you're looking for an indie project if you're joining an indie team then there might actually be quite happy that you can do multiple different things what's also really interesting is to consider whether any of the products you've done fit directly into the kind

of work that the company you're applying for does for example if you're an artist and you've made work in the style that the company you're applying for uses that can be really relevant because that lets them see immediately whether you would be a good fit for their team and their kind of projects with game designers or programmers that would be something like making uh working on systems that these uh these companies that you're applying for have used in the past lastly very important get feedback show others your portfolio show it to your friends to other people that are looking for a job in the industry try and get portfolio reviews because just like a game your portfolio is never finished you can keep improving on it and uh hopefully at some point you won't need to anymore because you'll have a job yay all right that was my list um and now that i have a little bit of time left i can actually go through uh one example of my own portfolio so this is a project i did in university if you go to the front page of my portfolio scroll through it a bit you'll find this and what this already shows you is it shows

a little bit about what the actual game is but it also shows some words recognition why you might care what you might want to click on this and it immediately shows some of that my contribution part that i was talking about earlier because this was a team of 18 people more at some point so i think it's really important to immediately highlight this is the part that i actually worked on now if you click on the project page you're going to see a lot of just kind of standard info you see the trailer you see a description fact sheet but if you then go further you will see my contribution worked out much more i show illustrations that i made to kind of highlight uh how i try to communicate to the rest of the team what i thought this game might look like at some point you see prototypes that i made where i tested out whether the mechanics we were trying to work with whether they would actually work whether they would be fun we actually tried out a bunch of puzzles in that and i explained that in these in these few images uh show some some of the sketches some of the illustrations that i made and showing all of this obviously not everybody going through my portfolio is going to read all of this but seeing all these different methods

that i used hopefully will give them an idea of my process of how i work and whether i would be a good fit in their team so that was my part of this talk thank you so much for listening if you want to stay in touch you can reach me on on twitter at roofguardgames uh and up next diana will give you some insight from her perspective as a recruiter thank you so much for listening see you in the industry hey everyone i'm diana and i welcome you to my talk inside recruiting i've been working in the industry for about 80 years now in varying capacities one of which is as a recruiter and as such i've seen very different kinds of applications now that raymond told you about how to set up a great portfolio i would like to tell you how we might look at your application what else we'd like to know about you and especially how not to apply so the first thing i will usually see is your email address or username please get a proper email address usually the chances for son of a

or mafia militia are not very high to be taken seriously and also if you maybe have multiple email addresses check if you are logged into the proper one before sending out your application you might regret it otherwise the same thing goes for username if you if you contact me on discord or another platform which actually might happen if i'm looking for for a small indie company and then you don't have your your real name as a username please start the actual chat with hi my name is uh a name only consisting of maybe emojis and no follow-up to get to know who you actually are is not what i would like to see on the first match for base for a job interview the next important thing is please talk to me hi is not really an application and please get me this job isn't either

this is really not a good way to address your recruiter and to introduce yourself to them the same goes for almost empty messages or emails we are usually asking for certain documents and i cannot count the times i receive an application with almost nothing in there so please say something about who you are what you've worked on before and please attach the documents and information we are asking for we sure want them but how do you start it all first off read the job posting show me that you actually understood what i am looking for and that this is why you are writing to me also never offer your talent for free especially not if i'm offering a paid role make sure that you specify what you are applying for i might actually have several openings even for different companies if we talk in the freelance so mention which company and which position you are applying for and

introduce yourself with your profession before starting off your showing of your work on the other hand of course you can always send in an unsolicited application maybe you are lucky and we are actually looking for you some companies even offer that option on their website or maybe you find a recruiter on linkedin just ask them now after talking about your first approach um and content of your application i want to stress a very important detail about the general appearance which is please help me understand you i might just drop your application if i cannot read it and with that i mean please don't send in your cv or application uh in your mother tongue if the company is not using that language as a company language anyway keep in mind that your recruiter might not understand this language so also keep in mind image resolutions uh

if you send in your portfolio um end your cv make it a pdf this is always the best thing you can do try checking your grammar very important thing a simple spell check tool can improve your application immensely and these are just the basics of a good application but how do you deal with a possible rejection afterwards first of all always remember rejecting you rarely has anything to do with your talent and of course not your person well except if you send me emojis like the ones you see up there please don't put yourself on a blacklist because what goes around in the industry usually we're looking for something very specific and between lots and lots of applicants it's very hard to make a decision but it has to be made and if you reply

stay friendly maybe ask for feedback put yourself out there apply again so now that you know what not to do here's a short checklist of things to consider before you send out your application first of all what do i apply for which position and company are you applying for make sure to mention it does the position fit me and this is always a two-sided thing not only does it fit you do you fit in please consider both whom am i addressing so either you know who your recruiter or hr person is maybe even check linkedin or just keep it completely neutral you'll be on the safe side what do they want to see and here we are back again at read the job posting usually you can find all required

documents in there a cv portfolio references maybe salary expectation or the earliest starting date and those are just some of the possible required informations that we will ask for make sure to hand those in completely and most of all don't give up uh thank you for listening i hope these tips help you to start your journey into the game industry and if you have questions please throw them in the chat or contact me on discord or linkedin and following up you will hear about adidas unconventional dive into this world happy job hunting and good luck hello everyone my name is adina i'm teacher at the university of applied sciences in phonia and i also own my own youtube channel named acreate where i share different game tutorials and more information about game development in my talk i want to share how important it is

to change your own mindset to achieve your goals i think it's quite interesting to note that some people told me that i thought that i always had a great self-esteem and i don't think that's true i think i just rather did instead of waiting for the right time if you are the person that waits for the right time i'm going to tell you a secret it's never the right time to start something new our subconscious mind is always creating a lot of obstacles to let us believe that we are not good enough yet next to that we have quite a lot of blind spots which means that we are really bad in judging our own strengths and skills i want to inspire with my personal stories all of you to just go friends because i believe that you are responsible for your own success first i want to share how i just started with studying game design how i find the internship on the other side of the world and how i find a job when i was just scrolling on facebook

okay so it's quite interesting because at secondary school i had the first thought of studying in game design my friend brian was already studying it but i just compared myself to him which was quite bad because he already made dnd campaigns and a lot of other games and i thought i wasn't as good as him and my parents weren't that supportive at that time so i didn't start at that time with studying game design instead i studied chinese but in my second year of chinese i just realized i really wanted to study game design so we went to the open day which was in december which was a very bad well it was quite a bad day because well the trains were late and the venue was almost closed but i still went in the building and i just by mere surprise saw brian sitting there he was also very surprised and i told him that i was thinking about studying game design and he told me that he believed that if

i just locked myself up and just made a portfolio i would be able to get him and as he told so he was right i i got in and i may study game design i'm so glad that at that time i saw brian there because most likely i needed a little push to just go for it to have those little extra guts so thanks to brian i studied game design okay so i was studying game design and chinese at the same time so i wanted to combine both studies by doing an internship in taiwan i went to the student coordinator and see well she shake her hats he said no you should go to japan i was quite confused because there are total different countries and um well she told me if i really wanted to go i should just do it by myself so i just applied i mean i basically

write my own emails to companies in taiwan and none of them replied me back so the deadline of the internship was getting close so i just thought maybe i should just call them so i basically called all the companies in taiwan that i could find and i was just like hey hello hi madinda i can speak a bit of chinese can you give me a job i felt quite stupid and basically they thought i was very cute but most likely i wouldn't get a job out of it luckily there was a very nice lady who asked me for my email address but she thought my email address was quite long so she asked my skype instead and there was like the golden ticket because as he gave her this skype i could contact her back and i basically got a job at her company which is great i think in this story it's very interesting to know that the student coordinator want me to do something that all other people already

did but i just knew that i really wanted to go to taiwan and i created the opportunity by myself and i think it is really good to sometimes listen to what you really want because you know best okay so i was just scrolling on facebook and checking some nice pictures of cats and kittens and then suddenly there was a job offer which sounded very vague but it was in hong kong and i really like that but it it just asked for a service learning teacher i had no clue what it was so i was the first thing i did was just searching on google service learning and i just find out that service learning is like a way of teaching that not only benefits the students but also the community well that made me think because like quite a lot of games have the same purpose especially applied games so i looked at all the games that i i worked on during

my studies and i just we made a total other portfolio a different cv and i made a total different portfolio focused on service learning and i succeed in that because most likely they like that i really focus on it and i got the job and i think it was the best job i ever had because i made design my own courses and teach teach them as well so in this story it is interesting to know that i thought that the job offer was really strange but still too good to be true or sometimes it is too good to be true so sometimes you should just be a little bit curious to just go for it well that's my motto and also if you think that you can't find a job or opportunities in your home

country just believe me it is so easy to go to the other side of the world well not now but later on it will be easy again so please don't forget that i hope my personal stories inspired you to just change your own mindset and just go for it next up is jonas who's going to explain how to apply for a job see ya hey everybody my name is jonas pastors and i'm a junior game designer and junior narrative designer at gamingmind studios in my section of the market talk i'm going to go through the application process from the perspective of someone looking for a job and i'm going to give you general tips tricks and insights that i learned by looking for my first full-time position myself now to start off with a quick word about my profile i was looking for a job between june and september 2020 right after i'd gotten my master's degree at the time i had about 10 months of experience within internships and general site hustles and i consider my expertise being within npc design and i

naturally wanted to find a job to reflect that now to find opportunities to apply to i mainly went through my network i'd created it over the course of my studies going to conferences talking to people connecting with them and now i was able to regularly check facebook linked in twitter anywhere where they would share relevant positions another thing i did was to go through lists of companies in the general area i was looking for a job in being western europe and what this allowed me to do was to find plenty of companies i'd never heard of before but who are still looking to fill relevant positions to me fun fact i ended up finding my job via this method a great resource i can recommend is gamedevmap which is a great repository of information about companies uh their locations and generally what they do with which is really great if you're looking for something specific a third way to generate opportunities for me was to get my profile out there if you've been studying for a while and if you've been preparing to go into the industry it's likely that you have one

or two cool projects under your belt what i can recommend is to get them out there put them on sites like h.i.o present them on your portfolio anything to get your profile out there and maybe get discovered by a recruiter and the way i went about this was to write a gamma sutra article based on the research i did for my master's thesis the article ended up getting featured and what happened was that two companies approached me to inquire whether i would be a good fit for them and even though there was only two opportunities of the 30 applications i wrote i still consider them to be the most valuable because they approached me i didn't have to convince them that i knew what i was talking about still i ended up writing about 30 31 applications and what uh you will find after the first couple uh that there's a lot of information to keep track of so what i found it is really important to keep organized and i did that in a way by keeping this handy little table with the company name with the position with a link to the position so i could check

back later and the generous status of the application and what was especially valuable i found was this last contact column on the right because sometimes companies will take a little while to respond to you and it's always good to know when they wrote last so you know whether you can inquire without being too pushy what you might also notice is that i applied to a wide range of different positions word designer qx designer game designer narrative designer and i had to do that because there were very few positions that seemed tailor-made for what i could do so i had to be flexible flexible in what i was looking for flexible in what i wanted to do and i was able to do this because doing my studies and generally when looking at games i didn't i didn't just stick to the field i wanted to work in when i wanted to do my internship i wanted to to do narrative

the company that i ended up working with needed game design so i did game design for them um and now when i was looking for a full-time position i wanted to do game design the company i am with now asked me if i can do narrative and i said yeah sure so while you're studying keep your eyes open uh for for different things adjacent to what you are interested and what you're doing right now be curious you might never know what skills that you acquire at the site will get you a job in the end now if you've written enough applications eventually you will be doing an interview and what i found worked really good for me was to be engaging smile a lot consider it a a nice conversation with a partner not with someone who has your life in their hands you've written enough applications you will get other interviews with other companies so don't stress about is

be pleasant to talk to and this already goes a long way however be prepared for tough questions beforehand consider your own profile try to make out weaknesses and um try to come up with answers for tough questions say if there's a gap in your cv think about what you might answer what's also important is that you have your own questions prepared um ideally have a list you don't need to ask all of them but what that shows is that you have taken to taking the time to prepare for the interview and that you have taken the time to take an interest in the company and this also goes a long way now what usually followed an interview for me was a design test and they were usually between two and ten days in duration what you see on the right is a two day design test where i had to create some logic in unreal engine and what's really important here is that you take the necessary time to complete them because the companies are looking for

whether how you do with limited time at limited instructions and what's totally cool to do is to ask to postpone it if you don't have the time to uh to do that right now the design test on the right i got on a workday it was during a conference i did not have the time to complete it so i asked them hey is it cool if i do it during the weekend they were like sure why not they hadn't given me the information um that i needed to complete it so that was totally cool i did the design test and i ended up getting an offer so definitely take the time and if it's not a good time for you try to postpone it now ideally after design test you will get an offer you may take it you may keep searching but ideally you will have a job at the end i hope these tips are useful to you and um i hope to see you in the q a section hi i'm klaus i've worked a storyboard artist on games like hitman right son of

rome and horizon forbidden west in this presentation i want to talk with you about creating opportunities i have six tips for you that are especially important if you are starting your job hunt but you don't have a network yet and then i have this one anecdote from my own career where i did everything wrong but before before we dive into that a quick word on opportunities in general they are everywhere even beyond all these well-known international conferences we like to attend it could be a career day at your university with a panel discussion on stage it could be a social event that is industry related like a live drawing class or a workshop where industry professionals are present all these can improve your reach secondly remember 100 of all jobs are given to you by humans therefore the more relevant people you know the better now for some people meeting others means a lot of stress and we don't need that this brings me to my first tip

think it's not gonna happen today odds are you will not sign a contract right there at the conference especially not at your very first portfolio review ever therefore relax the worst thing that can happen to you is that you get no job and you don't have a good time so please try to enjoy yourself you will be more approachable this way too for others who also see those new connections really we are all there to network after all so what do i want to aim for my tip go for the silver medal imagine the decision is already made because unless you're a genius newcomer you will not get the first most awesome open position or gig instead aim at the second job the producer or editor needs to fill but klaus how do i get in line for that by building a network of peers so seek business partners not clients your peers and colleagues are the most important part of your network it's not

only about potential clients use any opportunity to connect with your peers for example while waiting in line for that job interview ask them how they got into the industry and look at their portfolios if the vibe is right see if you can get see if you can get a group together for dinner it might even be fun because in the end we're all nerds right they are not your competition and these people can become your friends or allies companies give away jobs nobody can steal them from you if they get the job you wanted they were just a better fit and you all of a sudden have a colleague or friend at your dream company so when the time comes that this company has more jobs to give away who do you think gets the call they call the silver medal guy this is how i got my first gig drawing transformers comics for idw back in the day true story point number four be a force for good at the conference be present interact at a panel sit first row take

notes make eye contact ask a question always good help somebody that is under stress which is a common thing at a conference hold the door if they look lost help them to their meeting room lend somebody a pen or an aspirin be giving just don't be obtrusive and don't expect anything back right there this way the second time you bump into each other maybe a year later at the next conference they will remember you fondly and that's where things get moving so when you made it this far especially with potential clients get their business card again get their business card don't worry about getting your card into their hands assume that you will need to be able to reach them not vice versa bonus tip scribble notes directly on their card after the meeting stuff like location occasion talking points because when you contact them after the conference you want to remind them how they know you anything can be important

if you want to recreate the moment you met them in their minds and that brings me to my most important point today everybody counts i know everybody wants to get a minute with a big ceo or this superstar artist after the panel on stage please look beyond that one opportunity talk with other people in the line they could be your future colleagues who might refer jobs to you talk with the vip's friend or spouse right next to them or their poland the personal assistant or volunteer convention organizer because first it's just totally impolite to ignore them and second they might have more industry insights and connections than you can see at first glance they will appreciate being seen and they will have a very good reason for being there just as you do literally everybody can be important and this last advice brings me to my unfortunate anecdote where i did everything wrong it was in 2001 i was in america for the first time and i attended san diego

comic-con in california i was already published in germany and had what i thought was a high standard for comics i wasn't doing serious action comics realistically drawn with high-end computer coloring so i was walking by a not very exciting looking booth which was meant by someone who looked like your typical tall beardy comic book guy pretty unassuming and he tried to sell me his comic it was called battle pope it was in black and white tongue-in-cheek and definitely not high-end superheroes i wasn't impressed by the book i dismissed the publishing effort and him the guy who wrote the book and i indeed didn't ask for his business card i still bought an issue of his books out of courtesy and found it surprisingly entertaining when i read it on the flight back to germany i never saw the guy again later on it turns out he did another black and white independent comic which was a bit of a success it was called the walking dead you might have heard about it and

then he also did a superhero comic even in color it's called invincible which is now streaming as an animated series on amazon prime yes i completely ignored the legendary writer and creator robert kirkman so please be nice to everybody because everybody can be an important contact in your future career network with a bit of luck i will see you at our next business opportunity thanks for listening [Music] you