Hey guys. This is one of those questions I kinda know the answer to already, but I would really appreciate some greater wisdom. There's a cool company out there that I would love to work for. Their web site says "Now Hiring" and lists a position that I'm qualified for. I emailed them a resume in December and didn't hear anything back. It was kind of surprising, since I felt like I had a really strong app. I fit their requirements and I have professional experience doing the stuff they want. I thought I would at least get a callback! So part of me thinks that the app just got lost in the shuffle somewhere. With that in mind, what's the etiquette of reapplying for a job? Should I: 1) Send them another application and ask if they misplaced my first one. 2) Wait X amount of time, then send a new app. 3) Take a hint. Thanks for the advice!

I'd just send it again and see what happens, don't mention the other application.

In general, game companies will not contact you if you fail the resume screening process; it's really lame not to contact you with a "we're not interested" message but there you go.

-me

Just send it again. There are any number of reasons why they did not get back to you last time, and it's best to simply forget that and move forward.

Of course, if you don't get a callback the next time, then perhaps you should look elsewhere.

Send the aplication again, as you say it might get lost in the post or just laid to one side - a friend of mine went to work at a company I applied to a year ago... as he was in chanrge of recruiting he got a load of CV's to look through, and yup, mine was right there a whole year later.

If you don't hear back from them again, just give them a call to find out why not. Sometimes taking a hint is a good thing, but not if you don't learn why your taking it!

Spree

Call them now and still if there is still a vacancy, explain that you are interested and ask who to address the covering letter to.

Send the CV and covering letter.

Wait a 2-3 days and if you have heard nothing, call them again and see how the progress is with the application.

Take it from there.

(Well, that's what I do :p)

I would definitely send it again. But before you do, look at what you sent last time. Is it your best foot forward? Some things to consider (I've sifted through literally hundreds of resumes in my time as a manager in business app software; believe me, you have to wow 'em quick):

1) Is it clean? I know there's somewhat of a controversy about typos and the such, but if it ain't pretty (professional, to the point, and relevant), it'll get trashed.

2) Is it a match? Do you have the experience to fit their needs? Believe me, you can't put "but I can do it!" in a resume, so you have to have some experience that shows your a fit to rise with the cream.

3) Is it targeted? Find out something about the company, and their products, and show that YOU are a great fit for them. Show you've looked into their history, process, and future, and try to fit that with your experiences and direction.

Follow up is also good; enthusiasm will win points, especially with the current issue in the game dev industry about alleged worker abuse (ie. long hours). If they have two resumes, one of a person with a bit more experience but blase, and the other a little 'rawer' but bright eyed, they may take the enthusiastic one - less time spent motivating.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

You need to understand how HR works in a company, and more so in a hot game company which receives hundreds applications per month.

Step 1 -- First, recruiting is not a selection process but an ELIMINATION process. Piles of resumes are sifted through to retreive 10-20 good ones per position. Then a senior HR rep will sift through this secondary pile and get 3-5 for each position and then send those to the manager who asked for that position be filled. That manager will select 2 - 3 for interview. If you are lucky, you will get a letter that says something along the lines of "your application was received and will be taken into consideration", which is the legal way to ackowledge they have received documents from you.

In the first step, there might be some 10 people sifting through the incoming pile. They will spend - Oh - 20 to 30 seconds to look if there is a fit for the position. This process is strictly mechanical: you have 3 years of experience or you don't; you have a certification in XYZ or you don't; you know C/C++/DirectX/etc or you don't.

Step 2 -- If you get to the HR rep's pile, then you are in luck. That person will take the full 5 minutes it takes to read it through and make a decision. That person is looking for the 'corporate fit', skills you have developped which will be in demand in the future, 'soft skills' like teamwork & dedication, etc.

Step 3 -- If you get to the manager's pile, then you are really in luck. That person is looking for the immediate skills needed to fill a gap. "Can I give this guys full responsibility over XYZ, like tomorrow?" is the kind of question they need answered.

-- So, what does it all mean to YOU? --

Getting through step 1 -- Is there anything that prevents you from sending multiple resumes, spread out in time so you don't end up in that same person's pile? Did they also give a fax number and email address? Use those too. Also, you really make it easy to pick your resume up if your cover letter contains a table which lists on the left the required qualifications, and on the right your matching qualifications; plain and simple, and straight to the point.

Getting through step 2 -- By making a header to your resume listing your career objectives, the skills you have, will help the reader put the remaining of your resume in context. You may be missing a few items in Skill Set 'X', because in that point in your career, you concentrated your efforts in Skills Set 'Y'. Etc. Putting those skills in perspective wrt the company and position at hand helps a lot.

Getting through step 3 -- You need to answer that guy's question. Best way is to give a few examples that illustrates your skills. "While at Company X, designed this or that feature. In a private conversation with customer Y, they indicated they were thrilled with those features", "Designed and implemented an add-on for the XYZ software package, which was distributed freely through Internet. That add-on was downloaded more than 102,000 times and received a 3.8 star (over 4) score from web site XYZ", etc. All in terms of Action / Results. The more quantifiable the results the better. Get enough to tease, but leave the details on HOW you got those results for the interview; this is where the each punch counts !!


Hope this helps.