Firstly, I do apologise for the anonymous nature of my profile. I understand that forum anonymity is often cowardly. But this has been done to protect myself and other bodies due to the subject matter. [/font] [font="Arial"]
This week has been quite a rollarcoaster ride of emotions due to a play out of events relating to a job offer and it's retraction. Here's what happened:[/font] [font="Arial"]
I'm a designer from a country residing outside of the Americas. I have a few months over 4 years experience. Of those 4 years I have a mixture of console development, mobile and social games development. My design experience ranges from level design to gameplay design and documentation. I've worked at a publisher owned studio and as an indie.[/font] [font="Arial"]
Earlier this month I flew into San Francisco and attended GDC expo, one of my stops was the career section. I spent a good full day exploring the booths, shopping my experience out through resumes and playable games I demonstrated on a laptop. I can say with confidence that the quality of these games did impress.[/font] [font="Arial"]
So-much-so that about two weeks ago I got an e-mail from a Canadian studio. They're somewhat big at about 100 people. They requested I send in some design samples for evaluation. So I did.[/font] [font="Arial"]
Those samples lead to an hour-long phone interview. That interview leads to another hour-long interview. Two days later I received an Offer of Employment.[/font] [font="Arial"]
Needless to say I was excited. The opportunity to work in the Americas and insert myself into that geographical area of the industry is something I’ve been interested in for a while. I almost ready to sign![/font] [font="Arial"]
Almost.[/font] [font="Arial"]
Getting offered a position so far away from home raised a few questions I wanted to clear up that the offer of employment didn't cover. I would need a sponsored skilled work visa to qualify to enter the country. The relocation package on offer [3.5k] would only cover half of my costs and there was a stressing that I would leave without support if terminated at the 3-month probation. I didn't want to be in the position of being left alone and in a tight spot in a city I wasn't familiar in if things didn't work out.[/font] [font="Arial"]
I did seek the advice of a friend who has over a decade of experience in Publishing and he told me these are in most cases acceptable questions to ask. Additionally to that, the company expressed multiple times that If I had any questions I need only ask. So I typed out an e-mail for their HR department to look over. This e-mail asked:[/font]
- [font="Arial"]Employee Benefits Program. A request to elaborate what this is in more detail, as they didn't talk much of it.[/font]
- [font="Arial"]Tax rate of the area. [To calculate if I could live comfortably given the wage on offer. I looked online but they're might’ve been other factors.][/font]
- [font="Arial"]Health Insurance. A request to elaborate what it covered.[/font]
- [font="Arial"]Sponsoring a skilled work visa. A request to confirm they would/could do it and what would the requirements be on my end.[/font] [font="Arial"]
In the e-mail was also two requests regarding the financial elements of the offer. This covered:[/font]
- [font="Arial"]A request to increase the budget of the relocation package by an extra 2k. [Making 5.5k] I elaborated in detail the costs involved in moving. The plane ticket alone would run into 3k+ territory.[/font]
- [font="Arial"]A request for a package that in case of redundancy or termination that the option would be available for the company to pay for a plane ticket back home. This was suggested to me as well.[/font] [font="Arial"]
The tone of this e-mail was polite and analytical. Perhaps a little to much so. But I wanted to get to the point as it was to be sent to HR who generally in my experience don't beat around the bush.
So with confidence that even if the requests weren’t feasible that some form of negotiation would occur.
2 days later I got an e-mail from the boss of the studio saying the offer of employment was withdrawn and that the decision was final. When asked as to what lead to this the reply was along the lines of:
"You're skills are not in question. We believe you would be a better fit at another studio."
Like anyone who has gone for a job in the games industry, we've all been knocked back for a job. But this was very crushing as the job was offered and in reach, then retracted on the crusp of signing.
The reason I’m writing this is that I'm looking for opinions and thoughts on where I went wrong in this process. It's obvious that I’ve requested information that has brought up enough concern in the studio to, without any form of further enquiry and negotiation terminate what was 2 weeks of effort from the employer and myself.
Was it perhaps inappropriate to ask these questions at the offer of employment stage? Should I have signed the offer and gotten these concerns resolved at the contract phase?
I considered my two requests of extra relocation money and a return to country of origin package to be fairly understandable requests. Did perhaps these requests make me sound greedy or unsure about the studio and position? Or are we at an economic state that any request is seen as pushing it?
They had spent two hours on the phone talking to me and getting a good of who they where dealing with from both a conversational and knowledge point of view. I had expressed my desire to enter a company for 3 to 5 years to add value to it. Perhaps did they see this as to good to be true and that they where dealing with a liar?
I ask these questions and your opinion because I don't wish to repeat this situation again.
I accept that in this instance I have done something inept. Upon reflection I have my ideas as to what they may be. But I would love to hear the opinions of others.
Thanks,[/font]
,
In your experience. Is a "Emergency Parachute" more of a luxury or a requirement for those entering the company from overseas? Or more just a case by case basis situation?
