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Finding Opportunities - Being Highly Motivated and Slightly Picky

Started by March 15, 2023 12:48 AM
12 comments, last by Tom Sloper 1 year, 3 months ago

Hey everyone. So, lately I've been applying to jobs of all kinds, but I'm mostly interested in production. I say that, because I believe my skill set puts me in a fair stance for such a position, but I need a little advice in that aim. I have been applying to roles in game design, production, and entry level development. I have novice skills in coding and art, but I've been a business owner for 11 years and recently landed a good job as a Project Manager at a graphics installation company near where I live in Maryland. I continue to run my business and work as a project manager. I won't get into finances, but it's safe to say I'm doing more than ok holding down these two roles. The money is not my problem. I long to do game development with a reputable, strong team of devs.

I have certs in Git and Agile both from Atlassian via Coursera and I'm under 4 months from completing my BS in Game Prog & Dev, maintaining a 3.97gpa. I've developed a few games and an app using Unity/C#. I'm growing evermore eager to break into the gaming industry, but can't seem to learn and grow fast enough to make it happen. Having applied to over 100 jobs in 1 year, landing 4 interviews and one full-time role in an unrelated industry, I'm feeling dazed. It's not like I'm discouraged, I just need to figure out where my true place is in this industry.

Will my role as a Project Manager help cut a path to Associate Game Producer? Should I be attempting to intern somewhere? Should I pursue a deeper knowledge of programming via a Masters in Computer Science? Should I capitalize on my entrepreneurship and start my own studio and develop my own games? Could I try to run a for-hire studio? Should I hone my skills in other ways as I have been, such as game jams and online cert programs?

I think it's safe to say everyone's asking questions like these, but I would like to think my situation is a little deeper. Lmk what you think

None

sent you a pm.

Our company homepage:

https://honorgames.co/

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good luck in finding what your looking for.

Our company homepage:

https://honorgames.co/

My New Book!:

https://booklocker.com/books/13011.html

Your post is all over the place.

If you've been a business owner for 11 years, what happened? Failed business? My resume-reading glasses suggest that's a hobby business, not a significant business. I don't know, maybe you had 30+ workers under you or even more, but it doesn't seem like it with the rest of the post. If you really do have a successful business, that's something you'll need to explain in depth to your future studio.

You talk about working as a project manager at one company while also being a business owner, that's an odd mix but okay. It could mean you've got a lot of transferrable skills to production depending details. Those would both be senior or mid-career positions, so they make some sense.

Then you talk about certificates in managing git and Atlassian tools, which might be useful for a junior role on tools or technology. It certainly isn't production, and it's not a senior position. That makes no sense.

A BS in “Game Prog & Dev” which suggests a programming degree but isn't a standard one. Looks like a trade degree from a school that is more suitable for programming as an entry level programmer. A master's degree in computer science is fine if you want to study a specific topic in CS, but once you graduate you're still an entry level programmer, not a producer. I would expect a more transferrable degree program would be business administration showing humanities and soft skills, not programming and technical skills. This doesn't follow either, and makes little sense.

Then you talk about an associate game producer, which would be the correct role to apply for at the entry level but not for someone who has been a serious business owner for 11 years and doing product management at a serious company, nor is it a good match for someone with a programming background. Again, not much sense.

Then you talk about interning, moving to an even lower-skill position and presumably an even worse fit.

Then it is starting your own studio, which is a business development role, and developing your own games which is back to a production role and possibly a design role, then running a for-hire studio which sounds like bizdev again, and then your back to game jams which are amateur.

Going on that description and nothing else, I'd avoid hiring because it almost seems schizophrenic or delusional. It seems you're equating wildly different roles (IT, tools, production, bizdev, and programming) simultaneously wanting a position that in one moment is a raw inexperienced beginner and is also in senior leadership.

Pick ONE THING. If I assume you're merely inexperienced with professional software development, I would do a careful assessment of your professional skills. Let's go with you've been running an asphalt maintenance company. That role is basically bizdev, a founder is mostly developing a business and doing the business side of things rather than the implementation side of things, typically trying to grow the business rather than being out manipulating asphalt. I would then focus on that single specific transition. Your pitch would be something like “I am an experienced business developer in a skilled labor industry wanting to transition into a business development role in a technology company.” Not a programmer. Not a producer. Not tools or IT. I'd go for bizdev.

Again assuming you're successful at running a company in your current industry, your biggest hurdle will likely be unfamiliarity with the industry. Although you will likely have experience with contracts, schedules, business connections, and processes in your old field, the contracts, schedules, business connections, and processes involved in game development will be a big shift from asphalt maintenance.

That bizdev position exists, but it is relatively rare to transition into. It's usually a senior leadership position. A small company with 25-100 workers might have one person in that role, a studio with 100-250 might have two people. They're generally close friends and tightly knit with others in the studio's senior leadership, but as a studio is growing in the 100-250 range they are typically looking to bring more outside experience. Since it is a transition between industries you will represent a risk, so it would need to be at a company willing to take the risk, probably a company trying to balance the risk of either hiring someone who knows the industry but doesn't know bizdev versus hiring someone who knows bizdev but doesn't know the industry, and then chooses to bring in outside knowledge with the hope it adds some diversity to their senior team.

So from that, I'd focus on carefully targeting companies that are growing and have openings in senior leadership, even if those openings don't specifically look like they match. A company growing in those areas can be feeling business pressure and could create the role in response to a good applicant. I'd also realize the role is quite rare, you could spend another year or two looking for a good match.

@frob Thanks for the elaborate recap and odd interpretation of my post lol. It appears that wide assumptions were made based on the initial explanation of my situation. I would have appreciated you asking more about x, y, and z before jumping to assumptions. Are you seriously calling me a schizophrenic based on a generalized post?

I'm going to disregard your advice altogether unless you reveal that you're some renowned video game developer… Then, in that case, I'm going to stop playing your games lmbo ?

For anyone who's actually interested in making friends in this community lol… I'll update you by saying that I'm currently working on my game full-time while my wife helps run the asphalt biz. Mr. "Renowned Dev"… The big-asphalt truth is that the business is small but still affords my 5-acre, wooded oasis in an outstanding community. ? I should have known better than to ask for generalized advice from a random internet stranger. Thanks for trying anyways.

None

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best of luck!

Our company homepage:

https://honorgames.co/

My New Book!:

https://booklocker.com/books/13011.html

@qwertywasd17 To land a job you have to get past HR, HR doesnt know a blip about the role or industry they hire for (no matter the industry) and are there to warm some benches, there is even the case the HR guy has decided to not hire you even before opening your resume, they just need to do X interviews to fill their 8 hour workday.

If you are being filtered out here, its voodoo magic what you must improve, maybe your face is too long or you were not impersonal enough on the personal question, you could go study for HR to learn their mating ritual.

If you pass that and get into a simple technical interview, theoretical or practical, then thats measurable, but its random, so ignore the companies that go for nonsense. On the other hand do not ignore tests that are not nonsense and you fail still, improve that knowledge gap.

If you get past that you may interview with an actual worker, maybe even the manager you would be under, this should be the easiest step if you have the qualifications, your only mistake will be to be superior to the manager in the case the manager is not the owner. You will be filtered out because they want to keep their job and will not hire competition.

Pity subcontractor applicants, they have to do the dance twice in a row to get accepted, once vs the staffing agency, and then vs the actual employer.

@gia257

So far I have managed to get interviews with Big Huge games and ZeniMax online. I got to round two with both, but when you're up against hundreds it's pretty difficult. These days I'm working on a personal project while building my portfolio and meeting people. I've heard networking is The proven method to getting hired.

None

qwertywasd17 said:
I've heard networking is The proven method to getting hired.

Networking is not The stand-alone one-and-only way to get hired. You also need a portfolio that proves skills, and timing, and luck, and (most likely) location location location (paid remote work is rare at the beginner level, now that the pandemic emergency is behind us).

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

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