Advice on getting a job Thread

So for a while now i have been looking to get a job in graphics programming but have had no sucsess so far. I would like to know if there is any advice you could give me on getting a job, and if there is anything i am doing wrong. The reason im looking for a paid job in programming is because im extreamly low on money and aim for a job in games programming. I have made an agreement with parents that if i dont get a programming job by the end of feb then i have to stick to normal jobs like McDonalds but iv decided to go all out to get to where i want to me.

please feedback on any suggestions you have for me

Here is my CV/ Resume: Dragoncastjosh.wordpress.com
and here is my Porfolio: Dragoncastjosh.wordpress.com

If you see this and your looking to hire a programmer i am happy to work in any position, but i do not have the money to move, therfore somewhere around notthingham in the UK would be perfect. Although i might be able to organise moving around the UK if needed.

I think u posted this in the wrong forum. This forum is mainly for recruiting.
Also i think u should show more of your works, have you done any work on a graphics engine?

Edited by: GamerWolfOps

Well,
Best things to tell you are:
1. Network
2. get more experience
3. Find/ make a team
4. Take initiative
Most people start of unpaid projects for most of their time, until you make it in, or am indie.

The Games industry is really close nit, and you can throw a dart in a crowd of 20 people now, and find someone who says they want to go into the games industry.

Determine what kind of platform you want to work/ be good at.
Most people you will find here are indie or moders, most haven't made it in, TBH.

here's another resource:
Gamedev.net

You will likely have to intern at a place 1st, even in the non games normal (anything else) industries, it's rare that someone will look at your CV, and hire you full time, on salary, with benefits.
Just as in everything, you need to work hard, put yourself out there, and actively search.
If you think your so good that you must be paid off the bat, then you better be dam good in your job, as well as have your shit together, which TBH, mentioning you live with your parents, and giving yourself a deadline of end of next month, is not a turn om, to employers of any field.

I promise you, as a programmer, your skulls are highly valued, but there are so many of you guys these days, and you should likely start applying to tech jobs in your area.
Also, looks like you haven't graduated college yet, unless your really outstanding and forward, and think you can do a job an school at the same time, focus on finishing.
Here in the US. an employer won't even give you the time of day if you don't have a bachelors.

What you do do well, is you linked to sample works.

Any position you find using this site, will not pay your bills immediately, or even in the near future (depending on the scope)

We are mainly here do get and facilitate experience, through online methods. (no one here will relocate you) We use skype.

Go post o linked in & monster if your looking for a professional job, but you have to have the proper credentials too.

Something you will learn rather fast about game development of any scale from moding to indie before you get into the actual industry, is you won't get "paid" until the job is done.
You have to be ok with that, if your not, and you want salary off the bad, again, finish college 1st.

Edited by: GeneralJist

Getting a job is all about making an impression. You need to work on your CV, personal pitch and experience so that you can make one more quickly.You need to learn and communicate what your unique skill is. What's your one thing? Are you an expert in one technology? Skilled in all? Are you on the forefront of graphics programming tech, or do you subscribe to a particular school? Are you hard working, or fast to learn, or good at improvising? Try to identify what your strongest asset is and lead with that.

That helps recruiters understand your skills, but it also sums up your personality. Tell me you're a bleeding-edge experimental graphics programmer who's never used a stable build in his life, and I'll feel like I know you. Tell me you're a graphics programmer looking to get into the games industry, and I've learned nothing.

I'd echo a lot of GeneralJist's points. Network: meet people, find groups on meetup.com, get used to talking to strangers and learn how to sell yourself, build a reputation on LinkedIn. Get experience: work somewhere, anywhere, to develop skills and portfolio. Your academic record doesn't stand out - so seek to get any experience in industry.

But the big thing I'd say to you is: don't rush, don't panic. It takes a big chunk of luck and skill to start at a decent job in the industry: don't put all your eggs in that basket. It's not like if your first job isn't a programming Junior for a games company you'll never make it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Two years coding in any company will strengthen your portfolio and prove you have some skills. If you can build a personal games portfolio in that time, even better. And to be fair, a year or working full-time in McDonalds but building games in your spare time is a whole lot more impressive than just a year applying for jobs in the game industry. Work experience is work experience: it proves you can attend on time, hold a job and work with others. Working on passion project part-time is super-difficult: prove you can do that and you'll prove hunger and talent for game making.

When it comes to your CV and portfolio: remember you'll be judged on these. Be clear, be accurate. Spell words correctly. Leave contact details, say where you live and are willing to work. Put important things at the top. Give yourself a little summary at the top of your CV to say who you are (that strongest asset again). A recruiter will take one glance at the page and decide whether its worth his/her time to look further. They won't scroll down, they won't look at page 2. Make an impression right away.

Your CV doesn't say anything about your qualifications. Maths physics and ICT: are they GCSEs? Why are there only three? Looks like your programming experience is more valuable than your qualifications: so list that first. Don't just dump links, give each project a title and say what you did in a sentence. Anyone can check-in a trivial fix to a code project: say what your contribution has been.

Your portfolio should be quite impressive - you've written your own graphics engine, that's great! And yet the page itself underwhelms. Don't just list features: they could have come from libraries, and copy/pasting the words doesn't demonstrate an understanding of them. Explain what you implemented. Start a blog and write about the challenges of each feature. Say which tools you use. Put pictures and animations high up on the page.

Edited by: jjc_uk

GeneralJist wrote: Well,
Best things to tell you are:
1. Network
2. get more experience
3. Find/ make a team
4. Take initiative
Most people start of unpaid projects for most of their time, until you make it in, or am indie.

The Games industry is really close nit, and you can throw a dart in a crowd of 20 people now, and find someone who says they want to go into the games industry.

Determine what kind of platform you want to work/ be good at.
Most people you will find here are indie or moders, most haven't made it in, TBH.

here's another resource:
Gamedev.net

You will likely have to intern at a place 1st, even in the non games normal (anything else) industries, it's rare that someone will look at your CV, and hire you full time, on salary, with benefits.
Just as in everything, you need to work hard, put yourself out there, and actively search.
If you think your so good that you must be paid off the bat, then you better be dam good in your job, as well as have your shit together, which TBH, mentioning you live with your parents, and giving yourself a deadline of end of next month, is not a turn om, to employers of any field.

I promise you, as a programmer, your skulls are highly valued, but there are so many of you guys these days, and you should likely start applying to tech jobs in your area.
Also, looks like you haven't graduated college yet, unless your really outstanding and forward, and think you can do a job an school at the same time, focus on finishing.
Here in the US. an employer won't even give you the time of day if you don't have a bachelors.

What you do do well, is you linked to sample works.

Any position you find using this site, will not pay your bills immediately, or even in the near future (depending on the scope)

We are mainly here do get and facilitate experience, through online methods. (no one here will relocate you) We use skype.

Go post o linked in & monster if your looking for a professional job, but you have to have the proper credentials too.

Something you will learn rather fast about game development of any scale from moding to indie before you get into the actual industry, is you won't get "paid" until the job is done.
You have to be ok with that, if your not, and you want salary off the bad, again, finish college 1st.

Thanks for the help. Also I have worked with teams on indiedb but all of project leaders abandoned the projects before having anything that could be shown.

jjc_uk wrote: Getting a job is all about making an impression. You need to work on your CV, personal pitch and experience so that you can make one more quickly.You need to learn and communicate what your unique skill is. What's your one thing? Are you an expert in one technology? Skilled in all? Are you on the forefront of graphics programming tech, or do you subscribe to a particular school? Are you hard working, or fast to learn, or good at improvising? Try to identify what your strongest asset is and lead with that.

That helps recruiters understand your skills, but it also sums up your personality. Tell me you're a bleeding-edge experimental graphics programmer who's never used a stable build in his life, and I'll feel like I know you. Tell me you're a graphics programmer looking to get into the games industry, and I've learned nothing.

I'd echo a lot of GeneralJist's points. Network: meet people, find groups on meetup.com, get used to talking to strangers and learn how to sell yourself, build a reputation on LinkedIn. Get experience: work somewhere, anywhere, to develop skills and portfolio. Your academic record doesn't stand out - so seek to get any experience in industry.

But the big thing I'd say to you is: don't rush, don't panic. It takes a big chunk of luck and skill to start at a decent job in the industry: don't put all your eggs in that basket. It's not like if your first job isn't a programming Junior for a games company you'll never make it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Two years coding in any company will strengthen your portfolio and prove you have some skills. If you can build a personal games portfolio in that time, even better. And to be fair, a year or working full-time in McDonalds but building games in your spare time is a whole lot more impressive than just a year applying for jobs in the game industry. Work experience is work experience: it proves you can attend on time, hold a job and work with others. Working on passion project part-time is super-difficult: prove you can do that and you'll prove hunger and talent for game making.

When it comes to your CV and portfolio: remember you'll be judged on these. Be clear, be accurate. Spell words correctly. Leave contact details, say where you live and are willing to work. Put important things at the top. Give yourself a little summary at the top of your CV to say who you are (that strongest asset again). A recruiter will take one glance at the page and decide whether its worth his/her time to look further. They won't scroll down, they won't look at page 2. Make an impression right away.

Your CV doesn't say anything about your qualifications. Maths physics and ICT: are they GCSEs? Why are there only three? Looks like your programming experience is more valuable than your qualifications: so list that first. Don't just dump links, give each project a title and say what you did in a sentence. Anyone can check-in a trivial fix to a code project: say what your contribution has been.

Your portfolio should be quite impressive - you've written your own graphics engine, that's great! And yet the page itself underwhelms. Don't just list features: they could have come from libraries, and copy/pasting the words doesn't demonstrate an understanding of them. Explain what you implemented. Start a blog and write about the challenges of each feature. Say which tools you use. Put pictures and animations high up on the page.

Thank you i will get to work on cleaning up my portfolio and CV to make it stand out more. Also the qualifications are not listed due to suggestions on gamedev.net where they said only list relevant qualifications.

dragonCASTjosh wrote: Also the qualifications are not listed due to suggestions on gamedev.net where they said only list relevant qualifications.

"The funny thing about good advice is: everybody's got some" -Guy Clark

I can see why they've suggested that and they might be right. All depends on who's looking I guess. It's certainly good not to flood the page with irrelevant details. But it's REALLY important that if you list a qualification, you actually say what it is. Is that B in Maths a GCSE or an A-Level?

A good compromise would be to say something like "10 GCSEs including a B in Maths...[etc]"

jjc_uk wrote:

dragonCASTjosh wrote: Also the qualifications are not listed due to suggestions on gamedev.net where they said only list relevant qualifications.

"The funny thing about good advice is: everybody's got some" -Guy Clark

I can see why they've suggested that and they might be right. All depends on who's looking I guess. It's certainly good not to flood the page with irrelevant details. But it's REALLY important that if you list a qualification, you actually say what it is. Is that B in Maths a GCSE or an A-Level?

A good compromise would be to say something like "10 GCSEs including a B in Maths...[etc]"

I think the last point is a perfect way of saying it, thanks for the help

Listing a failed project is fine, as long as you did your part, you can't really be blamed for others circumstances. Unless you were in management for any of those.
I could selflessly link you to my own project, and try and recruit you, but that's not what it seems your looking for any of us to do right now, none of us are to the point of being able to show your parents, and convince them you don't need a formal job.

Another thing I'd say is, go find your favorite franchise or game company, and go be really active in their community. Connections are connections, and although shooting the shit with some peeps on the net isn't exactly game design, you get a sense of the end users, and who they are, what they like, etc. knowing these things will help you be able to predict and potentially implement concepts that fit with the specific community.

For example, I was @ a job fair just today @ my university, Blizzard was there, so they were my 1st booth I engaged, I gave them my resume and explained myself, she told me I had a great attitude and good experience, but, it wasn't directly for the Blizzard community. So based on that, she was hesitant. I told her my skills were transferable, and she smiled, and nodded, but I could tell she was considering everyone who had come before me, and everyone who would come after me, and likelihood of finding someone with similar credentials and experience, deep within the Blizzard community was high. (not to say I was run of the mill, which I may or may not be) But my point stands.

yes it sucks, and yes Blizzard has seemingly revived nerdism everywhere, but they did it on the backs of other less successful companies, they just standardized and marketed the mold better than everyone else, they in no way made the mold, but most of the Blizzard hopefuls don;t know that, all they see is game design being cool, profitable and seemingly easy. The good ones make it look easy, that;s what being good is.

And personally, although if they offered me a job, I'd of course take it, it's not likely, simply because they have those who eat sleep and dream about blizzard, and TBH, I'm not one of them.(There's a reason you hear of starcrack and wow withdraw, they've done their job too well, and in my mind, lost some of their ethics)

So find your community and company, and just pray that they work well together, and will be around when your ready, the one I've always been loyal to has been at odds for 7 years now. C&C and EA seem to just be a sad story, forgotten by most, and ship jumped by others.
But I'm doing what I can, and so should you for your preferred game, community & company.

Don't trust your government nor companies, but your preferred communities, they likely don't have bottom line reasons to screw you over.

Edited by: GeneralJist

Moved to the more appropriate forum.

Since you've already got a bunch of long replies, I´ll try and keep mine short.

If I were you I would prioritize presentation and networking.
Presentation - Your portfolio looks more like a blog, and it's very slim - and where are your projects? Buy a domain name, get some web space and setup your own CMS (content-management system). Then talk to an art monkey for design/composition advice.
And most importantly: look at other people´s portfolios. Here's mine: Martin.dahlin.net
EDIT: And here is another portfolio I found recently - really great content layout: Lucasannunziata.com

So get a proper URL/domain, talk to an art monkey about design composition, put your CV in PDF/DOC files and write a resumé +some stuff about yourself and start upping stuff to your site. It does not have to be related to game development at all really. Repeat these words to yourself: "I need to SHOW the world that I KICK ASS"

Network - Get a LinkedIn account and start connecting with old students/colleagues. Find local Game Jam events (and join them, or just visit) and other game dev related events.

I would say that these two points are the most important ones right now. You should also get into some kind of personal project, like learning the art pipeline of some popular 3D package like Autodesk Maya - but I would do that later. Yes you are definetly going to need more stuff to show to the world - but if you can't present those things in a decent way then you are wasting your time. Presentation > Networking > Creating cool stuff

Last but not least, here is a forum where I believe you can get more help:
www.tech-artists.org

You are welcome to join us!

Edited by: Nightshade