What I Learned About Getting A Job In The Art/Game Industry
So! Today I want to talk about how I got my job in the casual/social gaming industry and offer some tips for artists who may be struggling to find work. This is by no means a foolproof formula on getting a job, and this is only MY experience and by no means does it apply to everyone and their individual circumstances, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. But these are just some things that worked for me and maybe they will work for others too! (And yeah there are a billion other posts like this one but I never get tired of reading them!)
THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD VERY BAD YEAR AND A HALF BEFORE I GOT MY JOB
I went to a private art school in the Midwest. I got good grades, I made some cool work and great friends, and I graduated with my bachelorâs and 100% confidence that I would get an industry job within 3 months.
⊠OK, definitely within a yearâŠ
It was 19 months later when I was finally employed with a full-time industry job.
In that time, I was working a part time job for a whopping $10 an hour (which was considered pretty good for my job/my state). The rest of the time I was doing freelance work (mostly for friends and family, which ranged anywhere from realistic portraits to graphic design, I would accept anything if it involved anything vaguely artistic) and doing commissions on deviantART and FurAffinity.
I learned a lot during these 19 months. I learned about communicating with customers, I learned about marketing yourself and target audiences, I learned about ETAs and taking on too much work and working faster and more efficiently to maximize my earnings per hour.
I applied to every job in the area that I thought would vaguely relate to art. Unfortunately the only real corporate art and design opportunities in my city were product design for a major corporation or small (read, TINY, like under 20 people) animation and design houses, both of which I was massively under-qualified for.
I thought I was hot shit in high school, I thought I was hot shit in college, I thought I was hot shit coming out of college, but nothing in my portfolio was appealing for an employer looking for a product designer and there wasnât enough experience to be hired by a tiny design house only looking for the best. All of a sudden I wasnât hot shit anymore. I was just shit.
I grew resentful of my school. Why hadnât they tried harder to get me a job? Why hadnât they taught me how to market myself? Why was the animation department so lackluster? It must have been my schoolâs fault. I went to a terrible school. They were why I was failing.
(To be fair, although I no longer blame my school on my failures, I have a much different view of privatized art schools nowadays. But thatâs a different story.)
I quickly fell into depressive spirals. Everything was hard from then on. I knew what I really wanted. I wanted an animation-related job in California like Iâd dreamed about as a child. I wanted to work at Disney or Pixar, do storyboards or character designs like everyone else. But that was 2,000 miles away in California, a huge and expensive undertaking. There was no way. Guess I was stuck here.
It was only in fall of 2012 when things started looking up. My outlook on life profoundly when I had made some major changes to my personal life which simultaneously raised my self-confidence and permitted me more time to focus and create.
Not a month after making this life change was I approached by an old classmate of mine. I knew heâd been working in California for about a year (he was brave â heâd moved out there with whatever he could fit in his car, he went to the Animation Collaborative and made connections and did everything I was too scared and hopeless to do at the time). He said there was an opening at his company and that I should apply.
Excited, I looked at the qualifications and â oh. Never mind. I donât think Iâm qualified for this job. He insisted I should try, insisted that he would help and send his bosses my information. At this rate, I figured sure, what the hell. I applied, not expected anything but another rejection letter.
And they responded saying they were interested! A Skype interview was scheduled. Following-up happened. A couple weeks later, I had an offer letter in hand. I was going to California!!
2.5 years later Iâm still here. I have new skills, a contact web, new confidence, and new life experiences and that was worth the time I spent waiting for it to happen.
So now Iâm seeing people going through the same mess I went through. I remember how much it sucks. And I want to help. Hopefully I CAN help.
KAYCIEâS TIPS AND THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE SEARCHING FOR WORK:
1. PRODUCE WORK â ALWAYS HAVE PROJECTS TO WORK ON. Personal projects show that you have initiative and self-discipline. While I was waiting for my dream job to call, I both finished and promoted my Periodic Table of Elements project. I did freelance. I worked on some comics. I had a strict once-a-week updating schedule for my blog. I entered pieces for gallery shows. I re-did old drawings to see how much Iâd changed. Sometimes I just did some fan art because why not? Itâs fun!
Always have something to work on! Even if the progress is slow - trust me, Iâve had story ideas stewing around in my head for 10 years without ever putting them on paper. You donât have to work 8+ hours a day on your project (if you have that kind of time though, great!), a little bit at a time is also very effective. Setting self-deadlines can help, but just make sure theyâre reasonable (trust me, you may be dealing with unreasonable deadlines once you do have your Big Job, so take advantage while it lasts!)
BONUS â Try to do projects that you can tangibly hold once youâre done with them, like a book, or a print, or a series of buttons or stickers. Something that can be seen in a context larger than âI drew this to put on the internetâ. A reaction to a physical thing is PROFOUNDLY different to a reaction of an image on a computer screen. We see that stuff every day. If we can hold it in our hands, or own a copy of it⊠itâs much more professional AND much more personal.
2. PRODUCE WORK YOU LOVE â itâs cliche, but focus on what you like to do, even if you donât think thereâs a job for you in that field. An aspiring comic artist might get hired for storyboards. A graphic designer might end up doing UI design. If you produce work you love, it shows. And thatâs really the whole point, right?
If you have the option, try new things but donât drown yourself trying to do something because you think itâs trendy or desirable â best case scenario is that you end up doing that job and eventually resenting it because itâs not what you really wanted to do, but now youâre stuck in that field because thatâs all youâre qualified for (i.e., wanting to be an animator but pursuing a career in graphic design â not because you love it, but because itâs less competitive and pays more). Be true to yourself and what you love!
If you donât know what you want to do yet, thatâs OK! (Iâve been at my job for 2.5 years and I still donât really know what I want to do.) Keep trying new things to find out what you like most!
3. RESEARCH â If you really want a big fancy industry job with health insurance and vacation time, find out whatâs out there and plan your attack accordingly. I had no idea that social games were even a remote possibility before I got my job because they didnât teach us about games in college. Itâs the perfect culmination of what I was looking for in a job - animation, illustration, and character design! Find out where your ideal industry âhotspotsâ are. Figure out where in the country/world those places are and what it would take to get there. Find out if thereâs anyone you know that lives there or anyone THEY know that lives there that you could talk to. Your network will build.
But, that leads me to my next pointâŠ
4. YOU DONâT HAVE TO BE IN THE AREA TO GET THE JOB/BE SUCCESSFUL â thereâs this belief in the job industry that you have to be there to get it. While this can sometimes help, THIS IS NOT ALWAYS TRUE. I got a job in CA while I was still in MN. There are many artists out there like me who relocated for their jobs. Faith Erin Hicks doesnât live in the comics capitol of the world, and yet sheâs an incredibly prominent figure in the comics universe (she even wrote a post about this). Technology has blossomed in the past decade, and many preliminary interviews are conducted over phone or Skype.
Honestly, I could have moved out to California and peddled my portfolio around, and maybe I would have ended up like my classmate and gotten a job. But the main reason I didnât move out to CA because ITâS RIDICULOUS EXPENSIVE. Like, apart from maybe Honolulu and Manhattan, the Bay Area is the most expensive place to live in the entire country. I lived in MN with my mother for over a year for free because I made peanuts, I was paying student loans, and I didnât want to live in a 5x5 room in a strange state with 4 random strangers. I know not everyone is in my situation and not everyone has the luxuries that I had, but Iâm 99% confident that I would have run out of money if I had moved out to the Bay Area without getting my job first. (When in doubt, ask about relocation opportunities! Some companies WILL pay to relocate you!!)
5. USE SOCIAL MEDIA â post your WIPs and finished products! Get a Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Blogger, Facebook⊠if your favorite artists or people youâd want to hire you have an account and are actively using it, get one! Post every day on at least one site. Need topic ideas? Talk about art! Talk about your favorite artists! Feature your friends and have your friends feature you! Talk about things you like that arenât art! And above all, USE HASHTAGS! Yeah theyâre kind of annoying to read and donât go overboard but they DO HELP!
BONUS! Posting images (instead of just text or links) helps! Twitter especially has this annoying thing where if I share something on it from Instagram, it will post a link to the photo but will not embed the actual photo. Upload the photo separately with the link! Nowadays people scroll past things so quickly you really need to catch their eye right away, so images will help you do that!
BONUS! Beware what you say on social media if you expect professionals to see it. On the one hand, itâs social media and you can say whatever you want, but if you encourage potential employers to view your social media sites (i.e., leave a link to your Twitter in your resume or on your website), youâre inviting them to read everything youâve ever posted. If Iâm scoping someone for a job recommendation and all they post about is how lazy they are and how they should be doing art but theyâre too tired, thatâs a red flag for me and Iâm going to be hesitant to recommend that person. (I also tend to shy away from people who have perpetually negative attitudes, but thatâs just me.) Instead, consider getting a âpersonalâ account as well as a âprofessionalâ account.
6. DONâT BE A SUCK-UP â weâve all done it, we all know people who have done it, and some people have been successful doing it. But for the most part, itâs pretty obvious when youâre brown-nosing. Sure, make as many connections and learn and ask as much as you can of peers and elders, but make sure itâs all genuine and not out of desperation. And above all, donât bribe them with gifts or try to do them favors and expect to get a job recommendation because you were nice to them. Earn their respect by being yourself. Itâs OK to show that youâre interested in what they do or where they work and how they got there, but if they say âsorry we donât have openings right nowâ or âsorry, weâre looking for someone a little more experiencedâ, be prepared to tone it down a little or back off for a while.
Remember, a job rec reflects directly on the person doing the recommending. Itâs always a bit of a gamble bringing in someone you donât know or have never worked with before. They want to be sure youâre a good fit, not just in skill set but in personality, or it may reflect badly on them.
7. DEALING WITH REJECTION â Sometimes, you wonât be the right fit. Your work may be good, but sometimes itâs not what an employer is looking for. And thatâs OK! Thank them for their consideration and start applying elsewhere.
Donât be afraid of job postings that require a certain level of experience (except for maybe positions with âseniorâ in front of it). Itâs mainly a tactic used to discourage certain types of applicants. If your work is good, the employer wonât really care if you donât have 2+ years experience. Remember, youâll go through training when you enter any new job, so you donât have to know everything going in!
Though sometimes you may get rejected because you really donât have enough experience. This is also OK. Thank them for their consideration and keep applying elsewhere. Not all jobs require the same level of experience.
BONUS â Dealing with Gallery Show Rejection â this came up with a friend of mine recently. If youâre applying to a gallery show and you get rejected⊠do it anyway!! Proceed with the project as if you had gotten in, follow the specs they give, and post it on your own sites and social media. Maybe promote the other show too. Not only does it show that youâre Awesome and Unstoppable, but maybe the gallery show curators will see it and decide hey, maybe they should invite you into the next showâŠ
SIMILARLY! Rejecting Unpaid Work â were you approached with a cool opportunity that youâd LOVE to do but are bothered by the fact that you will not get paid for it? Do it (or something similar to it) yourself! For example, I saw a call for artists for a project that I would have loved to participate in, but it was both unpaid and had a deadline that I wasnât sure I could achieve. So what did I do? I made my own, separate project. That way I got to set the deadline, I got to sell it, and I didnât feel any pressure or obligation to get it done. I find that I will do things better and faster if I love to do them rather than if I feel obligated to do them.
(Here is a good post about free labor and why it is bad.)
8. DONâT BE TOO HARD ON YOURSELF â being between jobs (especially right before your first big job) can be incredibly stressful, scary, and demoralizing. Some days you will be so full of energy and motivation you feel like you can take on the world, other days you will be practically fetal on your bed crying because you think you suck and youâll never amount to anything. ITâS OK TO FEEL THESE THINGS. It will suck, it will be hard and painful but IT WILL BE OK. Talk to loved ones, build your support nest, and donât forget to take time for yourself because youâre working hard and you deserve it.
I hope that helped and that I didnât just give terrible advice! Haha. If yâall have questions or comments feel free to drop me an ask. :)
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