Effective talk: Making a portfolio (From an artist's perspective)
Year of Talk: 2021
Things the panel wished they knew when applying to jobs
For starters don't be afraid to change course or apply for a new type of job. Trying to only apply to a small subset of jobs can greatly limit where you might end up getting an offer. Feel free to do some work that's a tangent to your dream job and transition later in your carrer. It can be quite normal to need some extra time to break into the games industry.
Working on what projects or game jams appear in your LinkedIn and other social medias will help increase your reach and let more people know what you work on over the years. The sooner you start doing so will allow you to pull a bigger audience who might be interested in hiring you.
Also quite useful to join communities where you can meet people and possibly even get referred to a position in one of the companies. This is a solution that can help at least get you faster to an interview and at least have an actual human being see your resume instead of a machine.
Challenges with networking
Joining communities in places like Discord allows you to reach a wider group of people. While there you can not only meet and talk with new people but also ask questions and show off your work. Helping you get to know more people as well as show off your work more frequently.
Sometimes it might be hard to find networking events in your location so it might be worth doing research in other close by towns or even starting your own networking events.
Some of the expectations from recent graduates
Depending on the area that you're trying to enter, it's important to find the specific set of skills that are normally expected and work on projects that let you prove that you have said skills. If the projects are also done collaboratively it helps prove that you can work in a team and collaborate with people of different backgrounds.
It's important to understand that even though many of these devs feel like they need to already be good at everything instead be willing to say that they don't understand something and reach out for help.
Many times in AAA companies there will be options for the graduates to find mentors inside the company to help the graduates to improve their skills. To find if this is an option and try to use it as best as possible.
Advice for people trying to join the industry
Moving around to different cities or countries for jobs can be hard as you will need to deal with the immigration authorities, as well as learn new cultural norms that are completely different from what other people might be used to.
Using sights like Instagram and twitter can be great opportunities to show of work especially as artists since a lot of their work is more visual and can be visually interesting to see.
Sometimes taking breaks from searching for new jobs is a good idea. It can get quite tiring and demotivating so every so often making sure you take a few days to weeks to rest and work on or do other things can help refresh your mindset.
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