Archive for category Jobsworth

On Wednesday, I spent nine hours talking to people who wanted to get into the games industry. That’s tougher than it sounds (although I’m not looking for sympathy, honest.. I volunteered).

We were at the Brighton Digital Media Job Fair, a first-time event organised by Wired Sussex, who did a pretty decent job of it. The venue was right around the corner from our offices, so at least we were spared any travel woes, which can leave you exhausted before you even get to set up a stand. Unfortunately, the nine-hour stint balanced that out.

Just like the last career fair I was at, those who expressed an interest in working with us (or just generally, working in games) seemed through endless repetition to break down pretty neatly in my mind. It might seem harsh, but when you meet and greet that many people, in the end you pigeon-hole them before they even shake hands, and you end up giving the same pieces of advice, over and over and over.

I’m going to get into just what those types of folks are in other posts, but I wanted to give people who come to these kinds of events some sort of general heads-up.

First thing… research the companies who are going to be at these events before you arrive. It saves us and you time, and believe it or not, time is quite precious at these things. The less time I spend giving you the general skinny on our company, the more time you get to ask me questions.

Second thing, but related to the above is… have some sort of rehearsed approach in your mind for talking to people. I’m not saying you need to go into hard-sell mode (Speaking personally, that’d just make me feel creeped out) but at the very least, have some sort of intro figured out.

That can be as simple as “Hi, I’m [your name]. I’m interested in working in the games industry. I’m [studying/working] at [school, university/workplace] and I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about [insert subject of interest here].”

With that, we’re off to a flying start. If you don’t tell me this, these are exactly the questions I’ll be asking you as I try to figure out what you need to know.

Third and perhaps most obvious thing… have some questions. And if you want to be really nice, have some interesting questions. If you don’t have questions, I’d rather just give you a pamphlet and get on to the next person. That’s not being cruel, it’s just being practical – we want to talk to as many people as we can during the day. By the way, if you have nothing to ask – that’s fine! Just don’t strike up a conversation. Unless you’re really, really friendly.