Job Hunting Resources and Tips

Job Boards — Social Media — Application Checklist — Typical Application Process — Pay Negotiation — Relocation and International Work — Handling Rejection

This page links to several of my favorite game dev job boards, as well social media you probably want to have a presence on, outlines of what you probably want before you start applying to places, and the typical phases of an application process. All of these link to more in-depth pages or external sites where applicable.

Since this is mainly a resource for juniors, and junior-specific roles are very rare, I'll be touching on that more after the nitty-gritty of job boards, social media, interviews and negotiations.

And finally, as the usual caveat - this is based largely on my experience as an American applying to and working at American studios. Even within studios the details and order of these vary a lot, let alone globally, but hopefully these still provide at least a useful reference.

Job Boards and Listings

There are three game ​job boards that I really like. With many traditional job boards, such as ArtStation, Game Developer, or LinkedIn, there's a fee associated with listing them, which means they'll have relatively few listings and basically no entry-level/junior listings.

GameJobs.co and Grackle HQ automatically scape job listings from studios, job boards, etc., so they not only have a very accurate listing of what's out there, but way more entry- and mid-level listings.

Remote Game Jobs has both a website with paid listings and a Twitter account where they retweet remote position listings.

If there are particular studios you're really excited about, it's still worth keeping an eye on their websites/Twitter/etc. as well just to make sure you don't miss anything, but in my opinion these are some of the best websites to be looking at 

Social Media and Art Communities

Now that I've talked about how hard breaking in is, and before I get into the things you'll need for most application submissions, I wanted to touch on a relatively low-effort way to hedge your bets, and to potentially get approached by companies for work even without x number of portfolio pieces or having submitted an application: being easy to find wherever people might be looking for potential employees.

In many cases, especially outside pure art roles, you may want to have a portfolio website in addition to these (more on those, or on your ArtStation, here). This section is just focusing on places where people are anyways, where you can meet others in your discipline, build up a network or community, and increase the chances of someone noticing you without you having to apply to anything or send your portfolio to anyone.

This section, more than most here, I think is very US-centric. I'm not sure which communities are most popular in other regions; I've tried to list other ones I know about when I can but it may vary based on where you're located. But these are the ones that are typically used by US devs to find and contact people.

Application Materials Checklist

Typical Application Process / Flow

Extremely generally speaking, these tend to be the stages an application and interview process goes through, along with a few broad details of each.

The arrows are where most of the waiting and anxiety happens - I've left them unlabeled just because it was getting cluttered.

Pay and Negotiation Resources

These are a few of the best resources I've found for gathering information on compensation negotiations, everyone's least favorite part of getting a job. When determining what you'll ask for in compensation, remember you need to be able to live comfortably still: it's easy to be tempted to low-ball yourself just for the sake of securing the job; and admittedly it's very hard to negotiate at the entry level because these spots are in such high demand, but you still need to be able to survive and be happy or else it's not really worth it.

• Negotiation Tips by Emily Katske: This is a really wonderful and thorough article on both how to determine your salary and prepare for negotiations beforehand, as well as along various stages of a negotiation process. It's a little more targeted at freelancers and contracts, but a lot of the advice is just really good general stuff for any job search.

• Glassdoor Salaries (or similar salary-reporting websites): You can check to see any job/salary information people have submitted for either your company, or those of similar companies.

• Game Dev Salary Survey by Evva Karr: An annual compilation of the salaries, benefits, positions, locations, and some basic demographic info from anyone who chooses to submit their information. It comes with additional breakdowns as well, such as min and max submitted salaries by position.

• #GameDevPaidMe on Twitter: This one is only so-so useful because it's very patchy information and tends to be shared mainly by people who aren't worried about repercussions, which means it tends to skew senior and those ones will have very outdated junior salary information. Still, it's one more data point, and if you can find peers on here it can be very useful as well.

• Finally, if you have friends or people you're comfortable with who're currently working in similar jobs and experience levels, ask them what they're making! Discussing money can be very comfortable and companies go out of their way to create taboos around it, but by discussing these it's much easier to make sure everyone is being fairly compensated and to get more information on what your own salary range may be.

Relocation and International Work

I wanted to touch on these are least a little bit, because although these are pretty well outside my wheelhouse and also vary significantly by country and position, I get asked a lot. Generally, the game industry is very global and both relocating for work and moving to a new country are relatively common and expected, so especially at larger companies there will often be support available to you. However, as usual, if it isn't clearly stated and you feel you're qualified, then apply and let them decide if they want you or not.

Handling Rejection and The Rarity of Junior Positions

Applications are pretty much always a numbers game unless you're exceptionally skilled/senior, lucky, and in a high-demand role, but as mentioned in the intro, jobs that are explicitly junior/associate/entry-level are also extremely rare and highly contested (even mid-level roles run into this; companies are overwhelming looking for seniors that... may or may not actually exist). Unfortunately you need to be ready for a lot of rejections. Like dozens or hundreds of rejections.

I think it's important to go in knowing this, because there's a difficult mental balance you're going to have to maintain: knowing that much of this is outside your control and not at all a reflection on you, while also being willing to take a very honest look at your portfolio, resume/cv, and interviews and put in the work to constantly be improving and improving your chances. Getting into games is hard, and unless you're extremely lucky (and luck is key here - much of your hard work will just be to put you in a position where you're more likely to get lucky), it's likely to be a part- to full-time job just to get the damn job. It sucks, a lot, especially since you'll usually hear the most about the wunderkind who landed at their dream company right out of school or what-have- you. Statistically, 

So, that's all great and super depressing. What can you do to try and mitigate it?

Apply to Positions That Aren't Explicitly Junior

As you surf those job boards, you'll probably see a lot of job that don't actually state a level - they're simply "VFX Artist," "Game Designer," etc., with no designation as junior/mid/senior, etc.

In a lot of cases, these are simply mid/staff-level positions, but in others, the studios are leaving it intentionally ambiguous in the hopes of casting a wide net, and these jobs are in fact open to all levels of applications, including juniors. Sometimes the job descriptions will explicitly state that they're open to all levels, but many are simply vague or written towards roughly-mid-level expectations. Applying to senior or leadership positions without extensive experience is likely to look weird, so I wouldn't do that, but for jobs without an explicitly-stated title or that're asking for 2+ years' experience or less, it's best to take the shot and let the company decide if they want you instead of never giving yourself the chance.

Approaching job applications this way does mean you're setting yourself up for a lot more rejections - some just because of the math of applying to more jobs, some because you'll inevitably apply to some jobs that were truly mid-level and you don't have the experience they need. But because junior positions are so rare, it's important to take even those longer shots and just let the numbers game play its course.

Finally, to the women reading this in particular - generally speaking, women (and I suspect many from other marginalized groups as well) tend to apply to a job only when they meet 90% or more of the requirements/expectations listed for the job; men will often apply when they meet about 60%. Many of the juniors I know landed their first job by applying to non-junior positions; I've never actually held a junior title, despite having worked in three different career tracks, not because I'm oh-so-great but because many studios are just weird or vague about titling. Set yourself up as best you can, but even when in doubt, just apply.

Don't Hold Out For The Dream Job

Game dev careers very rarely start glamorously or skyrocket loudly and publicly to "made it" positions. It took me six years to find VFX, and eight to make it to a studio anyone had heard of; many of the devs I consider some of the best in their fields worked quietly for years (we're talking close to a decade in many cases) at relatively unknown studios, or in relatively unknown positions, before they joined their dream companies like Riot, Blizzard, etc. It's not "settling" or "giving up," and it doesn't constitute some great failing or commentary on your dedication or skill to take a job that gets you closer to your goals and lets you build experience and y'know, pay rent and stuff.

I think this is especially important because your dream job might not actually exist the way it does in your head, or might be something totally different from what you expect, in terms of studio, culture, or role. Every job I've ever worked, from a generalist at an outsource studio mostly making outfits for Farmville to leading a VFX team at Blizzard, has had difficulties I never would have expected, ways for me to find happiness and skill improvement in my work that I never would have guessed, and people I could make friends with and look forward to working with every day.

So none of this is meant to be discouraging - hopefully, it's encouraging to know that you'll probably be able to find a lot of joy, learning, and comradery wherever you work, and probably a better sense of what really matters to you in a job.

Finally, as gross as it sounds and feels, game studios are companies, which means their loyalty to you is finite (some are much, much more caring and supportive than others, but this will always have a limit), and so you shouldn't feel tied or honor-bound to a studio or team either (and similar to above, how much you're comfortable with this is gonna vary a lot depending on your personality, and that's okay! You gotta do what feels healthy and right to you.). If an opportunity you're truly excited about presents itself after you've taken a job, you can still always pursue it! Most studios have a lot of good things to offer even if they aren't what you expect or went in looking for, but you also aren't bound to any studio forever.

Keep Working On Your Portfolio

As you're applying to places, and especially if you find yourself getting rejected a lot, the best thing you can usually do is keep working on your portfolio. Make sure you're measuring your work against that of others in communities you've joined or the games you're applying to rather than against your own older work, actively put yourself out there and seek and implement feedback, and continue expanding the breadth and quality of your work and skillset.

Usually, once you've got five or so pieces that show off a reasonable amount of breadth, and a portfolio that's extremely user-friendly too navigate, the best thing you can do is really focus on drilling into your fundamentals, be they the clarity of your designs or the animation principles of your VFX. While there are more and more resources online discussing good fundamentals and best practices for many skillsets, building up an instinct for them tends to take a lot of time and practice and even then you'll still have blindspots, so it's really important to seek feedback from others in your field and (hopefully!) in the industry as well. Don't wait on it if people aren't replying, but as with job applications, make sure you're putting yourself out there regularly and continue working while you wait to hear back.

Polish Your Resume, Cover Letter, and Interview Skills

Resumes and cover letters are less likely to be what makes or breaks an application, but a strong resume in particular can really help make a good first impression and make hiring managers want to know more (and a bad cover letter can do the opposite). Have others look over your resume and cover letter as well; it's really easy to go blind to errors or to skip over details because you forget others don't know them or you have a hard time talking yourself up, and another set of eyes is very likely to help catch these.

Also, if possible, find opportunities to work on projects with other people! This may mean game jams, school projects if you're in school, a collaboration with someone with a complementary skillset (for example, if you're in VFX, creating a set of VFX for a designer's hypothetical hero kit, or working with an animator to sync up VFX and their animation), or anything else you can come up with. Regardless, experience working with other devs is incredibly valuable and will give all of you good fodder for your resumes and interviews, and hopefully more content for your portfolios as well.

Interviewing is a skill in and of itself, so practice will get you a long way. Most of the struggles I see younger devs and women in particular struggle with are being able to tell stories that highlight their own skills and the contributions they made (talking yourself up can be super hard, so this is one where practice can really really help), giving full answers (similar to the problem I see on resumes, don't just give the most straightforward details of an answer - elaborate on your process, mindset, or approach, specific, unexpected, or unique contributions you made, and the positive outcomes you helped create), and keeping a conversation going when it falters (ideally a senior interviewer would save you from this, but having questions ready about the company in general or the people interviewing you in particular can be a huge help here). Practice in the mirror, to a webcam, to a friend or relative, whatever's available to you.

Any time you're able to after a job rejection, ask for feedback on what you could do to make your next application stronger - I've yet to meet a dev who's annoyed by being asked for feedback and it typically reflects well on you; many will try to find time to give you at least some feedback (and if they can't, it's very very likely to be a time constraint, not because they were annoyed you asked!).

What about all that mentality stuff you mentioned?

It's much harder for me to give advice on how to take care of yourself mentally, in large part because it's so individual (and for many people you'll never be perfect at it, so even just improving is still great!). The most declarative I'd really want to be is letting you know it's likely to be a long road with a lot of hard work, and that it might not even be a clear or direct road. Mine certainly wasn't. Try your best to only compare yourself against others in actionable ways, such as to ensure that your portfolio is meeting or surpassing the quality bar, to identify places to focus on honing or broadening your skills, and to make sure you're asking for a fair salary for yourself. Comparing yourself in areas like how prolific you are or how quickly you land a "big deal" job has limits to its usefulness, not because there's 

There's nothing practical about beating yourself up, even though for many people it takes a lot of practice to even start not to. But when you do it's easy to become paralyzed, overwhelmed, or depressed, and that rarely gives you the energy you need to keep improving or to enjoy the things you're working on.

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Game dev is hard, and even harder to break into; over a decade in I still firmly believe that the hardest part of almost every career is simply getting your foot in the door. It can take a lot of time, and if you're going to be in it for what may be a long haul, it's important to both know that you're taking on what's likely to be a part- to full-time job of learning and getting a full-time job, and to take care of yourself so that you can be happy and healthy through that process and into your career.