Yesterday, while visiting Indiecade with a group of friends, one of them asked me this question:
”Was it necessary to be in LA to get a job?”
I thought it was an interesting question because lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of my friends moving closer to where other developers and companies are. I think it’s a bold move to come without any guaranteed job positions lined up for them. But I have no doubt that they’ll be landing great gigs very soon. There are sacrifices that they chose to make when they came here though, and I wish the best for them. High risk, high reward.
Maybe people think one day, they’ll walk into a bar and meet a developer from XYZ company, and be somehow handed a job if you get to talk to them. That rarely happens - BUT, suppose that you did actually become their genuine friend. Over a long period of time, you work on games with them and hang out with them. Then one day, you notice a job posting from that XYZ company where your friend works, and you reach out to them. The best they can do to help you is they can give you a referral that may give you a slight edge during the first step of the application process. Then, the rest 95% is completely up to you - Your resume, your cover letter, Craft Test, Phone interviews, On-site Interviews and your personality.
First of all, everyone’s experiences are different. I’ll tell you my story and what worked for me. But it might work differently for you.
From my experience, being closer to LA was not the main contributor to landing me a job. After I graduated, I moved back to my parents’ place which is about 2 hours drive away from LA. During my stay at my parent’s place, I didn’t have a car, (and I still don’t), so I rarely went out to ‘networking events’.
This doesn’t mean that I was isolated - I stayed connected with people through facebook, discord, twitter, twitch and game jams. While I was a student at CSULB, I worked on large projects with friends, but on top of that, I participated in a lot of game jams and learned tons from it. This allowed me to have experience building my portfolio, and having enough material to discern what is good and what is subpar. I also gained confidence in knowing that I can ship a game if I dang had to.
Your portfolio is extremely important. It has to be clean so that it can be seen by the recruiter in a few seconds, hook them with interest, and can leave a good impression on you. I watched a lot of ReelTalk and learned good tips that I applied to my website.
I do recommend everyone, especially people who live farther away from other game devs, to go visit GDC at least once. And particularly recommend trying to apply for the Conference Associate position if you cannot afford it. This is where I met the truly important connections in my life and how I got to where I am today. You can apply at:
https://www.calounge.com <- The application is not open yet, but it will be open within a few weeks.
To summarize, no, it was not necessary for me to be in LA to get a job. You can certainly create more opportunities for yourself by being in the same city with others, but just because you moved closer doesn’t mean that things will naturally happen - it’s up to you to now start heading out to nearby networking events to meet those connections.
If you’re not too close to others, you should be working on game jams online instead. If you want to get a job in the industry, watch a lot of portfolio reviews, start building your portfolio around the company you want to work for, and learning the tools and practicing your craft and going through the standard hiring process.
That’s it for today. Until next time!
-Daniel