Hey guys! I want to say a quick word before I start this blog post.
Let me first clarify what this blog is not about. It’s not a detailed guide on how to get a job at Riot. I am not here to disclose information about the hiring process, or hacks for getting AAA jobs… There is no secret. Your skills, experience, confidence and personality along with connections are what you need in order to get a job at anywhere.
This blog is my letter of encouragement to those who are giving it their best. I was once there. I struggled to find jobs and went through loads of rejections before finally landing this gig, and I wanted to share bits of knowledge that may be helpful for you when it comes to finding your first job out of college.
This will be a long blog post, so grab some poro snax and relax. :)
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Reality kicks in
Towards the end of my senior year, a short time before my graduation, I realized that I was about to be thrown into a bloody, grueling arena of death that is also known to many recent grads as job hunt. I had just shipped my first game, Food Drive on Steam, but didn’t know what to do with it at all. I just put it on my website and resume, and that was it.
I moved in with my parents. Initially, I felt a sigh of relief, but later the pressure to find a job quickly settled on me, and I knew that I had only few months of time before I would need to find a part time job.
I hated the idea of working part time at a place that I wasn’t passionate about. To me, it felt like I was wasting time by trading my life away for a few bucks an hour. I absolutely knew that I wanted to have a job in the game industry, and I promised myself that my first job would be in gaming. I told this to my parents, and convinced them by showing them results, like shipping games, getting scholarships, going to GDC, and meeting people within the industry. Thankfully, my parents were incredibly supportive of me and let me follow my passion.
After I graduated, my job was to get a job. I think there was a lot of pressure to get a job, but I think that pressure was what motivated me to find it in the first place. I spent 7 days a week every month for several months, working on my 3 projects and learning from online resources.
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finding a Mentor, and keeping busy
The most important turning point for me happened when I looked for mentor figures. One day, I saw a post on one of the audio facebook groups I was part of, where I could sign up for 1 on 1 mentoring with an audio mentor. Through this, I met Krys, who currently works at Raven. We talked regularly through facebook messenger, giving feedback to each other’s work and Krys often times encouraged me to keep going.
One day, while talking on the phone with him, he convinced me that I should give sound design a serious try. I was committed, and knew that if I wanted to get something done, I needed accountability. So I asked Krys to give me an assignment, and so he did: two weeks to do 2 sound redesign videos. Those are the videos that I have on my website now: (the League and Cyberpunk 2077 videos on my website).
Krys encouraged me and gave me lots of great feedback, which was absolutely crucial in me finding confidence and continue working on my craft. Soon, I realized that my musical background let me smoothly transition into sound design. I felt energized and realized that this was something that I can see myself doing for the rest of my life.
While honing my craft, I did not stop applying to places. I narrowed my search with Gracklehq.com. It’s a website that helps filter game dev jobs all over the world. I tried applying to a mobile game company in LA. Although they were impressed with my work on Food Drive, they couldn’t pass up on someone who had 10 more years of experience than me. Thankfully, I was taught in college that rejections were necessary in order to evolve as creatives.
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portfolio
I kept searching for ways to improve my craft and how I can present that craft. One of the most important resource that I utilized was Reel Talk. (by Powerup Audio). I watched around 30-40 videos overall which let me realize the common mistakes people were making, and how I should design my website. I learned that guiding my recruiter through my website was only half of the battle. I simplified my website, turned down the joke level on my About Me page, and presented only my best works.
(I’ve had 3 different websites over 2 years, and went through many iterations to get to this point.)
I invested money into Squarespace, because I was not talented enough to make my website look good through Wordpress, Weebly and Wix. I knew that having a clean and professional website was literally the only way I can communicate that I am passionate, pay attention to details, and organized. I maintained my Blog to let people know that I’m active, and also I get a ton of enjoyment from writing out my thoughts and sharing my experience. (If you’re reading this, I know that it was worth it to keep this website up.)
Then I felt the courage to finally submit my website for a review at Reel Talk. You can watch the VOD here!
Kevin and Andrea gave me amazing amount of encouragement. In Kevin’s words, he said, “Daniel, here’s a thing. What this whole site and the content there in tells me, is that you’re clearly serious, you clearly want to be doing this, and that you can be taught further - because you’ve already taught yourself a bunch of stuff, and I believe you’re passionate. Teaching passion is way harder, if not impossible, than it is to teach someone how to make their mix gain more clarity.”
I realized that as recent grads, showing passion and willingness to learn is incredibly important, especially when trying to get hired. Although I didn’t have any experience, I could make that up by proving that I can do it if I was given the opportunity.
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Rejections
Rejections are hard. In February, while in search of jobs, I applied to a company called Hexany Audio. It was a 2 months long process, and the interview process itself was great. Richard was incredibly nice to me.
I remember the feeling of hope and suffocation at the same time, not having any will power to start another application for another place, and praying that I’ll be able to get this job. Then, weeks passed by with no news. I knew that I was one of the final candidates, but it was taking too long for them to reach out to me again.
Finally, when I received the rejection email, I felt free and somewhat more relieved. A rejection doesn’t mean that that’s where my journey ends - it was simply a reminder that I needed to be better to cross the threshold. I knew that my craft level was not there yet and that I learned a ton from this job application process, and that I would be ready the next time I tried applying to a place. So I kept positive and kept trying. I am glad that I got to experience this through Hexany.
Then, the opportunity I was waiting for appeared in front of me.
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Opportunity & Mindset
One day in May 2019, while I was meeting my friend Jason at a Tom N Toms in LA, I had my laptop open, and saw a position open at Riot Games. It was a mid level sound designer position, which means I needed 3-5 years of experience, but I knew that this kind of opportunity only presents itself every two years or so. By now, I have gone through a number of rejections, and refined my resume through those rejections.
I spent the next 5 days crafting my cover letter at my nearest Starbucks and dedicating all of my focus on the most important 3 paragraphs I’ve ever written in my life, until I decided that I was finally happy with it.
I researched everything I can about Riot Games. Although I’ve been playing League of Legends for about 6 years at the time, I realized that I never knew much about the company. I looked up every video I could find about history of Riot, what their employees were like and to see if my values lined up with their vision. I searched for breadcrumbs of how their hiring process worked and who their current sound designers were. This is how I got to see a lot of awesome videos that Riot put out there, one of which was about Riot Rumble. I immediately fell in love with the company and confirmed that this was exactly where I wanted to work.
Before fortifying my website again, I had acquired a new mindset. I wanted to see things from the perspective of the company that would be trying to hire me. If I was an audio director at a AAA company, I would want my ideal candidates to be someone like this.
The candidate has craft skills and knows tools we use, is familiar with our game and knows how to design sounds that belong in our game without having to teach the basics from scratch
The candidate is positive, humble, would be a great addition to our currently existing team, and is eager to learn and grow with their coworkers and the company
The candidate presents themselves in a professional manner through portfolio websites, and is social and knows to be considerate of my time during phone interviews
Then I honed in on making sure that my portfolio, cover letter and reels ensured these things. I showed that I was enthusiastic and passionate, and that I am able to learn things and do a fantastic job at sound design if I was given a chance.
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Entry level positions
Entry level positions don’t appear every day. Sometimes they are hidden, waiting to be filled up by recommendations internally. I applied to a mid level position that I knew I would technically not qualify for in terms of years, but would have a potential to be picked up by a recruiter. And it sure did - when I was being interviewed, they offered an additional option for an Associate Sound Designer position. They liked my skills, passion for League, personality and saw great potential for my growth at Riot.
I would recommend applying for mid positions that you may not qualify for in terms of years of experience, but only if you truly believe that you can prove it to them that you’re passionate and you can handle the job. This is incredibly difficult to do since you’ll be competing against veterans, but with a referral from the right employee, the recruiter may be interested in giving you a fair shot. Please, do not apply for Senior position jobs if you’ve not even had entry level experience. There’s no faster way to get turned down by a recruiter than by stepping over the line.
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friends & social skills
Another plus was that I had a friend within Riot. At GDC 2018, I met her at my hostel when she was working at a different company. We had a genuine fun time hanging out playing card games and help serving the boss at GDC. During GDC 2019, I got a chance to catch up with her and congratulated on her starting at Riot.
A few months later, I reached out to her regarding the mid-level sound designer position and if I could gain any advice from her regarding my resume and cover letter, she offered to submit a referral for me. For a long time, she saw that I had consistently been updating my portfolio and social media, and had seen my work from far away.
I believe that me landing this gig was a culmination of all of my skills, experience AND my insider connection at Riot. Please don’t misunderstand - my friendship with a Rioter would not have been made if I didn’t show up at GDC in person, had I not made the effort to introduce myself to strangers when I didn’t know where they would end up at. I still had to put in the work to become social, get over my anxieties, and make friends. I also took online classes on how to become more social and studied ways I can grow charisma, inner confidence and how to talk with people.
If you want my advice on how to talk to strangers and make genuine friends, you should check out this post.
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The final challenge
During May through August, I was going through the main bulk of the interview with Riot. During my interview process, here are things I did to keep myself busy.
I started getting ideas of practicing my sound design to League of Legends videos. I went into practice games and recorded footages of skins, and did sound redesigns of them, because I figured that the only way to prove that I can do the work is by doing the work and showing it to them. In the long term, doing this on multiple skins was super fun, and really helpful in understanding what it is like to actually work on these products.
For my interview prep, I did my research on YouTube and found common interview questions and mistakes. I wrote out every possible question that I might be asked, and rehearsed my answers plenty of times so I could feel confident throughout my interviews. I made sure to smile during in-person interviews, and held up conversations and learned how to small talk.
The interview process for Riot was intense. 3 months of interviews and waiting were mentally taxing, but each time I passed, I was able to let out a sigh of relief. The recruiter and the interview process itself was very smooth, professional and the best that I’ve ever experienced, but the sheer length of time and the pressure that I put on myself was what made it so challenging. During this time, I reached out to a small number of friends and families and they helped me and encouraged me. Having those friends who can be there for me was extremely important for me. Without them, I may not have been able to make it.
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Thanking my mentors
Last month, I went to Game Sound Con and ran into Andrea Chang, who was the guest host during my Reel Talk review. I properly introduced myself to her and thanked her for her help, and she beamed and congratulated me. I also ran into Scott Gershin, who was one of the sound designers who reviewed my reel at Demo Derby at GDC 2019. I thanked him and he congratulated me as well. There are also so many awesome people that I consider as mentor figures like Chance Thomas, Jennifer Killham, Perry La Marca, Martin Herman, Sarah Putros, Penka Kouneva, Rychard Cooper, David Orr, Chase Bethea, who have given me advice at some point and encouraged me to find my passion.
Looking back now, I am glad that I put myself out there and listened for feedback. I am thankful for all the mentors, not just in audio, but in life, who have taken me on and taught me something valuable. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for their generosity and kindness.
One of the best ways we can repay our mentors is by becoming mentors ourselves.
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20 Steps to your Success
Here’s my most important advice to students and people who are looking for their first job.
Try asking yourself this - Where is your dream job, and what are 20 things you MUST do in order to guarantee a job at this job?
Create a physical list and write down those 20 things you need to do. When I first started this practice, I got stuck around 10 and couldn’t write stuff down anything more. My items started becoming really absurd, like “Study music theory” and I started questioning “Do I really need that in order to get a Sound Design job?”
My first problem was that I didn’t know what steps I should really take before I can get my job. That was a reality check for me, and I realized that I needed to do more research. What are the absolute 20 things I need to do before I can get this job?
Once you have written those down, things will get a lot clearer. You’ll start seeing what were some of the things that you were doing that was taking a lot of your time, but wasn’t necessary in achieving your goal. You’ll also find things that you’ve been avoiding, like learning a new tool. You will force yourself to learn it, and realize that it now is your strength that helps you get your dream job.
Here are some example questions you can ask yourself to get the ball rolling for your 20 list.
How can you gain experience and hone your craft? (Game Jams? Passion Projects?)
What skills does that place require for your dream job? (look at their job listing, Responsibility section and look for specific tools you can learn)
How can you best present yourself and your craft? (Improve your website? Social media?)
Can you somehow get in touch with one of the people working there to ask questions? (Conferences? Meetups? Social platforms?)
How long will it take? What will you do in the meantime to take care of yourself? (Part time job? Your physical AND mental health?)
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Closing
Thanks for sitting with me through that long post. Hope your poro snax was good. I feel like I covered a lot of what I’ve been wanting to say within the past 2 years with this blog post.
If you have any questions, feel free to directly reach out to me on Twitter @RiotKDan. Looking forward to hearing about your progress! :)
- Daniel