Regularly producing content has given me the good fortune of helping others in need.
I’ve done “official” mentorships. My Twitter DMs are constantly open. I publish my work email readily. I meet with people when they come into town or just need a few minutes. You can reply to any email I send you with any question, at any time.
One of the questions I get most often is “How do I get a job?” or variations like “How do I get a job quickly without coming off like a jerk?”
I’m happy to tell you, the bar isn’t as high as you think it is.
The bad news – for most of you – is that the difference often has nothing to do with technical skill.
A Story
Months ago, I was put in touch with a student by a co-worker. The story given was pretty standard – “They’re interested in getting into games” with the exception that their interest was programming.
In audio, that’s fairly unusual. Most students are more interested in how programming or implementation can help them get a sound design job – notice the difference?
In addition, the student was patient in getting a meeting, was flexible and made it easy for the meeting to happen, offered to pay for coffee (I don’t expect this and wouldn’t allow it, but super appreciate the gesture and thought), and asked questions that were open-ended and not mind numbing.
After the meeting, I was delighted with how it went – but didn’t think a lot of it. The remaining question was something I couldn’t answer, and generally have a lack of faith with most people about – how would the student follow up on what they learned?
Normally, I dole out information by the truckload. At most, I get “Oh my gosh thank you so much!” and then never hear from someone again.
No idea if they succeeded – and if I follow up, they usually haven’t.
But with this student, a funny thing happened.
I saw them at a meetup a few months later.
I also noticed they were making other connections to influential people.
And everything I’ve heard and understand from this student about their success, is that the professionals the student works with are always surprised that the student does what they suggest.
Isn’t that wild?
The student asks for advice, gets it, acts on it, and shares what they did with it, and comes back for more.
Who wouldn’t be happy to dole out advice and help to someone like that?
In the process, the student is making incredible inroads – which I haven’t helped them with at all but I’m extremely proud of as an onlooker. It makes me incredibly excited to see good, talented people not wasted and starting off better than I did!
How to be Different
The formula is extremely easy – I hope you can see – but let’s walk through it together.
- Be stingy and have extremely high standards for who you ask advice of
- Listen to their advice, and take plenty of notes
- Act – immediately – on the advice
- Share what you learned back with who you learned it from
- Ask your additional questions
That’s building a solid relationship in a nutshell. Contrast this with the usual method –
- Ask Reddit or a Slack channel for advice on how to get a job or if you should learn Wwise
- Get various, conflicting opinions from people who have or don’t have jobs
- Stay uncertain, fiddle around a little bit maybe
- Get a new idea and move onto something else
- Months later go back to step 1 when you realize you really want a game audio job
Insanity, right? But a lot of you do this all the time.
A lot of you might even start out with steps 1 and 2 of the correct method, but then jump to step 3 of the wrong method and screw yourself.
If you do that, I’m not likely to help you again either.
So be careful with what you ask for, who you ask from, and what you do with it.
You’re going to get exactly what you ask for. At that point, it’s on you if you make use of the information and time given to you.
If you don’t put in the work – nobody can help you.
If you do put in the work – I think you’ll be very surprised at what opens up for you.
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