The 2nd Most Important Skill to Master to be Hired

To get hired to work in audio – I hope it’s obvious – you need to know and understand the basics of how audio works and how to manipulate it for your chosen discipline.

But there’s another, oft overlooked skill, that’s nearly as important.

Personally – I’d say this skill is more important. But, realistically, nobody’s going to hire you if you don’t have any audio expertise.

What am I referring to?

Be Cool.

The 2nd most important skill to master in order to get hired is simply be cool.

I don’t mean be impressive or enviable.

I mean be the kind of person that others trust, and like to be around.

Consider this…

The average of you are incredibly concerned about learning software and sound design techniques if you don’t already have a job. I’m not invalidating the importance of those things – as I said before, you need skills.

But you’d be shocked at the horror stories I’ve heard from directors and employers, from developers and even my own inbox.

People begging for jobs
Offering me free “sample packs”
Offering your school demo game in exchange for something
A 15 page resume
Telling a director during an interview that the team’s design and development process is wrong
Acting like you’re god’s gift to audio because you watched YouTube videos about middlware

I’m not kidding. All of those bullets are from real stories.

Friends – the bar isn’t super high, clearly.

But plenty of you are still bad at this because you’re panicked your technical skills aren’t up to par.

Chill out!

“But Adam, HOW do I chill out?!?!”

How You Chill Out

I learned this lesson a long time ago, and it’s applied to every work I’ve ever done regardless of what work it is.

Your job isn’t your job title or description. Your actual job is two things:

Make your boss and coworkers look good
Make sure everything you’re responsible for gets handled well, with as flawless of an appearance as possible

Let it be stated – I’m not perfect at either of those things… but let me expand on what I mean.

First – I don’t mean lie in order to make a bad boss or coworkers look like they’re competent. I mean to handle your job, and everything around you that you see that isn’t getting done or could get done in such a way that your boss’s boss is super impressed.

If you’re doing your job incredibly well (also assuming your boss isn’t a horrible human) – the more that you can do to make your boss and your coworkers’s lives easier, the better.

You don’t need to take any credit, ever. When you do magic, and your boss or coworkers get complimented or their lives become easier, that’s all the credit you need and usually the involved parties know what’s going on anyway.

By doing this, you become a ridiculously invaluable asset.

Additionally – everything that’s asked of you should get done. If it can’t get done, you need to communicate that early and effectively. Don’t beat around the bush, unsure, and not tell anyone – be clear about what you can and cannot do.

Same thing if you don’t know how to do something – be clear! Ask! Absolutely nobody expects you to know everything your first few months on the job – there are too many moving parts and proprietary systems.

If you do both of those things, you’ll earn yourself a reputation of being indispensable and extremely reliable, very fast.

“Okay Adam, that’s cool – but that’s just a lot of work I need to do and it’s making my stress level worse. I thought you said chill?!”

I did!

This is extremely hard to teach, but in words it’s simple: be someone that your team likes to hang around and shoot the breeze with.

For me, for years this was super hard. In a lot of audio jobs (not games specifically) the hangout time is drinking. Until a few years ago, I didn’t drink at all. Even now, I only drink a little.

Those who don’t drink are nodding along with me right now understanding what I’m about to describe.

The story, that played on repeat constantly was this –

My coworkers go out and extend an invite for me to come along. I either turn them down with a lame excuse and get labeled the “no fun” guy who doesn’t go out to drink or I go out, everyone orders a drink and I get water (or something) and someone comes out with…

“…you don’t drink?!”

Instantly a record scratches off in the distance, everyone stops talking, everyone stares at me.

Okay – not really – but for dramatic effect that’s a funny thing to say. A bunch of people do feel like that as well.

Regardless of my personal feelings at this point, how the next few moments are played out often dictate this whole “be someone your team likes to hang out with” thing.

Here’s the reality of the situation for me personally

I don’t often drink. When I do, I usually drink red wine.
I do not care at all one bit if others drink around me or even drink way too much – you do you.

But nobody knows that – and there’s often this awkward moment of tension where people who drink might think I’m judging them, or they might be judging me, or there’s no judging at all just curiosity.

In this very moment – it’s super unclear.

So how do I make it cool, every time?

I reply with something like this –

“Eh – not super often, and I don’t feel like it at the moment – but I just really didn’t want to miss hanging out with everybody, having a good time, and getting to know you better!”

Instantly, the situation is diffused. The music starts playing again, lights come back up, everyone turns back around to what they were doing in the first place.

Now that’s a ridiculous example – okay? It’s not that complicated to interact with people socially that often.

But my point is this – no matter what the situation, as often as you can – be calm, relaxed, helpful, empathetic, listen, and bond. You don’t even have to agree with people! But don’t be a dick and demand your way or deny theirs – especially in a situation without authority.

The more your can build rapport – the better off you’ll be, the more people will know, like, and trust you, and the more stable your career will be forever.