This week the challenge was to go through activities on “The Art of the Approach” (RealWorks, 2021).
The first task I went through was on LinkedIn as there wasn’t any tasks for “6 Pillars of Personal Branding” (Falmouth, 2021) that I could see. The activities on the Falmouth site don’t match what is actually on the course and I noticed the list on Falmouth is from October 2020 which was a bit disappointing to be honest. I decided to go through the course and decide what is relevant for me.
I took the RealWORKS Employability Assesment and got a score of 57% which is medium. It broke down my score in each of the disciplines, my weakest being interviews & offers. This has given me some insight on what I need to work. Although I have said in past journal entries I want to create my own game, I am looking to get a job in the games industry. I haven’t fully narrowed down what it is I want to focus on as I know it is a very wide field and I’ve been putting some thought in how to narrow it down. I love making fun gameplay like I did with my Alien game so I’m drawn towards that. I need to put some research into employer’s near me that I would like to work for and what they require exactly. This will also help me focus my studies on what technologies to use when making a game so I can get experience in the things I need. This will improve my employability and help with my self awareness.
I have actually already done a lot of work on LinkedIn, it’s the main site that I use. I had already done most of the things it asked for but there were a few things I hadn’t thought of. I updated the custom URL for my profile so it’s more relevant rather than just a number after my name. It is now http://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-charles-ellis which also matches my portfolio which is http://www.richardcharlesellis.com. This means it looks a bit more professional and makes it match my brand. Schaffer (2021) explains that it also useful when networking as it’s easy to remember and helps you look more professional. I also had a few things to tidy up, such as add in the description for my current job and add in a few more skills.
My LinkedIn profile has been quite successful in attracting recruiters in the past. I have people send me a private message about jobs quite often, however, they’re not necessarily the kind of jobs I want to progress in my career so perhaps I need to put some thought into making it more specific. I do want to be careful of what I put on my profile as I have connections at my current workplace and I want to keep my intentions private from them. I did a bit of research on this and found that Glodz (2020) has gone through a few things to stop current employers from seeing that you’re open to work. I updated job seeking preferences to yes (Fig 1), it says it’s based on job alerts which I’ve already got based on game development in my area and remote. I’m excited to see what comes from this.
The researching employer’s section is definately a good section for my development. It’s not all about whether you’re good for the company but if the company is right for you, otherwise you might not be happy at work. I actually had an interview with Rockstar but their office is 1 and a half hours away from me so it would be a 3 hour round trip each day. I decided not to go for it because I don’t want to commute that much, especially as it would take time away from my University work. I don’t like driving at the best of times, I don’t know how I would have done that. The fact I applied for the job in the first place shows I didn’t do enough research and didn’t decide on my limitiations with commuting. I have since narrowed down my search criteria and have learned to look into the company a bit more before applying for the job as I want to be 100% I want the job before applying rather than waste everyone’s time.
I have researched a few game studio’s in my area that I’d love to work for, some of which are, Dambuster Studios, Free Radical Design and Bulkhead Interactive. I found that they all have something in common, they are all use Unreal Engine with C++. During this course, I have been using Unity with C#. I can see from this research that I should be focusing more on Unreal as it aligns with my career interests. My hope is by the end of the course I’ll have a good portfolio showing skill in Unreal and C++. To get started on this, I have created the below smart goal.
- Specific: Go through youtube video “Learn Unreal Engine (with C++) – Full Course for Beginners” (freeCodeCamp.org, 2019) and complete tasks from video.
- Measureable: Complete the full video which is 4 hours 42 minutes
- Achievable: I can complete this over a weekend as it is a short video, also taking into account tasks throughout
- Relevant: This will help get me started towards my career goals
- Time-bound: I can do this next weekend, between dates 4th and 5th December
Fig 1
References
Falmouth, 2021. Introduction. [online] Learn.falmouth.ac.uk. Available at: <https://learn.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/240/pages/week-11-the-art-of-the-approach-course?module_item_id=9216> [Accessed 29 November 2021].
freeCodeCamp.org, 2019. Learn Unreal Engine (with C++) – Full Course for Beginners. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsNW4FPHuZE&ab_channel=freeCodeCamp.org> [Accessed 30 November 2021].
Glodz, M., 2020. How to Keep Your LinkedIn Job Search Confidential. [online] CV Pilots. Available at: <https://www.cvpilots.co.uk/blogs/career-advice/how-to-keep-linkedin-job-search-confidential> [Accessed 29 November 2021].
RealWorks, 2021. The Art of the Approach. [online] Realworks.careercentre.me. Available at: <https://realworks.careercentre.me/resources/taskmanager/default.aspx?ProgrammeID=0CEjEGg1TYV2%20GCek1zfiQ==> [Accessed 29 November 2021].
Schaffer, N., 2021. Why and How to Change Your LinkedIn URL. [online] Social Media & Influencer Marketing Speaker, Consultant & Author. Available at: <https://nealschaffer.com/how-to-change-your-linkedin-url/> [Accessed 29 November 2021].
Richard Charles Ellis 