How to get a job in the creative industries

I’ve had a ton of lectures and personal experience with this now, so I thought this could be of interest to some people on here. This is mostly aimed at concept artists, but can be applied to other creative jobs as well.

Companies don’t take hours to sift through your deviantArt profile. I’ve been told by professionals they look no longer than 5 seconds at someone’s work before they decide if they’ll ask them for an interview or not. In so little time, you want to make sure you leave a good impression. Here are some tips on how to do that.

Make it relevant

Are you applying to a company that specializes in space themes? Then don’t show them a portfolio full of your works of dragons. They want to know if you are useful to them, so show them what you can do that they can use.

It’s not bad to put some variation in your portfolio to show you can do more than one thing, but you definitely want that space theme company to know you can do space themed art.

Quality over quantity

Show your best work. Your portfolio is as strong as your best work, and as weak as your worst.

Professionals don’t care about your old sketches and case studies, they want to see what you can do now, and what you can do at your best. Leave out everything that isn’t your best work. It’s better to show five astounding works, than to show fifty mediocre ones. If you’re doubting whether something is your best work or not, it probably isn’t. If you’re really insecure about this, ask some trusted crits to look at your work.

Easily accessible

This means a clean, functional portfolio with no unnecessary extras. Dead link? You’re out. Make sure it works. Unnecessary extras would be things like ads around your work. DeviantArt is therefore not the best choice either.

Keep it clean and to the point, don’t make it a novel. One or two pages max, three if you seriously can’t leave out some experiences and abilities.

Make it relevant

If you’re trying to become a concept artist for a company, they probably don’t care about your job at a supermarket at 16 years old. Put your most relevant jobs at the top. Irrelevant jobs can be left out or put under an extra tab of “other job experiences” at the end of your resume.

The same goes for your hobbies and interests. If they’re entirely irrelevant to the job in question, leave it out. Unless you can make it relevant. Don’t do “I like yoga it’s fun”, do “yoga has taught me how to deal with stress well”.

It’s good to put down all your (professional) abilities though. If you can program a little next to doing graphics, or you have experience with sound design besides visual design, write it down. Extra abilities your competitors don’t have make you a more likely candidate.

Easy to read

Make it look clean and professional. No spelling errors. Don’t use colors that scream for attention, hideous fonts, and so on. PDF is the best format, or a page on your website. If you’re not sure how to make it look good, google around for “resume design”.

Many companies may ask you to write a motivational letter. They read a ton of these, so yours will have to stick out somehow. Your letter has to show the company what you can mean for them.

Don’t do “I’ve been drawing since I was a kid!”. They don’t care if you started drawing two weeks ago, they want to know what you can do now. So talk about what you can do now, and what you want to do/achieve when you get this job. Why are you a good choice for this company? Make yourself sound like a useful investment.

So you’ve made it to an interview. Bring along your portfolio; you may not have to show it considering they’ve already seen it, but you don’t want to sit there without it if they ask for it. Look clean, overdressing is always better than underdressing.

Who are you? They know you can draw well, after all that’s why you’re sitting there. What they want to know now, is if you’ll fit with the team. They don’t want to work with a jerk. They want to know if you’re not an asshole. Be yourself, and be sociable.

What do you want? Don’t say “Oh I like just about everything”, have clear goals, like “I want to participate in something great and be part of the reason of its success” or “I want to see my work end up in stores”. Why do you want this job? What do you want to achieve? Yes, your real answer is “I just want to make money so I can pay rent”, but they’re looking for a motivated worker. So have a motivation.

Do your homework on the company. Know their company values, their history, their work. You don’t need to be an expert either, but know who you are applying to. You’ll look like a jackass if you apply to a game company and you can’t name their most succesful game. And if you’re good with the subtle compliments without being a suck-up, a little flattery doesn’t hurt either.

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I hope this may help some people. Good luck!