What Do You Want, A Job Or A Career?

Having realistic goals and expectations are key to beginning a successful job search. We talked earlier about getting a realistic start in the game industry and how to  accomplish landing our long term dream gig. 

Today lets look at what's important and talk about the difference between a job and a career. 

I love walking into the first day of the GDC expo and watching everyone become enamored with the displays and bright lights of the shiny new tech. We rub elbows with some of the industries more celebrated rock stars and wish that someday perhaps this could be me. We tend to look at making games as we look at playing them and tend to overlook the amount of time that goes into becoming one of these celebrated game development rock stars. 

Industry veteran Gordon Walton sums it up as such "Making games is a lot like making sausage, it's a daily grind"

We hear horror stories about some studios that are in a perpetual crunch where developers spend 80 hours a week grinding and grinding. For some this is paradise. For the majority however this is not how they planned on spending their lives. Their health suffers, their mental state suffers and more often than not their families and loved ones suffer. It may be fun at first but wears thin quickly as the days go by. Sure, there will be crunch and we do it because we are passionate and love what we do but when it becomes the norm we start to question why. Our work becomes a job not a career. We feel under appreciated and become burned out. 

Thankfully most in our industry have figured out ways to combat the crazy crunch cycles that used to be the norm but there are so many factors that go into building a career. Too many entry level candidates that I speak to are overly concerned with the salary question and overlook the many other benefits when choosing their first positions. I think my friend Dan Stover, a recent graduate currently working on an Indy project of his own sums it up best. I asked him to name the three most important aspects of his career. Here's what he had to say;

#1 Do I get to do what I love? Am I going to be happy and excited about going to work every single day? Ultimately, I want a job that I want to be at rather then something that would just pay the bills.

#2 An excellent culture that I fit into. Everyday when I get to the studio, do I see coworkers or people I consider friends? I want a structured environment where there is always progress while at the same time being relaxed and not overly stressed. I want to be in an environment where everyone is not only trying to better themselves but who work as a team to better each other.

#3 I want to be proud of what I do. Games were always magic to me growing up. I want to bring those experiences to others. I want to work on something that I would buy and that I would play.

Sure, money is important to us all but we owe it to ourselves to look at an even bigger picture. If you enjoy your work, have equal parts the ability to contribute as well as learn and work hard the money will take care of itself. Someone wise once said Get a job you love and you will never work a day in your life. Wise words indeed. 

@RobCoble