Game Industry Job Hunt
Game Industry Job Hunt is a podcast with a mission -- to help job seekers in the video games industry level up their "hunt" through interviews with recruiters, coaches, and top industry voices and featuring their tips to optimize their approach and land their next job in gaming faster.
Game Industry Job Hunt
EP3: From Business to Gaming: Arman Jivani on Crafting a Dream Career and Mastering Salary Negotiations
In this episode of the Game Industry Job Hunt podcast, we're chatting with Arman Jivani, Senior Games Recruiter at Tencent, who works with Lightspeed Studios LA and Timi Studio Montreal. We delved into Arman's unique journey into the gaming industry, starting from his background in business management and his initial foray into QA at Gearbox. He shared how his passion for gaming led him to pivot from a potential career in finance to recruiting, ultimately finding his niche in the gaming sector.
Key Topics
- The importance of understanding the various roles available in the gaming industry, particularly for those who may not have traditional skills in programming or art.
- The "red line, green line" strategy for salary negotiation. Arman explained how candidates can establish their worth by determining a "green line" number—the salary that would make them excited to accept an offer—and a "red line" number, which represents the minimum they would consider.
- How candidates can impress recruiters, highlighting the significance of having a clear understanding of their skills and being proactive in their job search.
- How pursuing side gigs and hobbies can provide fulfillment and potentially lead to new opportunities.
This episode is packed with practical advice and inspiration for anyone navigating the job hunt in the video games industry!
Connect with Arman on LinkedIn
The Deep Dark | Everyday Carry Gear and Apparel
00:00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:28 - Host's Mission and Background
00:01:20 - Armand Giovanni's Background and Career Path
00:04:02 - Transitioning Careers and Finding a Place in Gaming
00:06:16 - Exploring Diverse Roles in the Gaming Industry
00:07:04 - The Fortnite Creation Community
00:08:29 - Understanding Your Worth in Salary Negotiations
00:09:38 - The Red Line, Green Line Strategy Explained
00:15:02 - Sharing Salary Expectations with Recruiters
00:18:02 - The Recruiter's Role and Candidate Relationships
00:20:21 - Agency vs. Corporate Recruiting
00:22:42 - Introduction to The Deep Dark and Everyday Carry
00:25:23 - The Importance of Hobbies and Side Projects
00:28:10 - Impressing Recruiters: The Elevator Pitch
00:29:53 - Common Mistakes Candidates Make
00:31:29 - Final Thoughts and Networking Tips
00:32:23 - Closing Remarks and Resources
Check out http://gameindustryjobhunt.com for more episodes and resources!
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Joe's Headshot credit: Kyle Gaddo
Lots to talk about in this episode with Senior Games Recruiter from Tencent, Arman Javani. Let's go, hey, hey, hey everybody. Welcome back to the Game Industry Job Hunt Podcast, episode three. Three episodes in already. This is going great so far. We're on a roll, guys. Anyway, I'm your host, Joe King. Thank you so much for joining me, Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:As you may know, we are on a mission here to bring together the information that I'm learning on my personal game industry job hunt. So my goal with this show is to talk to as many great minds as I possibly can and then sort of share that information with all of you here on the show. So with that in mind, I'm really excited about the show. Today we're talking with my friend and recruiter, Arman Javani. Arman is a recruiter at Tencent, working with Lightspeed Studios LA and Timmy Studio Montreal.
Speaker 1:Before we dive into it, please make sure to follow the show if you don't already. Share the show with a friend who may also be on the job hunt. Visit GameIndustryJobHuntcom for resources, show notes, all that good stuff. Now, with that out of the way, let's chat with Armand. Armand Giovanni is the Senior Games Recruiter for Lightspeed Studios LA and Timmy Studio Montreal at Tencent. He supports hiring across multiple functions, including engineering, art and animation and AI graphics research teams. When he's not scooping up awesome industry talent, he runs the Deep Dark a line of killer everyday carry products Arman hello again, Thank you for being on the show with me.
Speaker 1:Man, it's so good to have you, yeah, good to see you again, yeah, cool. So you know, we we had lunch a while back and had a really great, just really great conversation, man, I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to doing it again, and we talked about a lot of different things. One of the things that I brought up that I noticed was so cool about your background is that we actually both worked at gearbox at one point. So go into that, go into that a little bit like your background and everything and sort of sort of let us know set kind of how you got to where you are now, sort of your origin story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'll uh, I'll try to keep it as succinct as possible. But I went to school for business management. I wanted to open up um, you know, being entrepreneurs, open up like cell phone stores and sort of go my own ticket. But I thought I should go to college because my dad had done that and just sort of was working on the fly. I thought, maybe, hey, if I can get some professional training and managing inventories and accounting and things like that, it would only serve us well. So you know, as I'm in banking and working through college, I realized that the finance industry, and maybe even just like entrepreneurial opening my own venture, is probably not what I want to do at the moment. You know, looking for a little bit of a change from there. So I thought gaming was always something I had a passion in, but I'm not a programmer, I don't have any art skills that would be worth paying for and game designer kind of stuff. So I was like, all right, what else can I do? And I had a couple of friends that had gone into software testing and I was like, ok, I know, qa is a good way to break into games, so let me take a couple of courses and learn the lingo and see if I can break in, and so that was kind of my first intro.
Speaker 2:I landed at Gearbox on their overnight QA team and kind of slowly started to drop everything I was doing as, became a headhunter and then a headhunter in games and kind of went over to the corporate side shortly after. So my first corporate experience was at Gearbox. So they gave me my first games industry experience and then my first corporate recruiting experience and how to manage hiring managers and you know kind of long range planning and finance and strategy and it was really cool. And you know, then you kind of get that next opportunity with Tencent that's looking to open up North American Studios. So my journey was a little bit unique. It started in one direction and you know I got to pivot and sort of find what I'm good at. I didn't force my way in through things that I'm, you know, not going to be able to contribute to. But you know the business side of it and understanding how to account, manage and you know kind of look at the long opportunities is how I got here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, what's interesting about that to me is it can be tough making that change that you mentioned at the very beginning of your career. You know, you sort of think you're headed in one direction and then all of a sudden just life happens, you know, and you're thinking, oh, actually I think I'm going to go into games. I mean, a similar thing happened to me. I was trying to break into music, I was a musician and played games and was really passionate about games and then really exactly the same thing. I mean no real art skill to speak of, although I, although growing up, you know, all through school, I loved art a lot and even even into college, you know, took art classes and things like that, but it wasn't something that I felt passionate about following and making a career out of, I guess. But but I will say, like you know, no skill to speak of worth paying for, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I remember being super young and like looking at games sometimes and being like, well, that's a stupid thing that they've included there. I wish they would have done like this or like the leveling progression, like it should have been like this. And it's like, yeah, you get kind of really into the weeds about like evaluating things, but I think I always did appreciate like the art and, yeah, you know the the game design of games. You know as much as the experience of playing them yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1:It's funny, like you said, trying to find a place in games when you're not an artist or you're not a designer or programmer. You don't really you don't really understand. Or even in my case maybe your case I don't really care about that stuff. I don't like that. Stuff doesn't excite me. You know what I mean. I don't really understand or even in my case, maybe your case I don't really care about that stuff. I don't like that, stuff doesn't excite me. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I don't really get excited about the idea of programming. I guess I mean, maybe if I, maybe if I explored it a little more, I would I don't know, but it's it's. It's funny to think that there really are so many roles in the games industry that require no skills like that. You're still talking about businesses. You're still talking about companies that require recruiters, hr, marketing, operations, all kinds of different stuff, even down to office management, things like that. So that's a really interesting point that I think it's. I'm hoping with this show we'll know lots of people that are new to the industry and and trying to get their foot in the door. Important to remember that there's lots of room, there's lots of different roles and lots of different things that can be done. You know, you don't have to be a programmer or a um, you know artist or anything like that.
Speaker 2:I kind of wish, when you were like in elementary school, that they, they, they kind of opened up your mind towards all of these other jobs and and maybe, maybe even specifically like leaning into different industries, because I think a lot of times when you you're growing up it's like doctor or policeman or fireman or astronaut and it's like great, huge dreams.
Speaker 2:Those are amazing yeah, yeah but for those of us that maybe don't go that route, is video game development even attainable? And you realize that it's just regular people, you know it's, you don't have to be a killer artist to participate and contribute, and so some stuff like that could just be early education, you know, maybe just more informative of like, hey, if you have an interest in Disney movies or you know, uh, fortnite, like here's what every individual job I mean this is a billion dollar business, like these are all the things that go into building something like a fortnight right yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, what's really funny is um, speaking of fortnight I, I I didn't realize this until I started in on this job search, but there is a.
Speaker 1:There is an extremely robust I guess you could say a community, a sort of subsect of the Fortnite world, for lack of a better term where there are even game studios now that are being built around creating Fortnite maps and Fortnite games and modes and things. I forget what it's called. There's like a. There's a name. I'll add it to the show notes.
Speaker 2:Guys, it's got to be creator stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like a Fortnite creation universe of some kind, yeah. But anyway, I had a call with a guy sort of that had a company doing this and he, sort of you know, pointed me in the direction of just hey, google this really quick while we're on the phone, okay. And so I'm googling and I'm looking and man, there are all these modes and all these things that people are creating for fortnite that they're making money on. So that just sort of goes to show you that there are lots of avenues in games, even aside from working at a traditional game studio in one of those traditional roles that we're talking about. I mean, we know full well that a lot of people are using Unity and free versions of Unreal and other various game engines to create their own games, and they are finding ways to make money doing that, which is really cool. Speaking of money, let me let me segue into this, because I mentioned this. I mentioned this the other day when we chatted and I wanted to bring it up because I thought it was really cool.
Speaker 1:One thing that we all struggle with, I think and not just when we're on the job hunt is figuring out our worth right, and of course, when I say I mean our worth, right, and of course, when I say I mean our worth, I mean monetary worth relative to our jobs. It's already tough to navigate salary conversations and interviews, and if we don't have a sense of the value that we represent, based on the role and our experience, it's even tougher. So you posted something on LinkedIn a while back it really stuck with me called the Red Line, green Line Strategy. Oh yeah, and so this is where I want to sort of get into a little meat and potatoes of this episode.
Speaker 1:Right, this is one thing that I really wanted to talk to you about, as a recruiter sort of your, your tips and tricks and this is one that I really wanted to follow up with you on, because I feel like there's some tips you know within this strategy that really help not only, not only with salary negotiation, but also gauging your worth in the first place, which can lead to all kinds of positive things like not wasting your time on a role that might not be right for you and might not be paying what you need it to pay. So can you go into that a little bit, sort of explain that strategy to us and walk us through it and sort of how we can use it during a job search?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The red line, green line tactic is largely how I've gone about my own negotiations. You're really for yourself and expectation setting, really sort of laying out a two line approach, and you know. The fundamentals of it essentially are the green line number is the number that it's going to take for you to sign on almost immediately. I mean, if not immediately, that's the number that's saying I want to be here. If I can get to this figure and above, whether that's base salary, whether that's total compensation, whatever that looks like for you, if you guys are able to hit this green line number, I'll shut down all other interviews. I'm totally on board, I love it here, and then the compensation gives me no questions like let's rock and roll. That's the number that you and if you're working with somebody that's in my position like recruiter or you know somebody that's really there to be your champion to the organization and can help set expectations, that's really the number that you want to play off of Most times. I mean, I don't know what the larger market conception is about what the recruiters do.
Speaker 2:Our goal is to fill seats and we do that by managing expectations. I don't get any sort of percentage, saving my company money and this has been true for a decade of doing this that if they say, hey, I have a $150,000 budget and you help me find somebody for $130K, you're going to get that extra $20K. I wish it worked like that. That would be great, but that would be nice. But that would be such a perverse incentive of us then low-balling for our own pocket. That's not how it works. We are great and our KPIs are marked on how long it takes to fill a role, the quality of hire, how long they stay around, how many chairs we fill. So there's things like that. That, like, our goal is to align with you as a candidate and fill the role. So I want that green line number because when my hiring managers finish their interviews and say Joe is great, he fits the role 100%, let's go get him. My turnaround then is hey, here's Joe's green line number. If we can get to this number, he tells me that he'll shut everything else down. He can start in two weeks, um, and he'll sign. He'll sign our offer immediately.
Speaker 2:Now the red line number is more of an internal marker for for the candidate and the recruiter. It's not necessarily something that we share with the hiring manager, at least the best recruiters that I've seen tend to hold this on card of saying you and I know that. Let's say it's a lateral move. Let's say it's a 10k reduced salary from your current. You want to be here, but this red line number makes you really nervous. Right, it's a number that you don't want to be at. Certainly anything lower than this. It's just not feasible. You you probably would wouldn't take the job. Right, 99, you turn it down Redline. You could still see yourself conceivably taking it.
Speaker 2:But now all of these other factors come in play. Do I have to relocate? What's my growth plan? When do the annual raises occur? How often are the bonuses? Hey, I've got five other interviews that I'm conducting now. So if you guys are going to be at the redline number, I kind of need to see my other interviews through to see if there's something drastically different.
Speaker 2:This is a good marker for us, because if I'm negotiating for you on the green line and then our budgeting comes back to say, hey, we can really offer closer to the red line, I can severely push back and say, hey, I know that Joe's got other interviews that he's conducting and one of them is actually moving to offer. On friday, we run a really high risk of losing him if we're at this number, if I I think the ultimate goal and how we've seen it work out, the green line number, if it's in our budget and it's your number that you want, that's the path of least resistance. We're going to hit that. Everybody's happy. But most of the times what ends up happening is it's somewhere in between and that's the reality of like the red line, green line is it kind of falls in that sweet spot. It's not going to be at the nervous number. It may not be at that top end number of 25 percent, 30 percent raise that you're sort of like banking on, but maybe somewhere in the middle. A 10 percent raise, 15 percent raise from your current offer. You know enough to make it worthwhile. Now everybody kind of feels good about what they're looking at. So you really need to sort of map that out.
Speaker 2:I have the advantage of not any sort of proprietary information. I have the advantage of conversation. I meet with people that do your same role, you know, in tens of people, 15, 20 people, whatever it is. I'll have multiple interviews where I can benchmark the compensation line and so I can allow my hiring managers to understand hey, if we're going to hire this role, I've talked to 20 senior community managers. It's typically between X and Y the best of them, right, the best ones that are coming from those shops that we want to target. The compensation range is usually between X and Y.
Speaker 2:So if we're, offering the lower end of that. That puts us in a disadvantaged position. Right, and this is kind of the experience level and quality that we're going to target. But you know, candidates have the same information and have access to the same stuff that we do. There's no proprietary recruiting database, it's just the luxury of conversation. So if you're doing your research, if you're having conversations with others and this is what I recommend to everybody is you know you should be connecting with people that are in your role across every company. Right, connect with every single community manager and have conversations and be frank. Hey, what you know you've interviewed recently congratulations on the new job that you got. What have you seen as the range of what people have been offering you or what the conversations would sound like? Now you can sort of benchmark and you can create your redlining, green line number from there. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and maybe I'm misunderstanding here. So I want to ask just to clarify are these numbers that you recommend sharing with a recruiter, or are these numbers that you want to keep to yourself, or is it case dependent maybe?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think your best ally is a recruiter. They've got direct access to the hiring manager, they've got proprietary insider intelligence on like hey, here's what we have hired before. Here's kind of the flinching point. So you really want to make you know a partner out of a recruiter at the company.
Speaker 2:So, the more information that you can share, the better. This isn't, even in my case, the best scenarios I've worked out where I'm open and honest about my expectations. I mean, even for Tencent this was the case. It was like I'm pretty happy at Gearbox and I don't have any plans to leave. I love it here, I've got friends here. But if I am looking, this is my number and it's just being open and honest about it. It's not trying to play cards close to the chest, because that ends up missing your expectations. It hurts feelings, it wastes time. So if you have a recruiter and you trust that they've got your interest at heart, share that information and most of the good recruiters will battle for the high number because it's less negotiation. If it's in their budget, they want to get you what you want, and if it's at the low number, they're going to battle against it. You know.
Speaker 1:More importantly, so, yeah, share that information. That's one thing I'm sort of. I've sort of learned the past few months that I've been on the job hunt about recruiters is I have, I have gotten the sense many, many times that the recruiter is I don't know if I want to go so far as to say on my side, quote, unquote but the dynamic isn't necessarily what I've thought in the past that it was. In other words, the recruiter is on the side of the hiring manager and the organization and it's them against me. And I have gotten I know exactly what you're talking about there I've gotten the sense in several interactions that I've had with recruiters and interviews and things like that, that they are very much on my side and saying hey, you know, what can we do to get you on? What can we do to help you?
Speaker 1:I think the state the industry is in right now it for me, I think it's come down to the fact that it's me versus a bunch of other equally qualified candidates. I feel like I'm a good candidate in the jobs that I'm going for and I just think that there are so many of us right now. You know, as you know, I'm in a community management, social media management type role. There are so many great community people on the market right now that are out there looking, and so it's funny that you say that, because I do get that same sense that, with you saying that and you kind of giving a sampling of sort of the KPIs that recruiters are going for, when you think about it, it is a recruiter's job to fill these positions, and so it does them no good to draw hard lines and to do the opposite of what you're saying.
Speaker 1:I guess it would be a better way to put it. It does behoove them to have good relationships with these candidates, do what they can to help them, and things like that. So that's, that's something really good to think about. You know, as we're all those of us that are on the hunt keep that in mind that you know the recruiter it's not necessarily an adversarial relationship and in fact I would dare to say that it's more likely that it's not.
Speaker 2:I would be so bold to say that if you feel like your recruiter is combative and there's some sort of tension there where you feel like you either got to prove yourself something or pay my interest hard, that's probably not somebody that you want to be working with. I think, across the games industry especially I mean I'm connected to most, all of them and every single feedback that I get from candidates of like, oh, I work with XYZ and I work with her and I work with them, I mean it's always like the most positive interaction, like they gave me the information. They kept pounding the hiring manager to get feedback, they kept me in the loop. That's what a good recruiter should do. So you don't have to do that chasing down, you don't have to feel like a hiring manager is just, you know, dancing around you. Hey, they told me I'm not a good fit, but not why. A lot of times, if you have a good relationship with your recruiter, they're going to give you insight Feedback. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's really great. That's so valuable If you feel like you have to put attention with your recruiter.
Speaker 2:Good fit, I think, most especially in games industry recruiters. They want to hire diverse. They want to hire, you know, a huge range of skill sets, different peoples, and you know most of them are super friendly. So, and I mentioned corporate recruiting versus you know, the other side of agency recruiting. Quick difference on those two Agency recruiters are, you know, sort of external to the organization, their, their vendor partners, essentially for organizations to spread their reach.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, think of it like a scout to the market, right? Hey, you go out like a, like a headhunter, right, you go out, this is the XYZ skillset we're looking for and you guys go find it. Now they can go talk to a myriad of candidates, versus a corporate recruiter that is representing one company, and all of my intentions are geared towards that singular studio. But my scope might be a little bit more limited in corporate recruiting, perhaps because of location, the types of games that we build, right, the genre, the platform. We're really sort of like doing one thing or a couple of things versus an agency recruiter that might represent a wash of skill sets, right? So you want to build your network over with both agency recruiters and corporate recruiters, those that represent the company directly and those that have access to a ton of information and a ton of companies. They talk to a ton of candidates. I think the combination of both of them are going to really help people understand them.
Speaker 1:I cannot agree with you more. I think, think you're right. You know you got to spread your, spread your resources. You know fairly widely and knowing as many corporate recruiters and agency recruiters as you can, I think that's great. So we don't have a whole lot of time, I don't want to keep you too long, but I do want to give you a chance to talk about the deep dark a little bit, because as we uh, as we discussed at lunch the other day, we're both sort of well. Really, the biggest thing we talked about was backpacks. We're backpack nerds both of us, which I know for listeners that may be a new term for you, but yes, us backpack nerds, we are out there.
Speaker 2:We're here and we're ready to wear backpacks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, but this is really cool. So yeah, I mean, you know, if you want to talk about that a little bit, uh, I'm sure we have other backpack nerds uh listening that may not even know until now that they're backpack nerds. They may have they may not realize that's a thing. And now they're, now it's dawning on them.
Speaker 2:Oh hey, I'm a back, I'm a backpack nerd.
Speaker 1:Wow, that explains a lot. So tell us about it a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's the gear that you have on you every day and really it's sort of like an offshoot, maybe a less intense prepper kind of mentality. It's it's your backpack, it's your, you know your overcoat. It's you know the, the knives and wallet and cell phone. It's all the stuff that you keep and how you guard all that stuff.
Speaker 1:It's kind of more like Boy Scouts, like always be prepared, right yeah, and you keep, and how you guard all that stuff.
Speaker 2:it's kind of more like boy scouts, like always be prepared, right, yeah, and and it's surprising, like as my life has transitioned, I've got kids now and, um, I've actually changed up my interests completely, you know, compared to maybe 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:So you know, really I started getting into this because of that nature, like I had a bunch of student college gear right, backpacks and just random stuff that was unintentional, it was just sort of around the house and and I'm finding that like, hey, this doesn't really fit my life now. Right, it was good when it was, um, but it doesn't have to mean more expensive. It. It can mean more quality. It can mean more expensive. It can mean you know a certain theme of stuff that you like to put together all leather goods or all, yeah, each color, right, um, so that's kind of where the fun comes in is like intentionally designing the stuff that you carry with you all the time. So that's really where this is more of a passion project. I, you know I've bought and you know sold and you know, uh, joined forums and communities of everyday carry goods, um, and and I'm a nerd for for outdoor gear and I like hiking and camping and stuff like that, um, but I kind of wanted to take a swing at building my own thing. So that's where the deep dark came in. It's kind of got this cool little moniker to gaming. I think you kind of get like a nerdy feel with it, um, but it's in. It's meant to be a little bit more elevated, um, it's supposed to be hyper tough. That's the stuff that I want to build.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't want to keep spending money on backpacks. I want one that can go everywhere. I take it to football, I take it to work, um, I, you know, it's my emergency bag in the car, um, and it's got everything in it, so like just tough gear. Um, it's got a little bit of a nerdy flair to it from from time to time. And yeah, that's where this came in. So then my first swing at it was a backpack and it's like a ruck style, um, weatherproof, uh, you know, rain resistant kind of stuff. And you know, I'm just trying to see a little bit more about how to bring in a market of like gamers. Uh, I want, I want this group to get out more. I want this group to like experience other things as well. I'm a gamer myself and and I have other interests and hobbies and how can we kind of marry those two worlds together? So that's kind of where the special project came in.
Speaker 2:We need, we all need to get out and touch grass every now and then right, so yeah, so this is good, myself included, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, myself included too, and you know, one reason that I bring it up is because, um, I, I I did a post on LinkedIn the other day that sort of basically addressing the Microsoft layoffs that we had.
Speaker 1:As we're recording this now, last week, Microsoft laid off something like 650 people or something like that, and so you know, when that happens, I kind of tried to impart some of the things that I'm learning just in a LinkedIn post like hey, here's a little advice for everybody Don't freak out, stay positive. It's not your fault, it's fine. One of the things that I came up with was try to think of some kind of a hobby or a side hustle or something that you can put some energy into, because it will give you a positive feeling of progress, right, and, and that this sort of. I know that I know you didn't create this around that same circumstance and around that same idea, but it but I think it's a good reminder. It's a good reminder to me at least, to be thinking of other things, like don't just be thinking about the game, the game industry, job hunt.
Speaker 1:Be thinking about, hey, what's something I enjoy, that I can put some time and some energy into? That is not only going to improve my mental health, but also it, who knows? I mean it could turn into something. You know what I mean. So, um, I think that's a really good reminder of that. You know, for me, this podcast is that thing. And then also, you know I'm uh, as I told you, I'm getting into consulting and doing freelance work and things like that, which obviously scratches two itches, if you will, for me, right, um, so that's great. So be you know, be thinking about those kinds of things. You know, listeners, that you can, that you can get into, that you can do. That will, you know, not only improve your mental health, but, who knows, maybe turn into something, maybe turn into income somehow.
Speaker 2:Well, this is crazy because, like I posted that, hey, this is like a passion project I'm going to be working on.
Speaker 1:So just you know, hey, just kind of keep your eyes peeled. It wasn't like an announcement.
Speaker 2:Just I thought it'd be cool to throw it out and see my journey and catalog the stuff that I'm doing.
Speaker 1:That's a great content strategy is building it as you go, I think, over the years, people, and especially in games, we hold everything back until the beat right. We hold everything back until the perfect moment, which in our line of work, we should. But I do think there's something to be said for small businesses, creators, founders, things like that. As you're learning a new skill or you're building a thing, create content around that and show people what it's like to do that. Show them the good, bad, the ugly, show them the mistakes that are being made and how you're fixing them. I think there's a lot of value there. Again, it all ties back into the job search too. If you're creating that content, you're showing not only can you create content, but you're showing the things that you can do. You're showing the ways that you can learn from your mistakes, teach yourself new skills, things like that, and all that's hugely valuable.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've got like three or four prototypes in my closet right now of, like, the bags that I've created, and some of them are hot garbage and I hated it the minute that it showed up and I spent money on it. And you know, I'm spending all my time sourcing materials and trying different things, and so it's like it's not always going to be successful and I'm not and, to be honest, I am terrible at social media. So none of this was for content. Something that I could show my kids later on was like, hey, here's kind of the journey that I took. You know, here's, here's how long it took. I mean, it was like a a year of planning and buying and cutting stuff up and, you know, beating it the hell up so I could see how long it lasts.
Speaker 2:And, um, you know, I think it should be really cool to show them that like hey, not everything's an overnight success. And you know, I and I was going to say like, when I posted that announcement also, it was funny how many people that I hadn't touched base with in months, years, had reached out and like, oh man, I'm actually a backpack nerd myself and I'm a fan of this gear, that gear. I actually use them as an inspiration, and so they come out the woodwork and now they have reasons to kind of reconnect And's like, yeah, all these extra little projects inside things, um, you know, they can bring, bring your network deeper and closer together absolutely, and that's what I was just gonna say.
Speaker 1:The value there is. It's so much more than just creating new income or, you know, creating content or anything like that it's. It really can be just about the process.
Speaker 2:It can just be about having the fun and doing the thing and learning something new, you know it's really cool to see your, your thing, your creation out there which is uh, you know, like we talked about right, like I imagine, how cool it is for an artist or a designer to see their stuff implemented and people are playing it. That's kind of kind of the fulfillment that I want to is like hey, this and it was really tough, and you know, I'm kind of kind of putting my my tastes out there for people and hopefully they like what they see.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely so. One of the goals of this show is to pass on helpful tips, you know, that listeners can actually use in their job search. That's one of my, one of my big goals. I don't want this to just be fluff, where I'm just bsing with you know people for 30 minutes and then no one gets anything out of it. So, with with that in mind, what's something that a candidate could do if they really wanted to impress you as a recruiter?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's obviously role dependent, but I think if you have a solid understanding of what you do and why, somebody would pay you to do that, if you could be trapped in an elevator with someone and that was your opportunity to land the job. What's that 15, 20 seconds looking like where you could tell them here's what I do, right. Here's who I am, here's what I do, and this is why I'm the best in my craft, right? This is why I'm at the top of my field. I think that's always super impressive when somebody has a really good grasp and confidence over what they do. And I mean, I've seen that from interns, I've seen it from folks that are still in school.
Speaker 2:So this doesn't come with just 20 years of experience and you gotta be a director or something. So having a really sure idea about who you are, what you do, being able to discuss really concretely why you're good at what you do and why somebody would wanna hire you, I think is always really impressive. So you gotta just continue to practice that elevator pitch. That'll open up so many doors for you. And as you get the doors open, some of the interviews you take on will flame out. Some of the investor pitches you do will flame out, but you got to give yourself more opportunities. So that's what I always find super impressive is when somebody has just a grasp on themselves and you know very sure about what they do and where they're solid.
Speaker 1:On the flip side, what's a common mistake that you could see candidates making that you would want to point out to them to avoid?
Speaker 2:I think some people are like not proactive enough. You know, that's one of the when I do career coaching with people. The proactive nature of your job search and of networking is one thing that I continue to hammer on, because I see way too many people, even hyper-experienced people, and it's not about introverts and extroverts, it's the strategy that you're taking on. You're just not planning right. I think you're being too casual and passive with your job search and your networking, and it doesn't have to be for any intention, but if you are just waiting for the job boards to tell you what jobs are open and you're just waiting for somebody to pick up your application once you apply and you're just waiting for somebody to give you feedback, I mean a lot of this like waiting around. Especially, like you mentioned, there's 20, 30 other people that are stellar at my job and you know we're all kind of gunning for the same stuff. Now Think about how you get yourself ahead of that race right, it can be competitive without being.
Speaker 2:I think some people feel like you're putting other people down to put yourself up, and that's not what it is right. It goes back to you having confidence in what you do and why you think you're great at what you do and why somebody would want to talk or hire you, talk to you or hire you. So yeah, just being too passive with their job search, waiting around a lot and then feeling like it's the market that's not yielding for them, when they could follow up, when they can connect proactively, when they can get out there and meet folks, because that's really where the opportunities are coming in right now. It's through your network, yep, I would agree wholeheartedly. It's through your connections, it's through GDC. It's very, very rarely now going to be in a pool of 800 applicants that come into a job posting. So yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:Well, all right. So there you have it, guys. Make sure you are networking, networking, networking and get that elevator pitch down. Get that, tell me about yourself. Question down, usually the first one. Get it down and you know, nail it and that'll go a long way, arman. Thank you again, man, I really appreciate it. This has been so great. I'll have you back on very soon. So everybody expect that, expect to see Arman Javani returns on the podcast very soon.
Speaker 2:Really appreciate it, and I do leave my calendar open, mostly on Fridays, for these types of like career coaching, and I do interviews with people outside of the industry that want to break in, or folks that have been laid off or, you know, students right now of like, hey, how can I get ahead of my my uh cohort? Um. So I always set aside 30 minute little chats where we can go over like the different types of people you want to network with and how to utilize LinkedIn. Let's take a look at your portfolio, let's put together a target list of companies and how can I share my network with you. So folks are more than welcome to sign up and schedule a call if they need some.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll uh, I'll make sure everybody, as you're hearing this, go to gameindustryjobhuntcom and check out the show notes for this episode. I'll have links to armand's linkedin and the deep dark website and everything in there that you need to know to reach out to him. So check that out for sure. But, yeah, man, listen again. Buddy, thanks again.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it awesome man, good to see you again yep cheers.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody that is going to do it for this episode of the Game Industry Job Hunt Podcast. I want to thank all of you again for listening, really appreciate it. Of course, big thanks to this episode's guest, arman Javani from Tencent. Really appreciate it, man. Thank you again. Other than that, hey, connect with me on LinkedIn. Let's chat over there, let's get to know each other. Also, you can follow me on Twitter at Joe King, j-a-u-x-k-i-n-g. Visit the show website GameIndustryJobHuntcom for show notes, links, all that good stuff, resources, all kinds of things that I think are going to be really helpful. So check those out In the meantime. We will see you in the next one. Thanks, guys. Have a good one. Bye, thank you.
