Discussion 2: Industry Job Posting
Find one real opportunity in your field and assess yourself against it.
Post to Discord: Saturday, January 30 at noon
Respond to three classmates: Sunday, January 31 at noon
Submit to Canvas: Sunday, January 31 at noon
Hard close: Monday, February 1 at noon. Work submitted after the deadline and before the hard close loses 10%. Nothing is accepted after the hard close.
Description
This is research, not applying. You will find one real opportunity in your field, identify what it requires, and assess your own work honestly against it. Everything you build later in this course, your resume, your portfolio, and your identity package, is aimed at what you learn here.
Finding an Opportunity
- Find something you would actually want, using the boards further down this page.
- Then find that same opportunity on the employer’s own website. Job boards carry listings that have already been filled. The employer’s own site tells you whether it is still open, and shows you how they describe themselves.
Your Discord Post
Five parts. Parts three, four and five carry the weight.
- The opportunity. A link, the company, the role, and the location or remote status. Include the pay if it is listed.
- What they are asking for. Pull out the three to five requirements that matter most. Not the whole list.
- Your strengths. Which of those requirements do you already meet? Name the specific work that proves it. “My poster series from AVC100” proves something. “I have design skills” does not.
- Your weaknesses. Which requirements do you not meet yet? Name them plainly. Nobody in this class meets every requirement, and skipping this part makes the next part impossible.
- Your plan to close the gap. For each weakness, name what you will actually do about it before you graduate. Be specific: the course number, the certification, the named tutorial series, or the project you will build. “Learn Redshift” is not a plan. “Work through the Redshift for Cinema 4D series on Greyscalegorilla over the next month, then re-render my Module 4 project with it” is a plan.
Aim for 250 to 400 words.
Responding to Classmates
Respond to three people. Each response should do one of these:
- Name a strength they did not give themselves credit for.
- Suggest a specific way to close a gap they named. A course, a tool, a tutorial, a project, or a person to talk to.
- Point out something in the posting you read differently than they did.
Read people whose field is not yours. An illustrator and a videographer looking at the same posting notice different things.
The Class Job Board Log
Open the Class Job Board Log in Miro and add one sticky note for every site you searched. Put four lines on it: the name of the site, the words you typed into the search box, what you found, and whether it is worth going back to.
Leave your name off. Record the sites that returned nothing as well as the ones that worked. We use this log later in the course.
What Counts as an Opportunity
Your field decides what you look for. All four count the same:
- A job posting on a company’s own careers page.
- A call for entry, if you show and sell your own work. These are open calls from galleries, shows, and art organizations, and they state their requirements the same way a job does.
- A project description from a client, if you plan to freelance. This is the document a client sends explaining what they want made.
- The portfolio requirements for a program you intend to transfer into.
The analysis is the same in every case. Document what they ask for, then assess your own work against it.
Where to Look
Games, 3D, and Technical Art
- ArtStation Jobs, studio postings including contract and remote
- Hitmarker, games and esports, filterable by experience level
- Work With Indies, independent studios
- GameJobs.co
Animation and Visual Effects
- AWN Job Board, Animation World Network
- Visual Effects Society
- VFX Engine
Graphic Design and Illustration
- AIGA Design Jobs, the professional association board
- Coroflot
- Dribbble Jobs
- Behance Job List
Photography and Video
- ProductionHUB, crew and production listings
- Staff Me Up, film and television crew
- Mandy
- JournalismJobs
Fine Art, Calls and Residencies
- CaFÉ, open calls from galleries and art organizations
- NYFA Jobs
- Submittable Discover
- Arizona Commission on the Arts
Agencies and General Boards
- Aquent, creative staffing
- Creative Circle, creative staffing
- Indeed, the largest volume and the most reposts
A substantial amount of studio and agency work is filled through staffing agencies and never appears on a public board.
Reading a Posting
- A requirements list describes an ideal, not a threshold. Employers list everything they would want in a perfect candidate. That candidate does not exist. People are hired without meeting every item.
- A posting that contradicts itself is telling you about the employer, not about you. An entry-level position asking for five years of experience is a badly written posting.
- Read three postings for the same kind of role before you choose one. The software and skills that appear in all three are the real requirements.
- Record the pay if it is stated. If it is not, research the typical range before you evaluate the opportunity.
Example
“Junior Motion Designer, Struck Agency, Salt Lake City. They want After Effects, Cinema 4D, Redshift, and someone who can concept rather than only execute.
Strengths: I have After Effects and Cinema 4D from AVC183, and my Module 4 title sequence shows both. I can point to three finished pieces.
Weaknesses: I have never used Redshift, and my portfolio shows finished work only, no concept or process.
Plan: Redshift, I will work through the Greyscalegorilla Redshift for Cinema 4D series over the next month and re-render my Module 4 project with it. Process work, starting with my next project I will photograph my sketchbook pages and post boards, and add a process section to every portfolio piece before I graduate.”
Rubric
| Criteria | Points |
|---|---|
| A real opportunity, confirmed on the employer’s own site, with its requirements identified | 1 |
| Strengths named, with specific work cited as evidence | 1 |
| Weaknesses named honestly | 1 |
| A specific, named plan to close each gap before graduation | 1 |
| Substantive responses to three classmates | 1 |
How to Submit
Upload a screenshot of your Discord post and your three responses.