Esteemed developer celebrates twenty years in the game sector - by reliving failed attempts at getting a foot in the door
A young Tim Schafer applied to work at Hewlett Packard so he could “masquerade as an engineer all day” while he wrote at night, applied for a “dream job at Atari” because they made “the greatest computer of all time”, and applied for a job with a firm that made “library cataloging software”. All his applications were rejected.
The revelations come via blog post by Schafer himself on the Double Fine Productions community site.
Now celebrating twenty years in the game industry, Schafer takes a trip through memory lane – particularly back to the time when he had a prodigious talent in failing job interviews.
Schafer, posting scans of rejection letters from some of the tech sector’s biggest companies, offers the young, aspiring game developers of today a simple message:
“Good luck! Don’t do what I did. It only worked in the 80s!”
Plenty more is available here
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Def. worth the click-through to Tim's page everyone. His hilarious job application graphic novel is great - a perfect example that for a 'creative' job you need to do something special to get noticed.
Re writing jobs - I gave someone an interview once because his fanzine was called 'Spitting from the Battlements' - he got the job.
It's a tricky fine line between fun and crass 'though. I had the casting vote once about whether to bin or interview an applicant who finished his letter off with, "I will be happy to meet you at your convenience - or if that is engaged, in your office."
I thought the style was spot on for Sinclair User - he got an interview and subsequently got the job :-)
