When I was trying to break into games, the majority of opportunities I was fortunate enough to receive, I found via Twitter first.
New to the industry, and new to Twitter
As a whole, the games industry primarily communicates via Twitter, and often, devs will share a range of events and opportunities within the community. We are great at circulating these posts to each other - but if you're new to Twitter and to the industry, it can be virtually impossible to work out how to find these chances. A new dev may not know who to follow, which tags to search, or how to utilise the platform efficiently, and so we are missing a chance to advertise to a whole group eager to network and find a job.
Saturation of Senior positions
Additionally, the games job market is saturated with easy to find advertisements for lead and senior roles, whilst entry friendly graduate or junior positions are scarce. So when these postings do arise, I believe it is vital that we make it as easy as possible for new starters to find and apply to these roles. If we don't create accessible opportunities and channels for people trying to enter the games industry today, how do we expect to fill and diversify those senior positions in the future?
Centralised entry-friendly opportunities and events
Opportunity List aimed to curate and centralise student, graduate, junior and mid level friendly posts onto one account, so it could be used as a jumping off point for budding devs signing up to Twitter for the first time. This was a community research project, so devs from all around the world kindly tagged the account in relevant posts. These spanned from official entry-level job postings made by studios, to small tweets made by devs looking for artists or assistants. Additionally, we specifically shared about indie game dev events, as these are often online or free, thus the most accessible and affordable for an up and coming developer.
Guiding budding game devs to entry + mid level opportunities + events in the games industry. Hosted by @tayadigital and @erindipper! ⭐ #gamejobs ➖ #gamedev
UK based, Global opportunities