Why Animation Recruiters Live at LinkedIn

VIEW panel. From left: Amy Smith, Giorgio Xhaxho, Alex Williams, Tiffany Feeney, Angie Wojak

What do Animation recruiters look for from recent graduates?  How do they find fresh talent? At last week's VIEW conference in Turin I sat on a recruitment panel hosted by New York's School of Visual Arts (SVA) with two recruiters, Amy Smith from Framestore and Tiffany Feeney of Talent Outpost, an independent recruitment agency based in Switzerland.  Both of them had a lot to say on the subject of student demo reels, websites and how to be easy to find online. But most of all, recruiters want just one thing from animation graduates:

Be on Linkedin
Both Amy and Tiffany stressed the importance of students and recent graduates being on Linkedin, and also - most importantly - regularly updating their status.

Make your profile up to date
For recruiters, availability of talent is key. Are you looking for work right now, in a month's time, or three months? If you are looking for work, make sure you say you are available. If you know you will be free in a couple of months, say so.  Recruiters are often looking for talent to begin work on a project a few months down the road. It helps them a lot if your Linkedin profile states when you are likely to be free. Above all, Linkedin is "your brand", and you should treat it seriously.  As Tiffany put it "I live on Linkedin".

Be easy to find
Both Amy and Tiffany expressed frustration about how difficult it can be to contact talent. High on their list of irritations was password-protected demo reels (don't!), and websites with no contact details or email address. Be easy to find - don't make recruiters work hard to track you down.

How much are you worth?
Recent graduates often struggle to know how much money to ask for from an entry level job. Tiffany recommended payscale.com to compare pay rates from city to city.

She and Amy also mentioned glassdoor.com, which gives information on what companies pay. The advantage of this is, when you know what the going rate is for a job, you know what is a reasonable salary to ask for.

Zerply
Tiffany also recommended being on zerply.com (which styles itself the "invite-only community for people in Film & TV, Games & AR/VR"), which she described as "Linkedin for the VFX Industry".

Turin's VIEW conference was a great experience. I've been working in the animation industry for 30 years, but I still learn new stuff every day. Conferences are an intense experience - sometimes you learn trade secrets just by overhearing a half-audible snatch of conversation in a bar. To take the pulse of the industry, nothing beats attending a conference or festival in person.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our new BA/MArt enrolling for September 2018, follow this link.   To apply, visit the offical page here.