The Games Game April 2009

Reply Frustrations (April 2009)

Hi Tom,
I've sent scores of job applications all over the place. Yet I can count the number of replies I've received on the fingers of one hand. What on earth is wrong with all these companies, why don't they reply? It's the courteous thing to do. Sorry, just had to rant.

Thanks

Frustrated

Dear Frustrated,
Since we're having a happy ranting party, let me join in. I work part time for a small development company, and one of my duties is to handle job applications. I get on average 2 or 3 applications a day. And I tell you, some of the dumb things applicants do...!

My biggest pet peeve is dumb résumé filenames. Every week I get at least a couple of résumés named "resume.doc" or "resume.rtf." Let's say I want to look for John Doe's résumé in my applications folder. Tell me, how'm I supposed to know to open "resume.doc"?

Not only that. As soon as I download and save a resume.doc, it overwrites the last resume.doc (which overwrote the resume.doc before that). Kind of like Leela's pet, Nibbler, on Futurama. You open this big folder expecting to see all these résumés in there, and there's just one... because it ate all the others.

Oh, and how about those emails that say "see cover letter and résumé, attached." Dude. The email IS your cover letter!

We're a small company, not in a position to pay relocation expenses for candidates from out of town. We want to be able to hold interviews at a moment's notice, and might want a candidate to start working right away. So our ads clearly state that we only consider applicants who live in our local area.

So if I get 3 applications in a day, I'm lucky if even one of them is local. Of the 3, one is always from out of state and another is always from the other side of the planet. Then if I write to the out-of-area applicant and give him or her our standard polite "thanks but we only consider local applicants," I find that I suddenly have a new friend.

My polite reply was a rejection, not an invite to be pen pals! But do they get that? No-o-o-o! "Wow, cool, you really replied! So what's up with the Florida hating?" or "Oh but I'm willing to relocate..."

Or even try to figure out where the applicant lives -- his address is not in his résumé. Apparently the latest advice to everybody is "don't put your actual address in your résumé." I don't know who's giving out all this advice, but he's not my friend.

Look, you have to be smart. Name your résumé intelligently (put your name in the filename). Put your cover letter into the body of your email (not as a separate attachment). Don't send applications to faraway companies if the ad says locals only. And don't go ranting on the Internet when you don't get a reply from some overworked HR guy.

Tom Sloper's game biz career began over twenty years ago at Western Technologies, where he designed LCD games and the Vectrex games "Spike" and "Bedlam". There followed stints at Sega Enterprises, Rudell Design, Atari Corporation, and Activision. In 12 years at Activision, Tom produced 36 unique game titles (plus innumerable ports and localizations), designed four games, and won five awards. Tom worked for several months in Activision's Japan operation, in Tokyo. He is perhaps best known for designing, managing and producing Activision's "Shanghai" line. He is currently consulting, writing, speaking, teaching, and developing original games. Find out more at Sloperama.

© 2009 Tom Sloper. All rights reserved.