Salary is Highly Dependent on Years of Experience

It has been increasingly known that negotiation, rather than sheer talent, is the main factor in a person's pay at a job. Recently, I had an interview with a company and received an offer from them, and accepted! One thing that should be noted is that I made sure to negotiate as much as possible for my salary, but looking back it has become clear that negotiation only goes so far. It must be paired with years of experience, to determine your final offer and salary. Sure, some people have tons of experience and are not talented, but the studio won't know that at the time, until they hire you. They're interest in you in based mostly on the studios you worked for.

This is like attracted a hot date with the clothes you wear or your physical appearance. What determines if you will have a chance with that date in the future, or "get lucky" with the studio, is if they feel confident in your abilities when they give you the in-person interview with the team. Once they like you, are confident in you, then they will craft a salary based on your years of experience and how bad they feel they need you (this is mostly based on your leverage: having a current job and how hard you negotiate).

I wanted to release this post, because I have worked with too many people in the past who have complained that they did not get a big enough annual raise, or deserve more pay from the start. Checking glassdoor.com constantly, I, myself, have been aiming for at least the average pay for a listed position at a studio (if I were to work there). What you have to take into consideration, though, is the experience level of the team at each studio. Studios that do not pay well have a large number of rookie employees. They are tilting the scale to the bottom. Younger employees also usually negotiate less for their salary and do not have a first job to leverage their new offer. Thus, it is hard to tell this, being an outsider, but one of the main ways to see this is the company reviews on Glassdoor. If there are many people complaining about how low the pay is for a studio, it is guaranteed that the business strategy of the studio is to save money and not hire the "best talent," but to take a chance on candidates straight out of college.

An "Artist" at Valve gets paid an average of $83,000, while an Artist at Disney Interactive Media only will earn $61,000 per year (I say "Artist" at Valve, because they do not use titles like Environment vs. Character, or Lead vs. mid-level, for that matter). I personally know that Disney's strategy is to hire low-cost employees, because they don't focus on games as much as they do for their theme parks, toys, and movies. Thus, the number of years of experience is not taken into account, but is a very important fact to know. Valve only hires people who have tons of experience and have worked for the most prestigious studios. Sure, some prodigy who is more highly talented that people who have had more experience may get in and make that same pay, also, but for the majority of employees it is obvious, through conversations with employees who work there and checking our their LinkedIn profiles, that they are basically the rockstars of the industry.

It would be nice for Glassdoor to segment the salary information based on the experience level of employees. I also surmise that many people are lazy and just choose an existing job title instead of entering their own. So, an associate Artist may want to emotionally consider themselves as mid-level, so they will add their salary to the general Artist's salary, instead of created a new title that may not be existant on Glassdoor yet, for Associate level at that particular studio. There are also contract/hourly employees vs. full-time/salary. There are many options to consider, but what I have been noticing lately is that the cost of living in an area is irrelevant to the average salary a company pays. Someone working in the San Francisco Bay Area--the most expensive area in the US right now,--who works for Glu Mobile, will get paid much less than someone who works for id Software (where someone could buy five houses for the price of one in the Bay Area). This is because everyone who works for id has at least five years of experience and is senior-level, even if their job title is not specifically "senior" yet.

What I am trying to get at here is that do not be upset if your job offer is less than you expected based on your comparison with one of the top AAA studios in the industry. Everyone has to start somewhere, and there is a place for everyone. The best method is to go to Glassdoor, of course, but also download the Annual Game Developer, from Gamasutra: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2014/09/05/GAMA14_ACG_SalarySurvey_F.pdf. This report will tell you the range that you should expect based on your years of experience. You should also look at your linkedIn profile and add up the amount of years you have worked in the industry, and do not expect to breakthrough to the next tier until you are within six months of the experienced required (i.e. If you have 2.5 years of experience, you can expect to be paid a little lower than the average of 3-6 years). Just make sure that before you start interviewing with a company and throwing around desired salary figures, that you know your years of experience and use this as leverage when talking to the recruiter or HR manager.

Happy hunting!

-Ken

New Tutorial Series from Professional Artist Jonathan Armstrong

Not too long ago, the book information for How to Get a Job in Video Games was updated to include my co-author and partner in crime. His name is Jonathan Armstrong, and he is another environment Artist working in the video game industry. Well, there is a new tutorial that he just released and I would like to share this information with everyone. These tutorials should be useful for the artists out there who are looking to upgrade their skills. This is the link to the video, and also another link for his personal website:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=didXPfuOMK0

www.jonarm.com

As always, expect any game-industry related updates from me. That includes anything from interviews to news articles to tutorials. Until next time. Enjoy!

-Ken

Book Discount for GDC 2016!

GDC 2016 in San Francisco is just around the corner. To celebrate this important event in the game development community, I am selling the digital version of my book at a discounted price for the entire week of March 14th-18th. The price will be the lowest on Monday and raise each day until the end of the week, when the price will go back to it's original retail cost. The starting price will be just 99¢! Get the book here:

http://getavideogamejob.com/

If you are attending GDC this year, this book will be a great addition to your job seeking strategy. I highly recommend attending the career fair at the end of the week, and bring the book with you! Also, be prepared with business cards and a pen (to be able to write down contact information or name of people you meet). There is a student Expo pass, for Friday only, for the lowest GDC pass price of $79. You can buy them here: http://www.gdconf.com/attend/passes.html

Have a happy GDC!

-Ken

Introducing: How to Get a Job in Video Games, Now in Ebook Format!

The best book about gaining a sustainable and fulfilling career in Game Development just got better. This book was released three years ago and  has finally got its own ebook from the publisher, MODogma. Now, more people than ever will be able to enjoy the priceless information of this volume and at the convenience of reading anywhere. Also, the ebook version is much cheaper! So, if you want to boost your progress and get hired faster than other students or colleagues for your next game developer job, now is the time to do it. Check back next month for a special offer discount on the Kindle Edition.

Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0985377801

-Ken

Quick Advice from EA

I got a post on LinkedIn recently from someone I used to work with at Disney, who now works for EA in Los Angeles. It is an article from an HR representative at EA giving basic advice for people who may not know why they are not getting contacted back from HR. It is an insightful article and Carrie points out that if you want someone to add you on LinkedIn, you must write an introduction statement in your comment section. This is also advice that I provide in my book, which is covered more in-depth.

I have been getting at least two emails per week from people living in other countries (namely, India) and also many local job seekers who quickly and half-halfheartedly click the "add contact" button and think that is enough to get me to accept their invitation on LinkedIn. The more emails I get, the more strict I am about who I add on my LinkedIn network. I am not being rude, I just want to reward those who understand that in order to get someone's attention you have to show that you care about who they are and realize that they don't know you. It is similar to men asking for a girl's phone number in public without even saying hello first. Is she going to say "yes"? Of course not! So, you should be spending time writing thoughtful introductions and complimenting someone on their work or the company they work for, etc. It only has to be two sentences long, but it shows you are a real human on not just someone with a finger that can push a button. Not a lot of people know about this tactic, apparently, and my email inbox in proof. So, if you want to get real results in your job search, start writing thoughtful introduction emails and make sure they are directed at someone who has a potential of helping you get hired (don't send a LinkedIn contact request to an artist if you are a programmer).


The article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/interested-ea-here-couple-tips-carrie-fowler?trk=hp-feed-article-title-comment

-Ken

A Simple Truth About HR Managers

I was talking to a colleague this morning, and I had discovered that his wife is an HR manager. I made the joke saying "well, you must know all the tricks then! You probably don't have any problems finding a job!" He agreed that his wife had helped him out with his job search, and that when they were first dating that she had revealed to him all of the information that he would need to know to be successful in his job search. What he said next blew my mind.

He revealed only one trick to use during the interview process, but it is very important and is probably one of the easiest and most important things you can do to establish your personal well being. He said that when you are asked to reveal your previous salary, that you should never tell the HR manager how much you actually made but inflate it by $10,000, because they are not going to go and research that anyway. This is especially true if you are having to relocate to somewhere more expensive, and may not be effective or even realistic to inflate this amount if you are staying local. Personally, I used to have a moral disagreement with this tactic, and have even mentioned, in my book, that an old friend used this strategy. Recently, though, I have read articles on glassdoor where very high-ranking individuals consider this when they are looking to change jobs and inflate their previous salary, in hopes of getting that from their new employer. After hearing this from the colleague today at work, then I have now come to realize that this is an essential method to negotiation, instead of just being a liar. Through all of my fairly-recent job interviews, I have noticed HR managers getting upset when you try to ask for more money than you are currently making, and they try to argue that if you move to a more expensive area then it will cost you the same as any other area, regardless of how inexpensive your recent area had cost. I feel this must be because they are anticipating job applicants to lie about how much they previously made and do not want to give them one more cent than that amount, since it is an inflated "raise" anyway.

Remember, this is intimate advice straight from an HR manager's mouth. No matter how much you may read on hiring websites about being honest in your interview or that if you lie about your salary then you may get caught, don't believe it. Most companies don't even want employees sharing with each other their own salaries. This is because it creates more problems for the company when those same employees get upset, smart, and start asking for more fair pay. At the end of the day, a salary is extremely arbitrary and subjective anyway. The company rarely pays the most talented employee the most based solely on their talent.

I recently worked for Microsoft and the most talented employee on the team, who was writing tutorials for other employees and taking on the most high-profile work, was actually getting paid the least of any of the other team members. He drove in a modest and junky car and had a defeatist attitude and felt that "that's just the way the world works and it sucks." A more junior member on the team was making almost $20,000 more than him, just because he had the courage to ask for more during his interview and was stubborn and was not going to settle for less, and he bench-marked his estimate with someone else who worked locally.

The trick is, you have to be completely nice and politely while rejecting HR's initial salary offer and also stand firm to how much you are willing to be paid. If you start getting defensive and try to argue a point, they will think you are too aggressive and instantly not give you an opportunity. This is why lie/inflating your salary is so important: because you will still come across as seeming nice and not have to worry about fighting too hard for an actual salary that you deserve and they will think that they are able to low-ball you without you taking their wallet from them.

I hope these anecdotes really open your eyes and motivate you to not just accept the first offer that is dropped into your lap by HR. They are professionals and making you feel like they are really paying you the most they possibly can and that it is actually painful to them, but don't believe it. Think of them as used car sells people. If HR is telling someone they care about to "inflate", then they should not get defensive when everyone else does it also. It is the way to make the most of your career and will allow you to have a more enjoyable lifestyle.

-Ken

How to Get a Precise Salary Estimate for Your New Job - Pt. 2

Following up with my last article on negotiating your salary once you have been given an offer, I will discuss further the best method for estimating your target salary.

First of all, factoring in cost of living differences and moving to a different state drastically changes the salary figures for your job title. Essentially, you will want to become an expert with each of the major hub states for the game industry, and understand why they pay what they do and what type of living conditions you can expect. For example, you may get paid more in California, but you will not have a good chance to own a home and will have to pay state tax out of your income. The pay here is actually lower than what you should be making, but it is the standard, since there is more competition in this area and all of the big publishers want to live here because it is one of the most desirable states to live in. On the other hand, you will have a decent opportunity to own a home and not have to worry about state tax in Texas, but you may not like the hotter weather or the lack of activities when compared to coastal cities.

Secondly, you must understand that each website calculates it's cost of living comparison differently. Perhaps the worst one to use is the "quick and dirty" tool that is provided by CNN money: http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/. This tool is great if you quickly want to get a very rough estimate of the differences of housing prices between many cities, and you can click a quick drop-down menu to switch between them. The reason this tool is bad, is because it is mainly basing salary on housing cost. There are a lot of factors that skew housing prices exponentially, such as multiple people living in a house, or stretching their budgets, or foreign home investors with lots of personal capital that drive up the prices. You will want to use a technique that is more custom-tailored and in-depth, and I will show you what to do.

The first step in calculating your perfect salary is to go to glassdoor.com. This site is fairly new and there are always new salaries added and for every game studio imaginable. You can get a good average by checking the studios in the city you are planning on relocating to. Understand, though, that some studios do pay a premium since they attract some of the hottest talent and have the biggest budgets because of their successful games. Naughty Dog and Valve are perfect examples. They don't hire huge teams, and are known to take their time with games, and every game they release is a huge hit. Small and more unknown studios are known to pay less because they are not established and know that they would not be able to hold someone with very high talent for very long. This will probably be your first break into the industry, so you can expect to be paid on the lower end of the average pay of studios in a given area. Glassdoor does not easily point out someone's experience level, so you should also base the salary range on their to be targeted to someone more mid-level, as this is the experience level that a majority of develops will have.

The second step in computing your salary, and this one is my favorite, is to use the Cost of Living Wizard from Salary.com: http://swz.salary.com/CostOfLivingWizard/LayoutScripts/Coll_Start.aspx. The reason this tool is so powerful is because it will show you the salary you are required to own a home in a city (like the CNN Money figure), and then it will show you the amount that studios actually pay, which is a lot more accurate. So, if you are moving from Seattle to San Francisco, you will notice that the pay you are required to have the same standard of living (i.e. owning a home or renting an apartment) in San Francisco may be 40% more than Seattle, but the amount that employers are actually paying is only about 20% more. Generally, the more expensive the city you are moving to, the less you will be compensated when related to the actual cost of living. Thus, the first figure is a good reference but essentially useless, and you should be using the second figure. I have used this website a few times and it has turned out to be highly accurate. This technique is more helpful to someone who has already had a job in the industry before, but you can basically use a figure from glassdoor.com as a good starting salary.

Also, always ask around to your friends and industry contacts. Talking about salary is scene as taboo with your current coworkers, but it is something that is important and should be discussed or else companies will start taking advantage of employees. The best time to ask for a coworker's salary is when they are leaving to work somewhere else or their contract has ended. You have to be on a high trust level with this person, which should be obvious, but if you ask when you both are going separate ways there is no chance of feeling resentment or comparison when on the job with them. If you ask too late after you have lost contact with them, it will seem like an awkward conversation topic.

Whenever you have a figure from both websites, you can take the average of the two, and this will be your target number to aim for (remember that you may need to select a salary on the lower-end of the spectrum for glassdoor. If the studio you are applying for is directly listed, with your job title, on glassdoor, then you should definitely run with that figure...especially if it is a studio that is known to not pay well. You should be able to notice this in the complaints about the company, on the same web page.). With this target salary, you should create a negotiating window of $10,000. Thus, if you are expecting to be compensated at $65,000, you should tell your prospective employer that you have done your research and feel that a range of between $60,000 and $70,000 would be fair compensation based on your level of experience and job title.

One last point to mention: If you are receiving exceptionally high compensation at your current job, and you are living in a more affordable city, there is a slim chance that you will actually be converted to the same quality of pay in a more expensive city. Each studio has their limits, and if you are already stretching the limit at your current studio, it will be a hard to expect the same at the new employer. You will be getting a raise in salary but will be taking a pay "cut" at the same time. Alternatively, if you are moving from a more expensive city, it is always easier to argue a case for a highest-tier salary in a less expensive city. You will still be taking a pay cut, but since your salary was way more than anything the new studio can fulfill, they will want to try and impress you and give you the most they are able to afford. This is why, in my opinion, it is beneficial to work in the most expensive city that you can, because you can always fall back on another city and don't have to try as hard when negotiating.

I hope that this has been informative and that you are now confident in your application process and are able to sell yourself as a more serious candidate that has done their homework and knows what to expect in their job.

-Ken