How to Reach Animation Recruiters

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 was invited onto a recruitment panel hosted by New York's School of Visual Arts (SVA). Also on the panel were 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. But most of all, it turns out that recruiters want one thing from animation graduates...

Be on Linkedin
Both Amy and Tiffany stressed the importance of students and recent graduates being on Linkedin. As Tiffany put it: "I live on Linkedin". Linkedin is where recruiters go to find talent, and find out what talent is now available - or will be available soon.  Above all, Linkedin is "your brand", and you should treat it seriously.

Make your profile up to date
Most importantly - you should regularly update your status. 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.

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".

---Alex

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days, take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK.