Most Careers Don’t Start in Dream Jobs
How to Build the One You Want From the Job You Already Have
Most game devs don’t land in their dream role first. Most land somewhere fine. Somewhere good enough. Somewhere that was the offer on the table at the time.
What happens next is usually decided not by the next job, but by what you do inside this one. In June, Barbara Dawson came to OGDA and walked 15 of us through seven moves you can run from inside the job you already have.
About the Speaker
She’s spent close to 30 years across animation and VFX as a Producer, Manager, Recruiter, and Educator. She’s an Expert in Residence at OGDA, runs her own recruiting agency, and has hired into and out of studios like Pixar and Lucasfilm. She’s seen what makes careers compound. She’s also seen why most of them don’t.
Talk to Leadership First
The single piece of advice that ran through almost every other section of her talk: people in your studio can’t help you build the career you want if you never tell them what you want.
Barbara has lost talented people from her own teams because she was still working out a promotion plan when they quit. They never said anything; she never got to say anything. The timing just never met.
That’s the default outcome when nobody talks. The smart move is to make the timing meet on purpose. Go to your supervisor. Tell them where you want to be.
If you sit at your computer and you don’t let people know what you want or what you need, it’s going to be very hard for them to help you with your career.
Reach Out Anyway
The mentor question came up four or five times. Barbara’s answer was direct. The worst a stranger can do is not answer. The next worst is say “thanks, not right now.” Neither one will end your career.
What can slow your career, quietly, is being unwilling to ask. LinkedIn is built for this. Most people on it have an email address listed.
The mentor you reach out to doesn’t have to be the most famous person in your discipline. Often the better choice is someone one step ahead of where you are, someone whose recent path you can actually copy.
Your Superpower Is Closer Than You Think
A common question: what if my superpower isn’t actually unique? What if everyone around me is just as good at it?
That doesn’t matter. Studios don’t hire the single best person in a discipline. They assemble teams of well-rounded people who do different things well and get along. A studio runs on a puzzle of skills, not a stack of stars.
Flexibility is a leadership skill. If you’re not willing to try something differently inside your own job, how would you do it at a new one?
If you want to find yours, look at the work you actually like doing. That’s usually the work you’re either already good at or motivated to get better at.
Predictability Earns Back Your Evenings
The last move, and the one that most surprised the room, was about work-life balance. Barbara’s framing: be predictable. Log on at the same time. Log off at the same time. Communicate often during the day.
The reason it works isn’t about hours. It’s about trust. When people learn when you’re available, they stop sending you 10pm messages. The predictability buys you the protected evenings and weekends most of us are quietly losing.
The Short List
The moves Barbara recommends running from inside the role you have right now: Talk to your supervisor about where you want to be next. Ask what skills you’d need before they’d consider you for it. Find a mentor one step ahead of you, not three steps. Watch the people you respect; ask them what they do under the hood.
Train someone else in the part of your job you don’t want forever. Volunteer at industry festivals; you’ll meet people you can’t meet from the audience. Leave work at work. Don’t be available at midnight.
Barbara has been in this industry long enough to have watched several cycles of layoffs. She’s seen which people land on their feet and which ones don’t.
If you make great connections where you are doing what you’re doing right now, those people will take you with them when they go somewhere wonderful.
Relationships Outlast Layoffs
The pattern wasn’t talent. It was relationships. The people she had worked with who took her with them when they moved on, and the network she’d kept current the whole way through.
For anyone thinking about career development alongside project development, that part landed. Barbara is one of OGDA’s Experts in Residence, and her ongoing materials are available to Associate members through the member portal.
What’s Next?
Our July 2nd – Level Up Talk title is From Loops to Living Scores: Creating Interactive Music for Games presented by James Watkins from WatkinSoundMusic.
Keep an eye out for the event details on OGDA.ca or join us on the OGDA Discord Server