What are the Top Warning Signs That It's Time to Get a New Job?

How do you know when it's time to start looking for a new job? 

I have done a lot of research with my colleagues and they have helped me come up with a list for you. All of these are good things to watch out for, but I want to make one thing clear: in the end, "the company" doesn't care about you or anyone else.

"The company" only cares about continuing its existence whether that is with or without you.

It's a harsh reality, but all employees need to keep that in mind. The best you can do is to keep your resume and LinkedIn profile up to date and ready to go. You're your own hiring manager. Be ready to look for a new position at any time.

Pay attention to these Warning Signals. 

• You recognize that you have maxed out reasonable opportunities for career growth, promotion, or salary increases.
• Your actual work assignments are putting you behind the curve in technology or tool use.
• Reductions in force happen, even if they don't hit you.
• Your team experiences widespread morale drop.
• Performance bonus plans are dropped, curtailed, or go unpaid.
• Your boss/manager/team lead leaves and his/her replacement is a jerk or starts in with a "Not Invented Here" mentality towards work previously done. I.e. your work can be replaced with less expensive talent.
• You find yourself assigned relatively meaningless tasks rather than the type of work you had been doing, even though your recent work has been otherwise praised.
• Formerly transparent seniors on your team suddenly seem to be having a LOT of meetings without sharing what is going on.
• Your performance review has obviously been crafted to expose you as this year's stack-ranking victim.
• Meetings are held by management with people attending who don't normally have meetings with those attending and no results of those meetings are shared. 
• Managers have trouble looking you in the eye. 
• People start to update their LinkedIn profiles and hiring freezes start. 
• Your boss starts taking phone calls at work and has to excuse themselves or talk quietly as they walk out for each call. 
• Managers take the mornings off or have extended lunches when they never really did before.
• There are two types of "when to quit" feelings. There is that nagging feeling of "is this the best I can do?" and then there is that "no way in hell am I going to violate my ethics."  
• In the game industry, one of the best ways to know it's time to update your resume is when they take away the free sodas. 
• When your company obviously values one department over another. i.e. programmers get large raises, public commendations, upward job mobility and other departments do not.

Honestly the best way to "get ready" is to ALWAYS BE READY.

How can I always be ready? That sounds crazy! 

It's not hard if you do a little each week. And you need to do this; there is no such thing as lifetime employment. You are the only one that is going to manage your career. YOU.

• Your resume should always be current.
• Your LinkedIn profile should also be current.
• Make sure to get LinkedIn recommendations as soon as you can get them. Don't wait until you're no longer employed there. 
• Continually add people to your LinkedIn network. Adding a bunch when you are unemployed looks desperate. 
• You should keep (legal) versions of any work you'll need for a portfolio. 
• All publicly viewable presentation / portfolio work should be put online regularly.
• Always have at least one interview outfit.
• Keep some PTO saved aside just in case of an interview.

What about you? Do you have any tips?
bjc

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Billy Joe Cain is an Executive Recruiter with Mary-Margaret Network (www.mary-margaret.com) and focuses on the video game industry. He has worked for Electronic Arts and started three game studios in Austin, TX. Since 1992, he has created games such as Wing Commander: Prophecy and SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman.

Please connect with him on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/billyjoecain

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When Should You Turn Down a Job Offer?

"No" is always an option.
You can also say "No, thank you."

I was recently asked a damn good question: "What are some reasons why a job seeker might turn down a job offer? When is it a good idea to turn down a job offer?"

I surveyed a lot of my friends and they helped me create this small list of their top reasons they would turn down an offer, or why they DID turn down a job offer. Here are the results.

TRUST YOUR GUT

By far, the biggest reason to turn down a job offer is a "gut feeling" that the job or company just isn't right for you. This can be due to the general feel of the office or the personalities you meet, the feelings you get from your potential manager, the organization or handling of the interview, or the company culture. 

THIS ISN'T WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR

Another good reason to turn down a job is when you find that the job is slightly different than what you thought you were applying for. This can indicate that the company has an overall lack of professionalism, shifts its expectations of their workforce, or even that management doesn't understand what the job requires.

QUALITY OF LIFE

How your work / life balance is going to be affected is very important. When you interview, remember that you are literally giving them the most precious thing you have, your time. They better be worth it.

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Billy Joe Cain is an Executive Recruiter with Mary-Margaret Network and focuses on the video game industry. He has worked for Electronic Arts and started three game studios in Austin, TX. Since 1992, he has created games such as Wing Commander: Prophecy and SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman.

Please connect with him on LinkedIn and mention you read his blog! www.linkedin.com/in/billyjoecain

​​Do You Need More Than One Resume?​ ​

​​Do you need more than one resume?​ ​Do you need to tailor your resume to the job you are applying for? Does just tailoring your cover letter do the trick?

Help the Hiring Manager
As a hiring manager, a custom resume is always a help to see how someone specifically fits the job role. The easiest way to get a hiring manager to cut to the chase is to make the resume tailor-fit to the role.

Why does a Hiring Manger Need Help From ME? 
Hiring managers have a lack of time to read between the lines. They may have a stack of other resumes that have been customized with specific details clearly delineated so they can match them to the job, and if your resume requires me to guess about your skills at all, you get tossed. 

There can be a disconnect between the job role and the resume's "soul." Your resume needs to emphasize your strength in that job specifically, not in the general career. We can tell if you really want it. Prove your interest in the job through your intent toward how you build your resume. Otherwise, you get tossed.

What if the Hiring Manager Isn't Reading Resumes First?
Often, an intermediary, such as a HR representative, is used to "filter" out the "obvious" resumes that aren't fits before they go to the hiring manager. The intermediaries are your biggest critics and the single biggest chance you will get tossed.

When your resume goes through an intermediary, this creates additional levels of communication breakdown. This can cause someone that is perfectly qualified to get tossed in the trash. 

Think about it from their point of view. They are trying to winnow down a huge stack to a manageable number, and they may be sorting through a huge stack of resumes. Make it easy to get in the "yes" or even the "maybe" pile. 

Top Reasons You Get Tossed Into the Circular File

• The intermediary may not understand the position or qualifications well enough to know how items on your generic resume are really relevant to the position.
• The intermediary may not understand what "equivalent experience" means to the hiring manager. Find a way to make equivalent experience match up with the job description. 
• The intermediary may be going down the job description top to bottom and if your qualifications are like "Where's Waldo?", they may give up looking. Make it easy to find the relevant parts. Ideally you can even reorder your resume to make it even easier.

Are Cover Letters Vital?
They are always a good idea, however these get lost in the shuffle. We don't want to admit it, but they do. 

When a resume is forwarded to a team of people that evaluate you as a candidate, cover letters are rarely given to the team and if they are, they are rarely read. Writing a cover letter is a clear way to stand out to the person that originally receives your resume, showing us that you cared enough about the position for you to write something special. 

Your cover letter needs to be special and specific. And it must be polite and humble. 

Cover letters are a way for us to see if you did your homework and understand the company and job, and see if you can write well. And if you write one poorly, guess what? You get tossed. 

Final Thoughts
You want this job. You want this salary. We want to hire someone that solves our pain. We are trying to make the best decision for us, and we're ready to spend a lot of money for it. You have one chance to get our attention to get us to BUY. Yes, this is a purchase. 

Think about it from our perspective... has that candidate seemed to care enough about your opening? Do they care about working here? Get someone else to pretend they are the hiring manager. Get someone else to pretend they are you, and you role play as the company representative. 

Get really serious about this. 

Then go back and edit your resume to make it custom. And if you have the guts, go after that cover letter. 

You can do it!

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Billy Joe Cain is an Executive Recruiter in the video game industry and has worked for Electronic Arts and started three game studios in Austin, TX. Since 1992, he has created games such as Wing Commander: Prophecy and SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman.

Please connect with him on LinkedIn and mention you read his blog! www.linkedin.com/in/billyjoecain

Researching a Company You Might Want to Work For

I work in high technology, and in particular, the video game industry. What's important to us is that we believe in the company itself and where it is heading. The best way to predict the future is to look at the past, so I recommend that people start at the beginnings of the company. And that they find out if they have had a track record of success, even including whether they adapted to failure. At that point, you can make an informed decision about their ability to succeed in the future. 

To do this, you need to do some very specific research. Most of this, you can do online, so I'll give you some guidance to get started.

Research their history.
Go to www.archive.org, and find the Wayback Machine. Take their current web URL (example: www.google.com) and enter it into the Wayback Machine. You can then go back in time to their prior website versions. You can then see how they changed and modified their website over time. In this way, you can find all the data you need. 

Research their culture.
Find their mission statement. Do they even have one? What does it mean to their company? Do they follow their mission? Does it shine through in their products?

Research their products and / or services.
Online. Offline. Experience them if you can. Read reviews if you can't. Do they create great products or services you would be proud to work on or provide? Would you be delighted to work there and be excited to wake up every day to go there and create magic?

Research their people by finding key names from their website.
Start with their company's web page, and then look at employees. Now, dig into LinkedIn.com. Look them all up. Dig around. How many other employees or ex-employees can you find? Check their dates of employment. What is their turnover like? How long do people work there at different levels of the company? Do the high level people stay around? What about the mid and lower level employees? Pay attention to the ones that are at or above your level. 

Research their location.
Are there other companies in the same field nearby? If you lose your job, will you be forced to move?

Research their future.
What direction is their CEO taking them? Do you want to go with them on that journey?

Conclusion
If you like what you see, write your resume to match their job description and be sure to take into account what you "feel" about the company when you do the re-write. And tell them why you're interested in the things you found in your research. The location, the products, the length of service of their employees. Whatever you can say that you truly believe. No lies. Ever. Best of luck to you!

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Billy Joe Cain is an Executive Recruiter in the video game industry and has worked for Electronic Arts and started three game studios in Austin, TX. Since 1992, he has created games such as Wing Commander: Prophecy and SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman.

Please connect with him on LinkedIn and mention you read his blog! www.linkedin.com/in/billyjoecain

How Do You Get A Video Game Studio Hiring Manager's Attention?

To answer that question, I'll tell you a story. It's about how I got my first job in the game industry. Maybe something here will spark something for you! 

While I'm not like most hiring managers, this is the kind of stuff that gets me intrigued enough to call someone in for an interview. 

Your mileage may vary.

In 1991, a friend of mine got a job at a video game studio called Origin Systems, and when I found out that was a real, honest to goodness career, I decided right then that was what I was going to do with my life.

After I was hired, I stayed on the team, Swing.bat.

My friend that showed me the light of the

industry, Steve, is at the bottom left. 

For the next year and a half, I was doing everything I could do to get their attention. I would come up and bring lunch or dinner for my friend, I would talk with everyone in the office, come in late to play games with his office mates, and even got on their company softball team because they were a man short!

When a job would come open that I was qualified for, I would be the first to apply. I was finally called in for one interview, but didn't get that position, so I decided to amp it up a notch for the next one, because I was determined to work there.

It's the wave of the future

They had an internal newsletter that was all about their projects and employees, and I had just gotten a new Mac at home (this was 1991) with desktop publishing tools, so I did a mock version of their newsletter "from the future," where I wrote stories about their current projects and how I helped them at pivotal moments to get them out the door.

This was, essentially, my resume.

I printed it on brightly colored paper and one night distributed it throughout the building.

They called me for the very next opening and I got the job. They had seen and loved my efforts and said they were looking for someone with that kind of fire, tenacity, and creativity. And having connections in the building was good, too, but that didn't help the first time, so I think that could have gone either way. The place was small at the time.

Finding a place where my creativity was appreciated changed my life.

Challenge yourself to find a way to get people's attention through a creative way to connect with the hiring managers. What have YOU tried?

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Billy Joe Cain is a gamification subject matter expert that has been providing gamification solutions to educational companies and game testing companies since 2010. 

Alongside his gamification consulting, he is an executive producer in the video game industry and has worked for Electronic Arts and started three game studios in Austin, TX. Since 1992, he has created games such as Wing Commander: Prophecy and SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman. 

Please connect with him on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/billyjoecain. Mention you read this blog for bonus points!

How Do You Get A Video Game Studio Hiring Manager's Attention?

To answer that question, I'll tell you a story. It's about how I got my first job in the game industry. Maybe something here will spark something for you! 

While I'm not like most hiring managers, this is the kind of stuff that gets me intrigued enough to call someone in for an interview. 

Your mileage may vary.

In 1991, a friend of mine got a job at a video game studio called Origin Systems, and when I found out that was a real, honest to goodness career, I decided right then that was what I was going to do with my life.

After I was hired, I stayed on the team, Swing.bat.

My friend that showed me the light of the

industry, Steve, is at the bottom left. 

For the next year and a half, I was doing everything I could do to get their attention. I would come up and bring lunch or dinner for my friend, I would talk with everyone in the office, come in late to play games with his office mates, and even got on their company softball team because they were a man short!

When a job would come open that I was qualified for, I would be the first to apply. I was finally called in for one interview, but didn't get that position, so I decided to amp it up a notch for the next one, because I was determined to work there.

It's the wave of the future

They had an internal newsletter that was all about their projects and employees, and I had just gotten a new Mac at home (this was 1991) with desktop publishing tools, so I did a mock version of their newsletter "from the future," where I wrote stories about their current projects and how I helped them at pivotal moments to get them out the door.

This was, essentially, my resume.

I printed it on brightly colored paper and one night distributed it throughout the building.

They called me for the very next opening and I got the job. They had seen and loved my efforts and said they were looking for someone with that kind of fire, tenacity, and creativity. And having connections in the building was good, too, but that didn't help the first time, so I think that could have gone either way. The place was small at the time.

Finding a place where my creativity was appreciated changed my life.

Challenge yourself to find a way to get people's attention through a creative way to connect with the hiring managers. What have YOU tried?

---------------------------

Billy Joe Cain is a gamification subject matter expert that has been providing gamification solutions to educational companies and game testing companies since 2010. 

Alongside his gamification consulting, he is an executive producer in the video game industry and has worked for Electronic Arts and started three game studios in Austin, TX. Since 1992, he has created games such as Wing Commander: Prophecy and SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman. 

Please connect with him on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/billyjoecain. Mention you read this blog for bonus points!