Get recruited in a recession: gain an upswing in your career during an economic downturn.(Recruitment)

Competition is fierce in computer graphics. Everyone wants to be part of the next groundbreaking, breathtaking hit and responsible for the greatest eye-catching computer graphics and visual effects in film, television, gaming, or the Web. That's not really news. What is making daily headlines, however, is the economic recession. Today, we hear daily reports of the plunging US dollar, increasing layoffs, and unstable oil prices. So what will the summer bring for a new class of ambitious graduates eager to find or make their niche in the industry? Truth be told, qualified applicants today outnumber industry job vacancies.

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"The economic downturn has made more applicants available, giving us the ability to select from a large pool of resources," acknowledges Jeff Rothberg, president and co-founder of Future Media Concepts (FMC), a digital media training center. A boon for recruiters, this fact can present a challenge for recruits. Industry veterans--the recruitment and human resources professionals who interview you from across their desks--offer advice on how to best render yourself "recession-proof."

Portfolio Perfection

"In a competitive market, it is more important than ever to get the basics right," says Vic Rodgers, HR manager at Double Negative (www.dneg.com), a full-service visual effects facility in London. "Ensure that your show reel is working hard for you: There should never be any excess or diluted work that will detract from the main event, which, for us, should be the first 15 seconds of any reel. Continue to update your reel, he says. And if you have left college, don't stop there. Keep working on things and adding them to your reel. "The VFX world moves fast, and it's good to see that you are keeping pace."

"The most important thing is having a solid demo reel," says Kraig Docherty, director of talent strategy and acquisition at Blue Castle Games (www.bluecasdegames.net). A full-service, third-party publisher/independent developer in Vancouver, British Columbia, Blue Castle Games more than doubled in personnel, in 2008, adding 80 staffers. New graduates tend to include all their material---everything they did from the first day of school through graduation--on their five-minute demo reel; rather, he points out, the demo reel should be a representation of their best work. "I would rather see a one-minute demo reel of their best work," he admits, "than five minutes of everything they were learning throughout their education."

Docherty also encourages candidates to stop casting a very wide net. Demo reels often include a wide array of projects and elements, making it difficult to discern what the artist is interested in. It's important, he says, to get a sense of what they want to do or what their passion is for example, concept art, character animation, and so forth--and to ensure that their reel demonstrates their best work. "I cannot stress that enough," he adds.