And what actually makes the difference.
Students and recent grads often ask me how to get started in games, or creative work more broadly. I tend to give the same answers, so I thought it was worth putting them in one place.
Show you can be flexible
People hiring for junior roles do not expect you to be an expert yet, even if they hope you’ll become one. What they do look for is adaptability: a willingness to pitch in wherever you’re useful, and enough curiosity to understand the disciplines of the people you’ll work alongside.
Prove what you can do, not just what you know
Qualifications can show what you’ve learned. They rarely show what you can actually do. If you want a first job, you need a way to demonstrate your skills and your intent in a form that’s easy for someone else to evaluate.
That usually means making something and showing it.
If you want to code
Make a game (or more than one) and get it in front of as many people as you can for feedback. The tool matters far less than the proof that you can build, iterate, and finish. Unity, Scratch, GameMaker, Construct 3, it’s all valid.
If you can, partner with an artist and sound designer to show you can collaborate. Or do it all yourself to show breadth. Nobody expects the art to be amazing, but they do expect something that works and is fun.
If you want to write
Write a simple premise, then use one of the many free text adventure tools to turn it into a playable thing. That lets you show creativity and an understanding of what goes into making a game beyond just words on a page.
If you want to make music or sound
Build a small portfolio across a few styles, then cut a 45 to 60-second reel you can share quickly whenever someone asks what you do.
Whatever you make, finish it
The most common mistake I’ve seen, from inexperienced and experienced people alike, is being too ambitious and never getting to the end. Start small. Ship something playable. You can always expand later if time and energy allow.
Put yourself out there (more than feels comfortable)
This could be LinkedIn, events, company contact forms, cold emails, or even knocking on doors.
One of the best bits of advice I ever got came from a lecturer at art college. He told me not to knock on doors asking for a job. Instead, knock on doors asking for ten minutes. The line he gave me went something like this:
“Hi, I’ve recently graduated and I was wondering if someone could spare me 10 minutes to tell me about what you do here?”
His point was simple. Creative people generally like talking about their work. If you ask the right question, you’re no longer an interruption, you’re an audience. And once you’re in the room, you get a much more natural second beat:
- You listen properly, ask a couple of decent questions, and let them explain how things actually work.
- At some point they clock they’ve no idea who you are, and they ask.
- That’s when you say: “I’ve just graduated in [discipline]. I’m trying to work out how to get my first job. I’ve got [my portfolio/showreel/prototype] with me if you’d like a look.”
I used that advice at the start of my career. I knocked on three doors:
- Apologised, said they were up against a deadline, and asked if I could come back another time.
- Brought me in and spent three hours walking me through what they did and how they worked, then wished me luck and said they’d bear me in mind.
- Made me a cup of tea, listened, looked at my portfolio, and offered me a paid internship starting the following Monday.
What stuck with me was not that I got lucky on the third try. It was how predictable the pattern was once you frame the interaction the right way. You’re not asking for a favour. You’re starting a conversation, showing you’ve done the work, and making it easy for someone to picture you turning up on Monday and being useful.
That internship turned into a salaried role a month later, a decent pay rise six months after that, and a job at a West End creative agency by the end of the following year.
If you take nothing else from this, take these:
- Make something small and finish it. Finished beats ambitious, every time.
- Package your work so it’s easy to share. A link, a reel, a build, a short write-up.
- Talk to humans early. Ask for ten minutes, not a job, and let the job emerge from the work.
None of this guarantees an outcome. What it does is shift the odds. It turns “I’d love a job in games” from a nice idea into a trail of evidence: finished work, real conversations, and a clear signal that you’re already doing the thing. And when someone is hiring for junior roles, that signal matters more than almost anything else.
