It’s a new year, and a new decade so in honor of that, we are starting something new here as well. HOORAY! Welcome to the inaugural edition of a new blog here on the Insomniac Games website, called “Baker’s Dozen”! First – let me introduce myself- I’m Angela Baker – the HR Generalist/Recruiter/cat-herder here in the Burbank office, and I will be the primary voice/sanity check for this space. A little bit about me- I’ve been with Insomniac for 3+ years now, and before that I was at G4TV, a major publisher, and major talent agency.

 

I have always worked in HR, and have seen some CRAZY things happen- some in a good way- getting caught up in a Royal Family members security detail (good) and some not so great- seeing friends (and myself) go through layoffs. The idea behind this blog is to share what info I and the whole team here have on subjects like:

 

• What to include on a resume

• What to put on a reel (or to have a totally awesome reel)

• What’s the difference between an internship and a co-op

• Interview attire

• Why “sexybeast@gmail “ is not really a great email address when looking for a job

• Why or why not attend game conferences

• Why companies send out tests

• Are game colleges hooey

• Why 6% of our company got engaged over the weekend

• What hiring managers are looking for, etc…

 

There is tons of stuff to cover – and we are going to try and cover all of it. Some of it will be serious info, some not so serious, and other bits will be downright useless (but only in a funny “makes me say huh?” way). I hope you find the info helpful, insightful or at least mildly entertaining.

 

I have to be honest- I’ve never done anything like this – I usually shy away from having anything written and then sent out into the blogosphere – but I think there is a lot of good and bad info out there, and it’s important to be part of the dialogue. So here we go!

 

Before I forget – if you have any questions, feedback, or just want to comment on whatever nonsense you think I’m sharing – your space is here. You can also shoot an email to bakersdozen@insomniacgames.com and I’ll hit you back with a response- but be kind – I did admit to being new to all this.

 

The first topic I’ll tackle here is a basic one – and an easy one. It’s about email addresses and outgoing voice mail messages when looking for a job. My two cents on the whole situation is this: You want to get hired. You want to appear as capable and hardworking as possible. Having an email address that is “golddigger@yahoo” or “iseenakedpeople@aol” is not really what you want to project. Ditto for voicemail messages. Screaming into the phone and saying “YO YO YO playa …whatz up?” is not really what I want to hear either when calling you about coming in for an interview or to ask for references. I suggest (and I did do research on this – so thanks to the other recruiters I talked with!) that for the purposes of job hunting – you select an email address that is yourname@hotmail or firstinitiallastname@aol, etc… just something simple, to the point, and easy to identify. Use it just for job hunting. Again – ditto for the voicemail- “Hi, you’ve reached John, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you”… much easier to digest and listen to.

 

Then once you have the job, be my guest to have whatever you want for an email address and voicemail message– the crazier the better…

 

More to come in the following months- and looking forward to the conversations to come!