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"Digital Artist Management"

Nilium
polycounter lvl 18
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Nilium polycounter lvl 18
Anyone ever heard of these folks? I just got an e-mail from them claiming to be interested in helping me. However, there are some details about the e-mail that seem suspect to me. The one that sticks out the most, however, is this:

[ QUOTE ]
I am familiar with your background [..]
Are you still employeed in the games Industry?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have a background in game development. I've never been employed by anyone and I'm still underage. If someone were to be familiar with my "background," they would know this.

So, if anyone has heard of them and knows whether or not this is BS, I'd appreciate the info.
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  • cholden
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    cholden polycounter lvl 18
    They are for real. They can help place people, but once they know you exist, they'll spam the crap out of you. They helped me find a new job around 5 years ago when I was in a bit of a pickle. Since then they've regularly confused me with other people and have come on with too much pressure (too forceful). Them placing you = them getting money.
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  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    Yeah, DAM is for real. And as Cholden as said, they spam the holy hell outta ya. I've had people from DAM calling me for the past 5 years. And each time I'm like "no thanks, I'm happy where I'm at". They are like telemarketers. Relentless frown.gif
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  • Josh_Singh
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    Josh_Singh polycounter lvl 18
    yeah, They can be usefull, but if your portfolio is strong you are better off doing it yourself.
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  • Nilium
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    Nilium polycounter lvl 18
    Interesting. I think I'll just keep them in the back of my head for now, since I don't want a job doing art for "next-gen consoles." (As they put it.)
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  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    How do get ahold of your information initially, and if they are so annoying, which companies use them?
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  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    They piss me off, but then so do most recruitment companies.
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  • cholden
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    cholden polycounter lvl 18
    They are in the people industry (headhunters). It’s there job to scour the internet finding people. They post job offers here and on many other forums all the time. I’ve even been at places where (not sure if it was DAM) would get the number of a company, and start dialing all the extensions to find out who everyone was, and if they were interested in working somewhere else.

    They often work for big companies with a high turnover rate or new companies that want to staff up real fast.

    As ghost_rider said, if you've got a good portfolio or if you already know people at a company you don't need them
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  • Malekyth
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    Malekyth polycounter lvl 18
    Hey, me too! Someone from DAM emails me once a year or so, and I have to delete their newsletter every month, but it's not really intense spam -- just not something I intend to ever do again. They weren't able to place me, and indeed probably set me back a bit (by sending out an earlier version of my portfolio ... ugh).

    If you're twitchy about applying for jobs yourself, then recruiters have a use. I've heard that some companies (EA?) prefer to hire certain positions (art directors?) through recruiters. No idea if that's true. In general though, I wouldn't recommend them -- you have access to the same jobs pages that they do, they don't seem to really have the close personal friends in the industry that they say they do, and anyway it costs the hiring company a chunk of money if you come through a recruiter so it's not exactly an incentive.
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  • parasyte7
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    parasyte7 polycounter lvl 18
    Hey Noel,

    There was a huge discussion on Recruiters in this thread:

    http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=135699&an=0&page=6#Post135699

    I am currently a Recruiter for my day job. I can see where we can be really annoying wink.gif, but not all recruiters are the same...read that thread for explanations.

    They are legit however, it is strange that they contacted you since we can really only help people with industry experience since companies pay us a premium to find top talent.


    Here are some Pluses and Minuses:

    + Definitely get your resume seen by the Hiring Manager usually within 48 hours, not just HR.

    + 50% of the jobs we have are not advertised and that is how companies justify not advertising and paying our fees. Advertising sometimes turns up no results and we definitely provide results. Sometimes we get exclusives but sometimes we get a month or 2 head start since the job advertisement could reveal top secret information. For example, say Nintendo is looking for an Xbox 360 programmer.....that reveals that Nintendo is making Xbox games, and they want to secretly make Xbox games without getting the word out. So it is true, we do get exclusive searches.

    + We redo your Resume, coach you for your interview, and help negotiate salary for you. Like Baseball agents, we will get the most and really fight since the more you make the more we make.

    - Some recruiting firms can blanket your resume around and really hurt you. Once your resume is on file with a company, they can not hire you for a year or they will have to pay the recruiter a fee.

    If a Recruiter is constantly contacting you, just have them remove your name from their database. Simple as that. If they contact you again go to the President of the company or contact Peer-Org.com which is an organization that helps with funky game recruiting practices.

    Biggest word of adviCe: INTERVIEW YOUR RECRUITER AND MAKE SURE YOU TRUST THEM!!!!

    Hope that clarified some things.

    By the way Noel, haven’t spoken to you in forever, how are things going wink.gif
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  • parasyte7
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    parasyte7 polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    How do get ahold of your information initially, and if they are so annoying, which companies use them?

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Pretty much every Game Company uses Recruiters. Don't let anyone bullshit you. I would say 95% of companies use them or have internal recruiters. It is standard with all industries, period. Management will usually tell workers to not talk to them yadda yadda, but hen they use us to get a VP/CEO position at another firm. It is common practice.
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  • Nilium
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    Nilium polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    By the way Noel, haven’t spoken to you in forever, how are things going

    [/ QUOTE ]

    All's well so far -- just focusing on my edumacations mostly. Trying to get housing on campus for next year, but it's kindof hard given that it's mostly a waiting game.

    What about you, aside from the day-job? I heard Parasytic Moon went through some rough times with Dissonance. Had a lot of top talent on that project, hope it wasn't all for nothing on that initial run.

    [ QUOTE ]
    They are legit however, it is strange that they contacted you since we can really only help people with industry experience since companies pay us a premium to find top talent.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Probably desperate enough that I start looking good. XD
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