Animation Job Applications are a JOKE

It's the classic: "You need experience to get the job, but you need the job to get experience."

I think the best line Ive ever heard reguarding years of experience in a certain software was during a group interveiw. "10 years experience? Sir. I WROTE that software. Six years ago."

Job applications are a joke. You'd think that they'd get in trouble for false advertising for all the fake job posts there are.

It’s so frustrating because 95% of the jobs out there are verbal/word of mouth so applying to the ones you see online basically makes it more likely you’ll never get a callback 😢. Making friends and having social skills seems like more of a barrier of entry to getting an industry job than actual skills at this point

Animation isn't the only field where job applications are a joke.

I’ve been so worried i’ll go nowhere because i’m just starting out, barely have a portfolio or any social media following, yet i really want to get my foot in the door. Sometimes it feels like i’ll never get there or that everyone else is so much better than me. Thank you for this, this is exactly what I needed to hear

I daydream about starting a studio that uses only opensource software.

When I finished animation college, it was about 6 months away from the Great Recession. Companies were not willing to train due to either downsizing, relocating, or decalring bankruptcy. And this was a college that completely believed that 2D animation would becomes more 3d animation (but then my college shut down). After survivor jobs, I landed a graphic design role for 5 years in news media went to back to college for a different career, finished., landed a job in my field 6 months after and on my 3rd month... pandemic. My role was a computer tutorial at a government building, but because of covid's distance thing, I was eventually laid-off but was still under contract so I got paid until the end of Summer. My co-workers helped me with a job agency that paid for a college online program, finished, got a job as Video Editor/Graphic Designer/Motion Graphics Animator and I've been there since.

People writing the requirements nowadays seem to have no idea what they are actually asking for, or are seemingly are using some bot to write things... Because wow, I've seen dystopic levels of nonsense. I remember seeing a tweet for a job that required 5+ years of experience in a specific coding language... Then the creator of said language replied below that "unfortunately he couldn't apply because he only created the language two years ago". Lol. Becoming self employed was the best decision of my whole career as a game designer. Now I can actually make things that reflect exactly what I'm most skilled at, decide when and what for myself, pick which tools I'll use/learn and most of my profits go directly into my pocket. Takes a lot of time to manage everything, I constantly go to sleep feeling very tired ... But the satisfaction of not being just a cog for some idiotic upper management (with zero morals and no actual emotional investment in the market) to profit from my creativity is something else.

I remember a newspaper making fun of those companies by having a big title "Best candidates are young and dynamic preferably 18 years old applicants with 10 years experience"

Jobs that say stupid things like 5+ experience in blank when the only way to get those 5 years of experience is to already have the same qualifications they stated prior is just ridiculous. For example, I recently applied for an HR specialist role as I have sufficient study and experience in professions similar to said role, but because I don't specifically have 3 years of HR experience (yet can do all the functions required of the position), I didn't get it. So what's the point? I can only imagine how much more frustrating it must be for artists who are constantly denied these opportunities.

I had a hard time landing a job for about 2 years after graduating. Took the time to keep working on personal projects until I finally landed a gig. Even once I started working in the industry, I used what I learned from the job to build on my personal portfolio in my spare time. The importance of continual improvement outside of the job cant be understated. A lot of the time the work you do for studios wont be available to display due to NDAs, as well as the fact that sometimes the show you may work on doesn't produce competitive portfolio pieces.

Having the opportunity to work in animation before, I only regretted not having enough time to myself and not taking proper care of my body because of it. Granted, my job involved making animations for this platform for a popular self-help channel, but the catch was that you basically did the job of the storyboarder, the animator, the colorist, the editor, etc. All in just 2 weeks. I had to leave the job when I started getting sick because of my long shifts, basically I was working non-stop from sun up to sun down just to have the project ready on time. After that experience I realized that nothing better would come trying to work for a big studio if the work was already a lot working for a smaller one. I also learned about the general state of the industry and how animators are usually overworked and burned out. And I realized my health is waaay more important than any job. It also didn't help learning about my ADHD and how that makes completing long term projects harder (which animation basically is). Couple that with how difficult it is to get accepted into the industry for the first time, then to be met with the strict working conditions and short deadlines and sometimes poor wages depending on the studio and country you are in. And on top of that having to sacrifice my health both physically and mentally just to finish a project is what made me leave art/animation as a hobby and just try to look for something else in order to survive. To those still chasing this dream, I wish you the best. Just don't let yourselves be exploited or robbed of your opportunity to live life just because your job depends on you working 24/7.

Maybe not on Animation in my case, but as Graphic Designer too. I applied to more than 15, 7 called me back, rejected 5 times, only got 1 interview (probably on waitlist, it's been a week) and the other one probably ghosted me for a month now. Tried to upgrade my portfolio everytime i got rejected. I got laid off from my first/previous job because my boss told me i am "overqualifed". Been unemployed 3 months now, kinda sucks too-- even getting commissions (i paint digitally) since I don't engage in social media that much.

Honestly even with art school, I've been struggling in part because of the sheer financial barrier even for students, such as having to negotiate directly with vendors or use free alternatives(though I've gotten fussed at for most of my 3d experience being Blender) because my school hadn't negotiated with every major software studio. I've often been one of my only classmates working on a shoestring budget. Just getting my first job is proving troublesome even though I did do an internship. I'm hoping to get some adjacent work and to take time to continue to develop my craft, but I'm worried that the longer I take, the less likely I am to be able to do what I want.

Thia is really informative. I've been working as a cartooning teacher since I graduated. I figured what better way to learn about my audience than to work with them? I've been trying to get into studios or atleast wedge my foot into the door as much as i can. I realized that my goal is to become a character designer, and I've applied to everywhere i can think of in NYC. What i realized is that there are aome unreal requirements such as 5+ years in a studio or some software I've never used. Toonboom costs at least $71 monthly. Who could afford that? I'm not saying I'm gonna give up, never rwally, it's just demoralizing that the only thing stopping me from actually achieving the one thing i worked for is a fat bank account or living somewhere totally unreachable atm.

As a AfricanAmerican I’ve never seen these poc-oriented diversity hires applications. I’m not against it. But, not all poc are historically treated with the same level of WS in the US, it’s a hierarchy. With that said, these poc applications don’t seem to be working in terms of opening up the industry to historically marginalized American peoples to the Animation industry. The animation industry tends to be dominated by White & Asian studies (mainly Japan. But China & South Korea are making waves). I haven’t had any luck in getting internships, apprenticeships or any type of work in the industry. Besides all the good points you made about why getting into the industry is harder now, I won’t say how I know, but personally the growing anti-AfricanAmerican sentiment in recent years (like the right, alt-right & “woke” cry wolf scapegoating etc) has played a hand in my difficulties in “being given a chance” (not that anti-black intersectionality ever disappeared in the first place). Even with cg animated effects heavy films like black panther, (not that people should be this bigoted), I had a business executive tell comment on one of my old post, that Africans had no large civilizations-so game world based on Black people cant work🤦🏾‍♂️. This is a taste of the difficulty AfricanAmericans, AfroLatino & other African descent people have to face trying to have a leading presence in the Animation industry, US or otherwise. Tiana, in princess & the frog, was a frog throughout most the movie’s runtime, amongst other issues.

Frequently in job ads the required experience, software knowledge or schooling is a way to reduce the flood of applicants. It makes people self selecting. If you have a good portfolio/reel you should apply regardless of the requirements. I always prioritize reel then experience, and i only look at schooling if work experience is low.

Ah ! this was literally a god send , I've been trying to find something or just to know what to start to look for and this is really what's been such a stone on it 😂

Personal experience: over last 10 years I've seen fewer and fewer public job listings for animation. Seems like they are all using contractors or outsourcing overseas. Even if you do land a position for remote work chances are they ARE overdeas they'll pay you $5/hr. It really seems you have to hang out in Burbank and network to even make a living wage BUT it's impossibly expensive to live in LA. Unfortunately, animation field does not favor the poor. HOWEVER, your only way out is to create independent work that really stands out. Not easy, but better than impossible.