Good luck Arttu :D

Quote from Hourences

My record stands at 1.5 years to just get a reply to my application email. They then did invite me over though, but I didn't go. Screw you if you need 1.5 years to reply:)

lol

I once applied for a company and got a reply in 1.1 years

If it takes that long to reply they must just be saving applications for when they want to fill that role, or have found a better candidate and want to save you for next time (but for some reason would rather keep you in the dark than just tell you they're not considering you for the time being). Still weird, though.

With that said, it's quite common in many industries to follow up your initial applications a week or so later with a call — particularly in the boring white collar ones. Typically in such a situation you just say something like "Hiya, I'm just calling to ensure my recent application was received successfully" and maybe "An estimation of when I can expect a response would be very helpful", which of course prompts them to actually deal with it and clarifies that you are definitely interested in them and you didn't just send your application to every company in the county.

Quote from Thrik

With that said, it's quite common in many industries to follow up your initial applications a week or so later with a call — particularly in the boring white collar ones. Typically in such a situation you just say something like "Hiya, I'm just calling to ensure my recent application was received successfully" and maybe "An estimation of when I can expect a response would be very helpful", which of course prompts them to actually deal with it and clarifies that you are definitely interested in them and you didn't just send your application to every company in the county.

Yeah well, Remedy did replied to me once, telling me they were too busy at the moment, and they would be glad to take a look at my application again on march 2008, since I was the only candidate who passed the first "stage".

I sent an e-mail on may, asking if they were still interested, no answer at all so far! (Although the vacancy I applied to is still on their webpage)

I guess I comprehend though, they probably get a shit load of applications, and they can't just reply to them all, otherwise they would need a single person to handle those kind of task.

(Crytek has one by the way, It's called a community manager)

Quote

":1wet0zpz]I guess I comprehend though, they probably get a shit load of applications, and they can't just reply to them all, otherwise they would need a single person to handle those kind of task.

I think thats the case in many studios especialy of small and mid size. In other buisnesses companys usualy have a personal manager who takes care of this stuff. In our buisness its often art leads. Thats good from the quality point of view but bad when it comes to handling applications of people that you don't want. As artist you certainly want to focus on creative work and not dealing with refused applications (which is also a depressing thing to do).

I remember I sent my portfolio to Splash Damage. I didn't get a response for up to 2 months+. Then I eventually get a reply saying something along the lines of "Sorry for the late response your application was found in our spam mail box. Oh and we don't want you. Thanks for the interest!"

Nice.

regarding being dumped into the spam box: when i first applied for internships i received an answer with the topic: "RE: ***SPAM*** Bewerbung"

actually thinking about it, i wouldn't like to work in a company that uses a spam filter that degrades every application to spam, because that's what "Bewerbung" means.

Beer Bong?

the only sure way to apply for a company is to camp outside their offices with a cardboard sign that reads "will develop for soda and snacks"

Quote from zaphod

the only sure way to apply for a company is to camp outside their offices with a cardboard sign that reads "will develop for soda and snacks"

lulz, yeah, and coffee... must not forget, coffee!

Even companies with dedicated HR people won't necessarily get back to you very quickly. If you know someone on the inside who can take your CV & portfolio directly to the lead/producer/whoever is in charge of arranging interviews for that position, then you will tend to get results much faster. By results I simply mean things move faster and you will know where you stand rather than seeing your email sitting in an HR person's inbox gathering dust, or filed in the "maybe" folder. Or lost in the system. Or, like Hessi said, spam-filtered to oblivion!

Quote from kleinluka

Btw I advise against calling a company to ask about status of application. This is REALLY frown upon in most places.

But e-mailing them is ok or asking in general?

If I am really interested in the company, I do email again after a while to hear whats up. Might be a little rude, but it is just as rude from them not to reply to someone so...

Quote from kleinluka

Btw I advise against calling a company to ask about status of application. This is REALLY frown upon in most places.

Right — you definitely don't want the company to feel like you're harassing them for a fast-tracked response. However, if they don't respond then calling up a company several days to a week after submission to ensure they received your application is fairly standard practice, although email may be preferable depending on the size of the company (you don't want to end up on the phone to the director because they have no dedicated phone/HR staff ) or if you're not too confident.

Just make up some excuse like being worried about email attachment limits or some shit if you can't work out how to make it seem friendly.

I don't know where you've worked klein, but if they REALLY frown upon you just for giving them a friendly buzz after receiving no response from them I'm not sure I'd want to work there at all. The stories here about going for months without a response are pretty disgusting tbh.

I agree with klein though, phoning is not the way to go in this industry.

On the other hand, they should be happy that you call... Shows you are really interested in them.

Lol calling is frowned upon? bunch of muppets by the sounds of it.

I don't see why it would be considered rude to follow up and make sure that they actually received your application. I can see why a phone call might be bothersome, but in situations where you really would like a response (a response as in nothing more than a message saying "yes/no we did/did not receive your application"), email is the worst possible medium. At least when you speak to someone you are usually able to get a straight answer.

I'm sure we've all had a few emails in our time that we didn't deal with, even when we really, really should have... (forgot/lost/filed under todo list and constantly relegated to last place). That's why I like the phone for stuff like that. It's also the reason why my spidey sense starts tingling when I see an online shopping site that does not have a phone number for customer support...

I can see where calling would be inconvenient simply because very few people actually have a phone on their desk. At Ubisoft you're lucky to have 1 phone per 10 persons, and long distance calls are blocked anyway. Emails I have absolutely no problem with, and I actually do get emails from other companies straight at work so I don't suppose they would be pissed if I did the same thing. LinkedIn also gets used.

LinkedIn has been a pain in the arse for me. I keep getting spammed by recruiters looking for game devs or if I can refer them to any. I wouldn't mind if the jobs their pimping were even vaguely related to my skill set and I think their just scanning peoples profiles for buzz words (I keep getting asked to do Flash/Mobile games )

Getting back to skdr, I was in the "little club" and was cheering for him. As others have said, even though you didn't get the job being flow halfway across the world for an interview when you didn't even make an application has to say something about your skill. I'd sure as hell put it in my CV!

Hope you get a job somewhere local(ish) where you can get the design process experience Valve said you were lacking. Get off your ass Grin and employ him!

On a sidenote, yet another guy has left my company to go work for Grin this month, ironically he got the job I applied for.