Good luck Arttu :D

[kleinluka]

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

[FrieChamp]

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?

[Hourences]

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...

[Thrik]

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.

[Hourences]

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.

[dux]

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

[Defrag]

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...

[Furyo]

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.

[Wunderboy]

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.

[kleinluka]

I said this because I've seen quite a few companies that have a "no calls please!" on their websites in the jobs section... e-mailing is fine IMO. or calling after you've interviewed with them already to follow up on the status of your application.

But to call simply because they didn't respond to you yet, I advise against that.

[Fearian]

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!

Yeah, I would say that even if you didnt make the application, this is still something for the CV, you said how much you learned from it, and again, this is VALVE

[2d-chris]

Don't call us, we'll call you! Theres a reason that term gets spat out all the time even if it is rude.

[Zeta]

Sorry to hear the trip wasn't succesful. Seems odd that the guy's would bring you on such a long trip if they weren't nearly 100% sure you were right for the job.

Anyway, hope you had fun and that the experience will help your career.

[2d-chris]

Online portfolios and a short phone interview never really gets across the way you design things, a collection of pretty custom maps for games already "finished" shows you have artistic ability and are able to understand the game mechanics. However, the ability to work from the start of a project when you only have a few lines of code and a concept document is another matter.

I'm pretty confident that Valve are after the whole package, but then if your being hired to work on a game well into full development you'd get away with it.

I'm not talking about skdr specifically, just what can be expected of you as a level "designer"

[Zacker]

Congrats on getting an interview at Valve, that's quite a feat! I really think that you should be happy about that you had a good day and that they wanted you for an interview. With your portfolio should easily be able to find a job at some other great place.