Preparing a Job Application part 3 - How to Prepare within a Limited Time

As an instructor at CG Protege, I had a number of occasions helping students preparing a demo reel (as a part of their job applications) within a limited time period. In this article I will cover a planning method I used. Admittedly, the degree of success varies with how discipline a student; but I think this is to be expected.

There are 3 major steps in the planning.

The first step is to clarify your goal.

Your goal is to submit an application to a specific company, by a specific date. There are 3 components in this goal: the application, the company, and the deadline.

• The application consists of a cover letter, a resume, and a demo reel (+ portfolio).
• The company is interested to see applications relevant to their interest.
• The deadline is important. You do not want to submit your application late.

Therefore, your goal consists of:

1. Writing a cover letter specifically for the company, explaining why you are the best fit for the job opening;
2. Customizing your resume to what the company is asking for;
3. Assembling a demo reel (+ portfolio) to show that you have the skills that the company needs; and
4. Submitting these to the company before the deadline.

The dominant factor here is the limited preparation time before the deadline. If you have not organized your works, allow yourself four to six weeks preparation time. If you have organized your work, one week should be enough.

You may ask, "How can I allow myself six weeks before deadline? After all, job application deadline is set by the company." My answer is, "Consider an different point of view. Assign yourself six weeks to finish your reel and apply for jobs with deadline after your estimated finish date." I admit that this is easier to say than to do.

The second step is to plan steps to your goal.

First, you should have a list of works you want to include in your demo reel.

Resist any temptation to go into a specific work file and do fixes. You may we end up spending most of the available time on one work (or two) and practically neglect the rest. We want to avoid this.

Next, you list what improvements or fixes you would like to do on each work (while keep resisting the tendency to fix anything). At this stage you can be as detailed as you want, no restraint yet. Spend up to 15 minutes for each work.

Now that you have considered all the improvements you want to do within the time available, you will realize that you need to prioritize. This is the next step. Create a timeline from today until the deadline. Move items from your improvement list into the timeline based on priority. In this way, you will have a daily plan to cramp in the most important improvements.

Here is a sample template:

Things to look out for:

• If you have not rendered your reel, how long does it take to render a frame? How many frames are there in your reel? This sets the latest date you can still improve your 3D work.
• Make sure you have time for rendering as well as fixing render problems.
• Where are you uploading your reel? If you upload your video to YouTube, your video will be available almost instantly after uploading finishes. If you upload your video to Vimeo, your video will be available only around an hour after uploading finishes.
• Make sure you have enough time to make your reel available for viewing.
• Remember to include writing your cover letter and resume in your plan.
• Make sure you have enough time to write an excellent cover letter.
• Make sure you have enough time to customize your resume to the job position.
• How do you submit your application?
• Make sure you have enough time to submit.

From experience, I realize I am rather fanatical about planning. You can create a loose plan if you prefer, but I recommend to at least list all improvements you want to do so you can prioritize.

The third step is to carry out your plan.

Make sure to review your progress periodically. If your deadline is days away, review at the end of each day. If your deadline is further, you can review once every two days or even weekly.

During such review, compare what you planned to achieve with what you actually achieved. Update your plan for the remaining time accordingly so that you can get as many improvements as time allows. The update can be re-prioritizing to do items, removing to do items, or, very rarely, adding new to do items. You may end up with less than what you planned in the beginning, but you will achieve something better than what you started with.

I hope this simple planning help you.

Let me close this post with my story behind these articles. To you, this is the last part of a three-part article. To me, this is the article I started with. As I wrote this article, I found myself having to explain the details of writing cover letter and resume, as well as demo reel and portfolio. I ended up with a very long blog post. I decided to break them into three. As I fleshed out my outline, the content shifted a little from my original plan. I felt especially the second article felt not as sincere as I intended.

As always, if you any thoughts you want to share, please comment below.