North East insights – Digital

What I love about being able to work here in the northeast is that I still get to enjoy a lot of the benefits of living here. My name is Dan Baird, I'm the director and lead creative at Infinity 27. Infinity 27 makes games, virtual reality and augmented reality products. Basically we use real-time 3D, which is fancy way of putting that we use game engines, the same console games and PC games to create interactive tools for businesses. I got involved in this industry mainly from an interest in games. I saw the potential for use in a whole lot of different ways, how you train people, how people learn, how people communicate. But if you're interested in getting a job in this type of industry, definitely do your research and see what roles are out there, because there's a huge array of roles from people doing voice roles and sound design, to programmers, network programmers, gameplay programmers, 2D artists, 3D artists, character artists, environment artists, you will fit in somewhere. So you need to find out from where you are, where you need to be. You can enter the industry as a graduate, the most large organizations will look for graduates, but that's not the kind of only route in. We hire apprentices and they're at a A-level or T-level graduate, and the reason for that is because they show the behavior and attitude that we're looking for. But what I will say is that definitely you must develop your soft skills. Soft skills would be kind of behaviors and attitudes, the diligence to show up on time for work, make sure that you're organized, being able to communicate effectively, being able to follow a set of instructions is important, but also being able to think creatively, critically, it's all important. Next thing is just experience. Ultimately, at the end of the day, if you have experience, build on something from start to finish, and you can showcase that, whether that's a program, a piece of art, or some designs that you've drawn, to help employers see the value in you in terms of your passion, your dedication, and your creativity. Concentrate on the things that you love. The best thing that you can do is to make yourself happy in the long term.