Hi, I'm looking at a career change and am aiming towards the gaming industry. I'm currently trying to get as much advice as possible about how to go about this; have spoken to some recruitment agencies and some folks at companies, but would like to see if there is anything else anyone on this board can provide. Alternatively, if anyone has any contributions about how to maximise my current experiences, would be much appreciated. I'm a bit leary of posting my formal resume, but in brief: I have a 1st class degree in Maths and Stats from the University of Warwick, UK. I have a Masters with Merit in Medical Statistics and IT from the University of Leicester. I have circa 7 years experience of working as a Statistician in the Medical Research industry - most recently as a mathematical troubleshooter, a unique position in the company specifically created for my skills, primarily involving building stochastic models of dynamic organic systems. Extensive experience in both researching and implementing new topics. Have led multi-national teams to strict deadlines. Have won company awards at both companies I have worked at for the contributions of my work. Of course, on top of that there is game playing and programming, but that should go without saying here! The general advice so far seems to be put a demo(s) together and take it from there (which I am in the process of doing - as my wife and I recently emmigrated to Canada and I am currently working full-time at this whilst living off our savings!). Hope this doesn't look like I'm trolling the board with my CV (which it kind of looked like when I went over the post again) - that's certainly not the intention, but if any moderator feels I have overstepped the mark please feel free to delete this post. Thanks for any comments, Jim.

You've got some good experience in other industries there, that can only help you to an extent. The best advice i can give is create a demo and approach all of the local game development companies you can with it.

Also take some time to look through the other posts on this forum. There are a lot of other posts with lots of information on getting an industry job. Search is your friend.

Best of Luck,
Scott

You can find a great set of links to useful information at http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?s=b4043a2d34e5e8d88ae2a20c387929b4&threadid=8833

Dan Marchant
Design & Development Consultant
www.obscure.co.uk