 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm co-host Catherine Norr and hosting with me today is showcaster Robert Artie Ross. Hi Artie. Hey Catherine, our topic today is eSports is hiring, how to get a job in the eSports industry and our guest is Uzair Hassan, the author of the eSports career guide, how to get a job in the eSports industry. Uzair, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. I'm so excited to share what I wrote in this book and hopefully help some people understand how to better get a job in the eSports industry. So Uzair, what inspired you to write this book? That is a hot question. So my eSports journey started in 2017, so about four years from the time I was able to land a full-time position and at that point as well I got multiple contracts. So B2B, I worked with people from the grassroots side, business owners, I'm in municipal governments. I even got reached out to by a Hollywood director who was getting into the eSports industry. So I experienced a lot but it was very hard to get to that point from A to Z. I had no idea what I was doing. I made so many different mistakes and what's worse is I went to the first ever post-secondary eSports business program at Lambton College, the eSports Entrepreneurship and Administration program and unfortunately obviously the first cohort to graduate graduated in COVID but unfortunately majority of the people that are leaving that aren't leaving with a job and it's very sad. I know a lot of my colleagues as well that are just going back to college for something completely different and after retrospecting and introspecting on what I might have done differently that allowed me not only to get a bunch of contracts but also a full-time position in Canada's number one eSports organization. So like after looking at that I realized there's something that I did really right that other people missed to do and I really wanted to prevent that from other people in the past but not only that I was also very stressed out during my four years unsure if can I get a job is this even possible? Am I like crazy? Am I messing up my life? And I wish four years in the past I had something that's from someone who says you know you can do it it's very possible because the first thing I ever heard about in terms of getting a job in eSports was a Reddit post that said anyone that's trying to get a job specifically was relating to the the program because it was a Reddit post saying is this program even viable? People were saying if anyone that assigns up to this program is just lost they have no idea what they're doing this is not possible you can't get into eSports unless you're a player and that really caused me issues where I wish someone told me you can do it in fact this is what you should be doing this is what you should be focusing on so that's exactly why I put this book together. That's really awesome I mean like I was in those shoes exactly just a couple years ago so I want to just extend that if if I so going back right a couple years ago I'm a student I have no idea what I'm doing I have no experience what would you advise me to do since you've gone through this process already what would you start with in that process? Yeah so I think the most important part is to actually gain some perspective in terms of what the industry is what opportunities are there and what you're really getting yourself into so the way I even structured the book is that we start off with section one which I called tutorial because I framed the getting a job in the eSport industry like a game because a lot of pieces very much are like the game and you're playing it as such but you start off with understanding the high level on like perspective of what you're getting yourself into the problems with eSports in fact that's the first chapter why you shouldn't want to go into the eSport industry I list out five reasons to run from the industry and then we transition into speaking about okay now that we know the problems what does it take to actually get a job and I also speak to the types of jobs that are in the industry we speak about the different pathways and then we talk about the mentality and some of the base information you need to have and then from there we go to the second section which kind of outlines this is what you initially need to be doing to start filling up your level in terms of your perceived value and actual value I actually break that up into the book and we can obviously get into more of why that is and how you kind of do it but then once you understand the high level it's just about going in the you know field and starting to do some work building your relationships and taking those stuff forward and I outline the very specific ways you do that in the book you know one of the most fundamental questions that we have and this this is why the the show is called is eSports hiring is are there jobs in the industry yeah there there are there is a ton of jobs without a doubt the industry is growing rapidly there's so much investor money coming in it's so much so that there's an alleged bubble obviously that is one of the reasons to run eSports is kind of unstable struggling with profitability but nevertheless there are so many jobs with the massive growth massive opportunities this is the future there's no doubt it's always a concern of if it's now but like if you look at the hit marker 2019 report it's super popular report showing that about 89 percent there's an 89 percent increase in total jobs is a near double of the industry between 2018 and 2019 I also break down that report in my book where I also mentioned there are some caveats there's some key issues with that data that I kind of broke down that people need to be aware of so it's not that extreme to a jump I would say I don't think the industry literally doubled in that year alone but there's clearly a massive growth in jobs and it's not going to stop anytime soon I agree there's really a trend upward these days not only with eSports organizations but also with all of the other aspects in from the game side of things to the service side of things all the way going forward into you know tournament organizations and just all of these different levels does your book focus on any of these specific points or does it cover pretty much everything all the ins and outs of the industry yeah so my biggest focus with the book is to help someone get into the back end of the eSports industry and that is really coming down to one of the struggles with the book and I mentioned this in the book as well is that eSports is an industry not a career in the sense that there's so much different avenues you can go down so one of the issues when constructing this book is how do I create information that can help people on a wide scale so any anywhere on the eSport industry without actually getting into the specifics of building out what I would refer to as your ancestry which is your skill set within the book and so what we we do is I really touch in a high level how you should be developing and how you determine what to develop I don't unfortunately tell you the specifics but then we go from the entire pathway you in the book there's an exercise to help you determine what it is you need to do to build up an experience and like there's a very strategic strategy that I think more people need to employ which is actually looking at the job post things looking at what companies are actually looking for actually calling up companies reaching out saying what are and people that are working in these fields understanding what they do doing those in grassroots organizations specifically to tackle like a car technique which is very common in interviews where they actually want you to write a story of how you've done something within an actual job and then you also go into the specifics of how to land a job because there's multiple ways beyond just applying on a job board. You know the eSports ecosystem is so big and we have some examples of that right here I am an attorney and mediator and of course Artie is a shoutcaster and does a number of other things and then of course you own eSports how as well it was there so do you talk about the ecosystem in your book? Yeah so we go through the ecosystem in a high level in chapter five which is the end of section one which is the overview I highly recommend people to actually research the industry in fact I have an entire website that comes with a book with a ton of resources from my blog from other books other podcasts people need to understand the ecosystem my book is not the place to understand it in fact I recommended like the the book of eSports amazing book I have a book in to Williams he's actually helped me in terms of some advice in getting this book out but like I recommend people to understand the ecosystem it's super important actually we emphasize the value and the importance that employers are looking for in terms of you understanding the industry and being immersed in the specifics of the industry but I don't really go into too much depth we go on a very high level like I mentioned the key key players the key stakeholders but we don't actually like dive into deep into it. I love that that's I really also like how your book is structured with like kind of it is a game in and of itself like you've got all these references to how a video game RPG is kind of like laid out of the ancestry even like building your character all that kind of stuff it's really cool your book has a lot of personality so another question that I have just kind of regarding your book is because you also talked about you know the book of eSports which I have also given a read and you know you're you talk about all these different things how the eSports industry is just so complex it's so hard to just like dive into specifics in one certain way or the other so you go from kind of a higher level what are the parts of your book that focus in and get really really specific is it more on the career side of things is it more on the advice side of things where does your book really focus in? Yeah so the book focuses um so a large part of the book is focusing on the end goal so I think uh within the book one area that I probably would have liked to beef up a bit but it would have gone in too long is actually building up your experience going through grassroots I do outline specifically how to find opportunities because I've had dozens of calls with people on the grassroots level um I've never had issues finding grassroots opportunities for some reason so many people do I don't know sometimes it's like excuses other times are actually seriously just lacking the understanding of where to go so I mentioned specifically this is how you find opportunities this is how you get into an organization this is how you make sure you get more responsibilities and I also tell them at one point do you leave and how should you position yourself should you be a leader and so if so how do you do that but the book more so focuses on the end result so section three is focusing on the six classes and a class in this book is essentially a method of getting into the esport industry so we have swordsmen which is your traditional way to apply to jobs which newsflash by the way for anyone that is focusing primarily on applying through job boards about 15 of jobs go to people that are applying through online means that means for one job that goes to someone online 12 jobs are going through these other methods um or 11 rather sorry 11 out of 12 jobs are going through these other methods and the second one is summoner which is basically the best way to get into the industry is networking having relationships and we I talk specifically how you provide value to people make make someone's day actually comment to them as someone hungry to learn and hungry to benefit the other person and actually build a relationship to get a referral that is the number one way to get a job in the industry and then I also the next class is assassin which is infiltrating an actual company providing so much value that they they realize that you're going to make them more money than it would cost them to hire you so it's like a no-brainer at that point and like we talk about the specific issues of like internships and volunteering like managing and how to overcome that how to be in a position where you're providing the employer with so much information week after week so much value week after week every meeting you should be coming in with something pre-planned and making sure you provide so much value that lands you a job and the next three classes to get a job into the sport industry we are more so like not in the traditional way of getting a job the first one is a samurai which is actually focusing on the gig economy has been blowing up since 2009 where you focus on getting contracts which is how I initially got into e-sports was working contract after contract B2B next one after that is wizard which is an entrepreneurship part I don't really go into the entrepreneurship too much in this book but I talk about what characteristics fit an entrepreneur have and then lastly we as a berserker class which is my favorite which actually got me the contracts and the full-time job offer was actually creating content online and providing it to people about the grassroots and business side of e-sports you know we've been focusing very heavily on this issue of your book and I'm a I have five book and I've interviewed about three or four other authors including William Collis who wrote the book of e-sports and Bessie Jacobson and Borrow Nguyen and I always have an e-sports book that I'm reading but a lot of people who are watching this don't really read books they watch videos they scroll on the internet and and if they're trying to find the answer to something they're going to look for it on the internet or on youtube rather than buy a book tell us why you think it's important for such a deep dive that would lead someone to actually read a book yeah I really appreciate this question because this is the number one complaint I've gotten when I did initial feedback for this book and even during the process of building it and even now when I'm reaching out to people this is the number one complaint I've heard about the book is that people don't read books um young specifically the younger generation and I think I think that's a that's a massive disservice to themselves in in the sense that I only started reading a year ago a year and a half ago and it completely changed my life ever since I've read at least 50 plus non-fiction business and personal development books and it's like again completely changed my life and I think there's there's a value sitting with the book sitting understanding the thoughts of an author who actually spent so much time building this book out them or finding it now the individual who reads it has to invest like um like 10 12 sometimes six or like it's depends on how fast you read but you spend so much time with the author understanding the content there's I I believe there's a profound value in the way we consume books in the way that it's composed versus videos in the way they're incentivized to be composed like really quick uh easy to consume and I don't to answer your question in terms of why people should be going out and reading a book is because let me ask you is it hard to get a job in esports is this something that wakes you up or holds you awake at night like is this something that you seriously want to succeed at and I think the type of people that are going to win in this industry because they're looking for people that are go-getters people that work hard that are um able to adapt to change and have entrepreneurial mindset that are able to bring innovation to one of the fastest growing industries where you need to be willing to be like okay I really want this there's this book here probably a great resource I can either not read the book and maybe make a lot of the same mistakes that the author made because I don't like reading or I can take a chance maybe even buy the kindle which will be 99 cents so like if you're not willing to spend a dollar even to skim through it and see if the content's worthwhile I think you're doing a disservice to yourself outside of that I think people are right um you know are allowed to make their own decisions if they don't want to read the book because I hate reading that's fine because I hated reading when I was in high school I hated people that read so like I completely um empathize with that you took the words right out of my mouth I really think that it's it's a whole matter of just what you said with you know people don't read books anymore it's a lot of time commitment it's a lot of hard work to actually you know force yourself to sit down and do that and you know the kind of people that this book is aimed for are the kind of people that actually will go out and do that and buy the book and sit down and read it so I mean yeah you you said it way better than I ever could I guess one of the biggest questions I've left with so far is just over overall we know that your book talks about getting into the esports industry it talks about breaking in and what kinds of things you should look for talks about exactly what mistakes were made what mistakes to look out for what things to actively pursue so I guess that what I can expect from your book is a full-on guide of how to actually not make these mistakes and how to only do the right things is that is that the correct assumption I'm getting from what my expectations are I would I would add on to that in terms of some things that help you accelerate because there are like my favorite part of the book and I like I came up with this and it just makes complete sense and I like there's research to back to stop about I think it's either 56 or 57 percent of hiring managers are impressed by a candidate that has a website but only it's either seven or nine percent all my resources are like like with the book come with the book so you can double check me on these numbers but it's either seven or nine percent candidates actually have a job posting and I would believe majority of those are people that are entering from like a experience standpoint like more senior people where not like one of the ideas I prescribe is that you need to set up a website and set it up like a sales a landing page you're selling yourself you're building and like what what's even cooler about that is that I want you to put testimonials from people that you've worked with you link their link in there you put the photo and now you know when they're looking for referrals when they're looking to verify that you've done what you've done you've literally put that on the website and now you've also added pictures in terms of what you've done your entire timeline like it is a amazing strategy another element is a video resume it is so so powerful especially in the esport industry not to communicate what you've done your resume will do that just fine it's to create communicate how creative you are the fact that you're willing to go above and beyond and how you make this video look what you do in the video how you engage in this video is going to be super super critical and like an official it's not it's not stuff that you need to do a hundred percent you can get a job without making a website or a video but um these are some of the elements not but by far and not the only ones that I've included in the book to help you go above and beyond that's that's the biggest thing for me in this book is making sure people when they're going through this journey is that they're optimizing their opportunities they're optimizing the time they have without wasting too much of it and then making the right decision but also looking at what we can do to get in front of employers to get these relationships to actually stand out when you're because another big thing just to wrap this answer up is that you have to always think about everything you do to answer the question why you there are hundreds of people that are applying to these jobs thousands or thousands of people that are applying to jobs in general about hundreds of people for a specific job an employer asked that answer the question why should I consider you over everyone else you need those key things that are making you stand out and I think the book really does a good job to make you start thinking about what you can do to stand out and really get a grasp of what the game is so you understand the parameters that you have to work with in terms of actually um impressing these employers because employers are just people you know um I think when you're talking about getting a job anyone can get a job but whether you can get that dream job or get that job that is your goal is you know that's the game changer but you know I don't think that we can talk about the video and the resume and the website without asking the big question what do you think about LinkedIn and use of LinkedIn in promoting yourself to prospective employers. Yeah yeah that is a great question so one of the things I prescribe in the book because uh well a lot of hiring managers do is that once you're in the part where they're vetting individuals are looking at your social media to see why they shouldn't pick you up um like well I was surprised by this but one of the key things that they're looking at is if you're you're spelling and grammar is right and the type of things you're engaging with so the what I prescribe in the booklet is let's turn this around when they look up your social media let's not give them a reason why not to pick you up let's give you a reason why they should pick you up you I'm not I'm not super big into like flashing social status and like things that you're doing I hate using social media generally speaking but in this case I I think you should be using your social media you should have a public social media of just what you're doing in esports everything you're involved in every event you attend you should be posting that on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a key platform I love that you've brought up LinkedIn because that is going to be a big one here for esports and just business in general a posting everything every event you've gone through the books that you're reading the things that you learn the events that you've attended if you put that on your LinkedIn for people that are going to come and look at your profile your stack in order to once they're in that vetting process really be attracted because they want people immersed in the industry because that's what the your competitors are doing they're immersed and you need to be immersed to keep up with how fast it's changing but and when you're doing that as well what's going to happen like you mentioned and I also mentioned this in the book as well is the fact that once you do this and get into the habit just to build out this portfolio employers and people will see this and when you reach out and network they will see this um if you connect with people that are looking to hire and you're just posting about this information and you're mentioning that you know you're looking to get into esports and you're super involved in the grassroots side it's going to be something that stands out and it's going to give you more and more opportunities to land that dream job that you're looking for. Wow you've actually just sold me on actually using my LinkedIn more because it's one of the things that I've been struggling with as well I'm you know 23 I'm definitely in the Gen Z category and there's not a lot of people in my Andrage that are actually using LinkedIn as a social media platform a lot of people just use it as like a secondary resume just list all of the things that I've done on the timeline there all the work experience and then done be done with it maybe like a couple posts from my employer but um yeah I think that you've just sold me on actually updating my LinkedIn and making more posts like that so what are what are some other like really good starter things to do uh you know like that I guess I guess that's not necessarily a starter thing but what are some more mid-tier things to get done on the to-do list for this book? Yeah 100% so like in an earlier chapter after or nearing the start of section two there's a chapter called the optimal leveling up strategy where we go through uh where the reader is instructed to go through an exercise where he scans a number of different job postings to understand what they're doing or what they need to do to build up the skill level and also reach out to some people to try to understand what they're actively involved in what kind of projects are they expected to do and really get involved in terms of building those out on the grassroots side and you essentially want to have this checklist I call it a missions list where you have to accomplish these things both on the hard skill side and the soft skills soft skills are so important about 77% of hiring managers value soft skills as much as hard skills 16% value it more um and the fact that you're on entry level work and this is esports one of the fastest growing industries where change is inevitable it is your soft skills are so so important and also um as I mentioned earlier in the chapter I prescribed specifically for people to really get involved understand the resources they should be consuming but I also give them lists of networking events uh different opportunities that they should be involved in because a big big thing that you can do to situate yourself well is um to network play playing as a summoner is essentially the class that really gets you yeah the job which is summoners are networking it's going through these networking events engaging with people letting them know that you're a younger individual looking to get into the business um actually reach out provide value to these individuals that's a key key part that I actually prescribe in each element so when you're at university and college you want to actually provide value to your classmates not not to say that that wouldn't necessarily get you a job or not to say that it's going to necessarily even benefit you it's definitely a long-term investment because those relationships will go a long way especially once they start you know situating themselves not only in esports but in other industries that could be sponsors strategic partners possible investors um but also you do the same thing when you're working at these grassroots organizations is providing value helping people out making their days providing them resources and then you transition that into esports because what how you do one thing is how you really do everything and that's why I think in like when it comes back to social media the reason why your grammar and spelling is one of the biggest sticklers I believe it was the biggest stickler to um people that are looking to hire you when they're scanning your social media is because if you're making mistakes when you're spelling typical stuff on social media what do you what do they expect you to do when you're actually making important reports or have important things to deal with so making sure you build out those habits and routines is a large part of what we kind of do to prepare you to actually get a job okay you know so for a last question which is kind of a compound question okay I want to ask you two things okay one of them is um with the pandemic um are do you believe that the jobs are more remote now or are they still in person and then my secondary question to this is what do you think the future of the job market is so basically the pandemic and the future yeah those are those are great questions in terms of your first question for jobs being more more um remote obviously currently with the situation there's a lot more jobs remotely than they were previously and it's an interesting question to fully understand if they're going to continue that way um a lot of people believe so especially with just how technology is involving and people are starting to notice that people can do their jobs at home just as productively um as they could in person but there's also a lot of downsides that companies are noticing in terms of culture um because culture is massive there's a there's a lot of studies showing that your business culture actually affects your bottom line significantly so that is one key issue you know meetings and human interactions like those different elements and also there's a lot of old school within esports or sorry in business in general but I don't think there'll be too much of a massive transition into remote I definitely think it's going to increase and I think within like even within esports specifically like I have I worked in an organization where they were struggling to do some live streaming um stuff because now they had to build a new infrastructure an entire new framework online which traditionally was in person and it was like extremely complicated extremely butchered the like the cost it was way more than if it was just in person and so like as much as I love for everything to be remote all the time because that's how I personally love working is just home alone um I don't think that's always going to be the case and could you could you reiterate your second question that's just slipped my mind here kind of running out of time but why don't we just let you have the last word and tell us how people can buy your book when it's available and how they can reach you 100% so if you're interested in the book it will be launched November 3rd until then if you want to be notified go to esportshow.com slash book and that's going to lead you to a landing page where you can join the esport how discord server just join that server you'll be notified on the day of otherwise go to that link and you'll find an amazon link where you'll be able to purchase the book at launch it's going to be as cheap as I can possibly make it the kindle is always going to be 99 cents because I know students are a bit broke and they need you know they don't have that much money so I want to provide that opportunity for people that want to buy it otherwise it's going to be on amazon hard cover a softcover and kindle fantastic well who's there good luck on your book and you provided such interesting and helpful information and thank you arty appreciate you being here to co-host thank you for having me and yeah it was there thank you so much that was very very helpful and insightful especially you know I I definitely benefited a lot from this talk and I cannot wait to read your book so thank you so much happy to be here all right anyway thank you to our viewers for joining us today next week I'll be talking with Ari Fox the CEO of Gamakon and producer of that because you know esports conference see you then