If you don’t have experience, create experience

You need 3 years of AAA experience for this role.

What they’re asking for is not that you’ve completed 1,095 day of development. It’s that you should have experienced stages in production and committed yourself to long term goals in that time.

You’ll have learnt how team’s work and develop on a larger scale. You’ll likely have shipped a project.

But you can recreate this experience yourself. You need to be self motivated and focused on doing the work. But if you do, then your application will stand up.

In the games industry, I’m not one that participates game jams, but completing game jams consistently whilst building your portfolio will show focus and, well, consistency.

Set yourself smaller projects.

Most students leave higher education with the belief that they can complete a large project over the summer and this inevitably happens because life hits.

Instead, have smaller goals and be consistent. Set yourself a realistic schedule and show up.

Try some 2 week challenges. Complete them. Upload all submission materials to a professional standard. Reflect on them. And then select your next project.

If you have to get a part-time job whilst you look for your career, do the right amount of hours where you can put in an extra hour a day before work or after work to create the body of work you want to represent yourself with.

If you’re learning these skills and deliver consistently, continue reaching out to companies, you can get around the 3 year wall. It’s an arbitrary number in that respect but what the number represents is the important thing.

As long as you continue to focus on your craft, the real-time industries such as games reward the work that is put in, as long as it’s focused, disciplined and consistent.