The SIGGRAPH 2007 conference is the place to be if you’re looking for a job in computer graphics. There are plenty of opportunities for networking as you walk around the conference, so make sure you’re nice to everyone. You might just meet the contact person for your dream job while standing in line for coffee.

In addition to the many interesting people you meet as you walk around the convention center, there are venues designed specifically for the job hunter. This year’s Job Fair featured about 65 companies from different sectors of the computer graphics industry, including Animation & VFX, Video Games, Advertising/Marketing, Web/Wireless and Software/Tools/Technology.

Ray Schnell, Jeff Brunner and Paul Cunningham, founders of CreativeHeads.net, producers of this year’s Job Fair, spent the last six months preparing for the event. Their hard work paid off.  The feedback they have received from both companies hiring and job hunters has been very positive. As of noon on Thursday, approximately 5,000 SIGGRAPH attendees had entered the Job Fair area. At least 40% of these attendees were students.

As you enter the Job Fair, you can go to the kiosk area to create an account at CreativeHeads.net, or head right in and start talking to representatives from companies looking to hire. By combining the Job Fair with CreativeHeads online recruiting services, the Job Fair extends past just the conference. All of the companies at the job fair were collecting reels and resumes, and many were interviewing qualified candidates on-site. An interview area was set up at the rear of the job fair to make this possible. According to Schnell, by Thursday afternoon many of the companies at the fair had made decisions to hire anywhere from two to ten applicants they met at the fair.

I walked around the job fair to chat with some of the companies about what they were looking for. Most were very happy with the turnout and had met a significant number of qualified candidates. Many submissions came from students or recent graduates, but they were also meeting experienced people looking for a job change.

Aaron Rhodes, Compositing Supervisor at the Orphanage in San Francisco, said they received more than 750 demo reels in the three days at the Job Fair, and had conducted several interviews. He said they were getting a good mix of work from students and experienced professionals. I asked if they would be hiring anyone they had met at the fair, and he said, “We may have done so already.”

It sounds like some attendees have walked away from the Job Fair with smiles on their faces.

The Job fair isn’t the only place to job hunt at SIGGRAPH 2007. Many studios were accepting reels and resumes on the exhibit floor, and some companies like Dreamworks and Disney had their own rooms set up for recruiting purposes. On Wednesday morning I stopped by the Disney meet and greet, in Room 5 at the Convention Center. Disney recruiters were there to talk about opportunities at Disney, and senior artists were there to review demo reels on the spot. It was a great opportunity for interested applicants to sit down with a senior artist and get feedback on their reel.

Job hunters at SIGGRAPH 2007 had plenty of opportunities to make connections. The Job Fair and Exhibit floor were the obvious places to talk to potential employers, but an important thing to remember when job hunting at SIGGRAPH is that anyone you meet could be a potential employer or connection. So remember to always be friendly and carry plenty of business cards.