Job interview nuggets of advice !

[ElectroSheep]

Hey guys !

As It's now more than a years since I haven't done a face to face job interview, I'm curious of what you can tell me about this to make it really good ? What to say, how my book should be ? Etc..

Please share !

[mjens]

Helder once told me one important thing: talk art. Don't care about polycount, editable poly or other technical stuff. When you're an artist, talk about colors, composition, proportions...

[Chimeray]

I guess the best thing you can do is to ask around for what questions you're gonna get. I haven't interviewed a whole lot of people and my questions are level design focused so they might not be the most useful to you... (I'll add some generic examples later)

I mainly split my questions up in work processes, teamwork, social skills, your motivations (getting to know you) etc. Your answers have to make me wanna work with you so don't be too uptight about it

Some more generic questions we asked:

- Do you recall friction in your last team, how did you resolve it?

- How was communication handled in your last team, did you collaborate a lot or were teams split up?

But I also ask really simple ones at the start, what kind of games do you like? What is it you like about them, etc.

I ask most of my questions to get some specific information out of the interviewee but a lot of them are open for interpretation as well, just to get the interviewee to open up and talk. Those questions don't really have any "right" answers. One of the most important things you wanna get out of an interviewee is to see if he/she fits into your team (every team works differently, has different values); and this has nothing to with how good a person is at what he does, just HOW he is used to accomplish that work.

@Seir You're still gonna get questions about how you deal with budgets and stuff. But I suppose if it's an open ended discussion then I agree, that's the best course indeed.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Chimeray

[ElectroSheep]

Thanks guys ! Ho, and supposing it's a level artist position.

[knj]

good luck dude, tell us how was it !

[selmitto]

Interesting stuff.

While I'm curious about how is the process for an artist, as a designer I'd like to know more what are the nuggets for a game and/ or level designer interview.

Moaar please!

[Minos]

- Be yourself

- Don't be a dick

- Leave your ego out of the door

- Don't do anything weird like picking your nose or scratching your balls

- No texting, no facebooking, to twitting

- Don't take credit for things you didn't work on

- Don't assume you are at senior level just because the job posting is for a senior position

- Be humble and genuinely interested in the company you are applying for. Research their games and ask questions about their workflow, project, future plans etc... If for some reason you are not familiar with the company, don't try to fake it, just be real and ask questions.

- Let the interviewers ask questions to you too

- Enjoy your time with the interviewers. If you didn't feel comfortable that's very telling of the kind of atmosphere you are going to face if you get hired.

- If you get asked something you don't know about just say you don't know instead of trying to bullshit some answer

- This is very important: no bullshitting. We can smell it.

- No racist jokes

- Dress nicely but don't overdo your look (no suits for an artist interview plz, unless you dress like that everyday)

- Get there early but not too early (if your interview is for 9:30 get there at 9:15 but not at 8:00, that would be weird)

- Try not to be hungover on your interview. Make sure you don't smell like alcohol.

- Don't comment rumors

- Don't talk shit of your previous companies. If it was a bad experience just say it wasn't the most pleasing place to work at, but don't go ranting about your former boss, colleagues or project...

[Kinky]

Minos gets straight to the point. Really cant add anything to that.

[Puddy]

- Immediately ask what they are willing to pay you and ask them to double it.

Good luck!

[Nysuatro]

Attitude matters

[Vilham]

- Try not to be hungover on your interview. Make sure you don't smell like alcohol.

Completely agree with everything but this. There is no Try. Don't get drunk the night before an interview, its a stupid thing to do.

[-HP-]

What thiago said, x1000. And I also want to bold even more the first line!

-Be yourself

Interviews are meant to be a two way channel for you to get to know the team, and for the team to get to know you and decide on whether or not you are a good fit for them. And how are they supposed to do that if people try and bend the "rules" and try and behave in "pre studied" ways. You would be shooting yourself in the foot by trying to be someone else in an interview. Also, people smell bullshit... so really, just be yourself, if they decide you wouldnt be a good fit for them, then really that's a good thing because you probably wouldn't like to work there anyway

With that being said, an onsite is already half a foot on the door, so if anything, let that give you a bit of confidence, you're almost there.

[ElectroSheep]

Haaa nice

But really it's cool because I'm really myself during stressfull thing like this. My last face to face interview was for Ubisoft and it was really cool.

I also wonder if you are bringing a book with some stuff or just ask them to take a look into your website ?

[Kinky]

With every interview ive ever been to they've already seen everything you have to offer or they wouldnt give you the interview. A few times ive had them turn up with printouts of my work, now that is unsettling.

[Wail]

Honestly my number one piece of advice is to practice interviewing with someone face to face. Try finding a job-seeker's group and attending and finding someone who has worked as a hiring manager to interview with you. The harder a time they give you the better. This will give you a much better understanding of weak areas of your interview skills that you will need to work on.

For example, some of my previous employers have breached contracts that I have made with them. After giving the employers ample notice about my intention to leave unless they fulfilled their obligations to me, I eventually had to leave those positions. This has actually been a rocky point in my interviews because it can create a bad impression that I'm the sort of person that would just jump ship immediately if I'm a little unhappy, which is actually the complete opposite of the truth. I needed to develop a good response that clearly articulates the reasons why I left those positions without conveying hostility to those other employers or the impression that I will just leave a job at the drop of a hat.

I also am a weak improvisational speaker and so some of the personal anecdotes about challenges I faced or accomplishments that I had deserve some preparation. One time I was interviewing for a programming position and one of the areas that I spoke about as an accomplishment had to do with a particular idea for a game that I had, but was unable to implement until much later since I didn't understand the linear algebra / vector mathematics of how to implement it when I conceived the idea. My discussion on this topic was pretty poor because even though this is an accomplishment that I'm proud of, for a layman audience it's highly technical and my ability to relay those concepts to the interviewer was hindered by feeling I had to dumb-down my discussion on the fly. If I had prepared my discussion on that topic beforehand I would've handled it better.