A word of advice

Getting a job in a game studio is super competitive, and it’s easy to forget that you do have a choice in this process. You’ll invest time, probably years, as well as creativity, hard work, and long hours in this job. Don’t forget to ask yourself whether you’d really like to work with these people on these games. Find out whether this is the right studio for you. I would advise my younger self to just be confident, and don’t worry too much about what they’re going to think. Just try your best to impress them and show off your skills. I’d advise myself just to take it easy. It’s just as much an interview for you as them. It’s about both being happy. Yeah.

Just stay calm. Don’t worry too much, because they’re going to help you if you get stuck, because they’re not just going to leave you flailing for the entire interview. If I could give my younger self advice before my first interview in games, I would say that everyone started there. I’ve worked with a lot of people in this industry who’ve been here for 20 or 30 years who still feel like imposters and like no one’s caught them out yet. So we all had to start at the beginning.

When you’re preparing for your interview, one thing that we would definitely recommend is that you do as much research as possible into the company, into the games, into the genres that the studio works on– really important to look at the hiring managers. Look at their journey and what they’ve done and how they’ve got into the industry. That’s a really nice touch. One thing that you really need to do is know your portfolio well and really be in a position where you can answer every question with confidence and understand exactly what you want to get across in the interview. Preparation is obviously key. And be as confident as you can be. Nerves are just part and parcel of an interview.

The recruiters know that, the hiring managers know that, and they’ll do their best to put you at ease. If you know who you’re going to be interviewed by, it doesn’t hurt to do a bit of LinkedIn stalking, just because that way, you get the sense of what their background is. And any time you throw in anything you can relate to, don’t just throw in name dropping for the sake of anything. Oh, I love that game that you worked on because of this, this, and this, if you genuinely loved it, because worst comes to worst, they’ll turn around. And they’ll start grilling you on the finer details of that game. And you’ll be found out very quickly.

But I think that’s quite good. It also shows I think you’re quite proactive. And again, that passion is coming across. You’re doing your research properly. Yeah, I agree with that. I think also, in preparing for an interview and thinking about what you’re doing beforehand is the story again. I want them to kind of draw a conclusion between the skills that they have developed and the work that they’ve done independently in their own lives and draw that and bring that to me in a story. Who are you? And I really want to think about that beforehand. I just think of it as not a big scary thing. We love people who just come and have a chat. We’re interested in you.

Hopefully, you’re interested in us. And we just like to know how people fit in with our company. So really just try not to worry about the nerves. Try not to overthink it, because that’s when you don’t come across as your natural self. And it’s really important to in an interview.