SUMMARY
This document provides tips for preparing for an interview with a games studio. It covers researching the company and role, estimating salary and cost of living, using your network, presenting yourself, and preparing questions to ask during the interview. The document also includes quick links to related topics and resources.
QUICK LINKS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The interview stage can be a bit nerve-wracking, but it's important to remember that there's nothing to be afraid of. Stress is a normal part of the process, and it's important not to overthink it.
At the end of the day, the interview is just a conversation with people who share your passion and have likely been in your position before. In this section, we'll take a look at the different stages of the interview, how to prepare, and how to make a great first impression.
Interviews are there to verify and check different aspects of you as an artist and how well this matches with the studio you are interviewing for.
Generally there are 3 things you will always have to discuss during an interview, these being the following:
<aside> 1️⃣ SKILLS FIT: See if you are a match when it comes to your artistic skills, if you can work within deadlines, if the skills you display are up to the standards of the role you are applying and if the work you produce lines up the the studios work.
</aside>
<aside> 2️⃣ TEAM FIT: How do you collaborate with other people, how you deal with working under stress, if you handle difficult situations well. But also, if you are genuinely a nice person, love helping other people and are a nice person to work with.
</aside>
<aside> 3️⃣ COMPENSATION/BENEFITS FIT: Usually this is discussed separately with HR. This focuses on your salary expectations, if you need any relocation help, possible benefits the company offers and other things you might need to know about starting your job and getting to integrate in the local studio and possibly city there.
</aside>
It’s good to be aware of different locations for interviews, since a lot of the industry is now more used to doing things fully remote this also increased the chance of interviews of being remote as well.
<aside> ❕ REMOTE Remote interviews are definitely more the standard these days as we finally unshackle from purely working from your office. These interviews usually take place over Zoom, Teams or other video conference platforms.
</aside>
<aside> ❕ IN HOUSE Interviews that are conducted on location, usually in the office building of the game company itself. These can range from short interviews if they are local to multi day interviews if done internationally.
</aside>
After we’ve prepared ourself with these tips here
PREPARE YOURSELF FOR AN INTERVIEW
Now that we have the introduction part done it's time to dive into the interview itself.
This section will highly depend on the studio and the structure they use for their interviews, but before we dive into the different sections let's talk about some things you need to keep in mind for during the interview.
This might be a big one to tackle, but try and put things into perspective, these people that you are going to talk to, have been in the same situation too.
During these interviews they might throw you for some loops with difficult questions so when they do, don't be afraid to take your time in answering these questions. I've done this multiple times in multiple interviews where I just ask to think about it and bring it up at the end of the interview again. That's totally fine and shows that you are mature enough to take another moment to think about certain questions or topics.
Another thing I've seen a bit is people that have read up on some of the technicalities about workflows they haven't tried themselves yet. You don't have to do this, you can just be open about stuff you don't know yet or just mention that you have done some experiments before, but haven't gone through the full pipeline yet. This is totally fine, you can learn more of that on the job. Fake it till you make it only works if you don't have to prove it as soon as you get in.
The people in the interview are artists themselves in most cases, they know most of the resources out there if they keep up with the stuff that is out there, and a lot of us do. So think about the risk if you want to lie about using a tutorial for your work (There is nothing wrong with using a tutorial, but own up to it.) I've personally seen a couple of examples like this and it never rubs anyone the wrong way to just say that you used a tutorial as a starting point, but it does rub people the wrong way that you try and hide that fact.
This ain't boring stuff to the people around you, dive into the details and explain how you did achieve your amazing pieces of art and be proud to dive into the nitty gritty, all the research you did and the tutorials you followed to get a specific part of the environment right. If you are in a talk with other artists, then take this to your advantage, be passionate about the stuff you do, this will shine through and will spark joy with others in the room.
Being optimistic and excited about the challenges and road ahead of you, normally talking to people that do the same thing will really ignite that passion for the job, which it always did for me. But keep in mind that once you are in the interview, you talk to nice people, get the studio tour, hear about all the benefits, etc... it can be really hard to not get carried away and be distracted by all the things that are on the table. Sometimes taking some time to thing it over before you sign the contract and make the final decision is all you need to get a clear head again.
This is probably the most important part to remember during and before the interview, is that you just need to be yourself and stay true to the things you prepared for before. Even though these things are stressful, try and make the best of it and have fun!
Don't be afraid to asks questions, going back to our initial and most important point to remember. The company is not only for a good fit, you are also looking for a good fit in a company.
So let's have a look at how a normal interview (or a day of interviews in some cases, sometimes, yeeah) will likely go. These sections can definitely be adjusted and reordered according to company other circumstances, so don’t take this as the way that all companies do it.
Usually the opener for the interview, your interviewers will introduce themself, their roles at the company and maybe even talk about their own personal history for interviews.
A short little introduction like this is all you need. Because if they want to know more, they will ask during the interview, so don't overthink it.
<aside> 📍 Introduction example (with Industry Experience)
"I'm Timothy Dries, I'm an environment artist with 5 years of industry experience and have been working on games such as Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Zoo and more recently Farcy 6."
</aside>
<aside> 📍 Introduction example (No Industry Experience)
"I'm Timothy Dries, an Environment Artist with a love for creating environments. Aside from Graduating university in Digital Arts & Entertainment, I've also been working on some personal work to expand on my skills such as composition and Environmental Storytelling."
</aside>
The differences between these two are that if you have no experience then obviously you can't use that as the main thing to talk about, so you need to lean on the things that make you stand out.
For me this was a lot of personal work that I was pushing really heavily. Let your work do the talking it’s why you are sitting here at this table (or skype call) at this point.
Then we’re diving into your portfolio, which in most cases will be the main part of the interview. This is also the reason why you are here at this very moment, so use that to reassure yourself.
During this section you will be talking about:
<aside> 1️⃣ Your work
</aside>
<aside> 2️⃣ Your workflow, technical steps
</aside>
<aside> 3️⃣ You as an artists, where you get influenced and what your goals are for the future.
</aside>
Since you will be discussing a lot of the workflows this is also the perfect moment to go more into details and really dive into the technical aspects.
Next up, sometime in the next interview there will be some time to discuss and talk about the studio itself.
And this is also the perfect moment to ask all your questions you have about the company you are applying for. Also, in most cases this is also where the company takes you on a tour through the company itself and maybe even offers you the opportunity to talk to other developers working on the game, since you signed an NDA anyways, but this might depend on the company. This is the perfect moment to get glimpses into the company culture and ask questions about that.
And if an office tour is not on the schedule or people haven't mentioned it, then it might be worth asking for it yourself, since you are going to be spending a lot of time there.
After this you might move on from your portfolio to the test (should you have done one for the interview). If this get's discussed then this is also the perfect time to ask for feedback on it while you are talking about it.
You’re probably going to be sitting in a room filled with other artists so no better time then now!
This is probably the most stressful part of the interview and it's talking about money. This can be especially hard if you don't have any prior experience on this topic. But that's where your research comes in.
At this point you should already have a ballpark expectation of what you can expect for your seniority level and the area you are going to be applying in. So use this to your advantage an try to aim higher then your expectations, but be careful not to go to high as this might put people off.
This chat will not only be talking about your salary though, other topics that will be discussed here can and probably will be stuff like where you currently reside and if you have to move countries, your availability period, if you need support with moving places, as well as some other HR related things.
The company you are going to work for has it in their best interest to support you as much as possible and make you feel at home as soon as possible. So ask for relocation benefits or packages, this will save you a lot of money! The next point also ties into this relocation package too, it might be good to ask about the cost of living to if you are going to be diving into talking about the salary at some point. How can you know how much you need to earn if you don't know what you are going to spend.
<aside> 📍 More on salary and negotiation tactics can be found here:
</aside>