[Jenn]

Just a link I got emailed from a friend. Thought maybe someone else might be interested.
http://www.cliffyb.com/how-to-get-hired.htm

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DarkChyld

[SporQ]

thanks, great link

SporQ

[Blitz]

Well...if that wasn't the most helpfull thing I have ever read.

Thanks alot man. Glad ya posted that.

Blitz

[TheMilkMan]

Let me ad a few don't to that list for artists!

1: Do not ever come to a game job interview with the your attitude. Many guys think that there shit don't stink. That is the wrong attitude. I can tell you 10/10 times the guy with the good attitude will stick out like a sore thumb with an employer. I would rather hire a good aryist with a good atttitude then a great artist with a crappy attitude. Try working 3 years on a game in a cramped office with some A-Hole with out choking him!!! :P

2: Don't ever try to pass off someone elses work as your own ..if you don't get caught at the interview you will get caught at some point.

3 on't dress like a slob. Ya I know it is the game industry , but hey you are still working in a proffesional enviroment and you only get one chance to make a first impression.

4: Don't talk badly about another company or it's employee's at an interview. There are a lot of times when we want to hire a guy and he just wants to bitch about this and that and it really doesn't go over well with anyone.

5: When you are on an interview and the people that are interviewing you are nice enough to show you there game they are working on , act interested ( even if your not ) ..be complimentry , other artists like to hear they do good work so do programers believe me it goes a long ways .

6: Do not talk about your lack of skills in a certain area. If you can model and not animate say something like ( I made this cool model here, I am working on animating it now but I am just starting ).. that way it shows that you have a desire to learn new things. Always remember you have to be an asset to the team and the desire to learn new things is deffinatly a plus.

7 : On the above note you should never tell an interview that you will only Model in Meya or Max ...or that you will only limit your production to any certain program . If you only know a house tool or a program that the company that you are interviewing for does not use. Show that you are interested in learning whatever will get you the job!

8: Never go into a game job interview and not have any idea about the products the company makes. I have been in on several interviews where people did not know about the games the company makes and it really does not help show your interest in the company you are interviewing for.

9: Never come to an interview with nothing to show ( Portfolio , Demo Reel , Website ) talk is cheap believe me!

10: Don't come to an interview late. It shows complete lack of interest in the company . When you are meeting potential team mates try to remember names especially Producers!! Don't think that anyone you meet won't have an impact on you getting a job. If one guy thinks your attitude or lack of interest sucks, he might infect the others.

[This message has been edited by TheMilkMan (edited November 21, 2000).]

[Jenn]

HEheh Well I am moving to Aust 3rd Dec.. so I will have a portfolio up soon so that peole can perv at it and tell me they want to hire me -scoff- Ah well Wish me luck.. Maybe one day I will be up there with all the big peopoe

heheh thanks for the extra stuff MIlkMan :d

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DarkChyld

[Jason Manley]

combine both the above statement with the link and BAM...you got a job. : )

be sure to include that portfolio of kick ass stuff.

and finally...I absolutely agree about the attitude...we all end up hanging out together...sometimes we get good portfolios but the person we meet just wont fit in at all....Part of the interviews I have done have been about "what do you think of him/her" ...It is portfolio first and openness and friendliness second and third....an interest in what the company you want to work for helps too...if you dont like fantasy art then I wouldnt suggest working for a company that makes medieval games.


what else....this is a great topic for the newbies and for those who want to get in....

what else

what else

what else....

jason


jason

[Sergenth]

Priceless advice Milkman. And Jenn, I was about to suggest that article when I saw your topic and then I went in, and it WAS that article... hehe, www.bluesnews.com ! Woo!

[Matt Elder]

hmmm... an interesting read. Always nice to expand horizons.

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See ya on da flip side
Matt
http://www.mattelder.com

[Lukias]

So true, so true.

Thank you both, thats extremely handy info.

[Blitz]

I love this thread!!
man oh man

Thanks MilkMan.....Well I don't know if my stuff is kick ass yet but I am realy easy to get along with. Thats a pluss.

[craig]

thanks, all, for the post and replies!
this is excellent advice....now I have to
get to work on that portfolio!

[Brain]

Got this little bit o' information regarding MilkMan's point 3 from a mate of mine:

By the same token, don't come dressed up in a suit - mostly. If it's a big company (40+) then yeah, go the suit, but if it's a small (10-20) dev house who just wants you to come in and say hi, smart casual is better. Even so, that's *SMART* casual, not a fast-food-based-drug-pun shirt and a pair of
cargos.



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Brain
http://brain.gamekey.com/

[Jerry]

are u saying the people on this forum doesn't have a life a get a job? Are you saying taht we losers are just losers at home staring at the computer drawing all day? if so you're 100% correct... thanx for the link.

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-KARN- Forever. Die? Never

[faustgfx]

didn't need no portfolio or reel to get this job..



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sky high with a heartache of stone you never see me 'cos i'm always alone

[email protected] /
icq#35983387

[Freddio]

no wonder Faus...

you have a shit job

[faustgfx]

yep. i hate graphics bullshit.

actually, i like texture work.

it's the 2d, 3d, print and web shit that i hate.

or if it boils down to that, i like playing multiplayer games on decent computers. (sans the fact that requires win98 which is usually the negative factor..), it's the rest that i dislike, minus for the aforementioned texture work.

(and the millionth edit, fuck you too.)
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sky high with a heartache of stone you never see me 'cos i'm always alone

[email protected] /
icq#35983387

[This message has been edited by faustgfx (edited November 22, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by faustgfx (edited November 22, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by faustgfx (edited November 22, 2000).]

[Shane Caudle]

Jenn: it cool that you found the link to my co worker Cliffyb's site.

TheMilkMan: I totally agree with what you added to Cliff info 100%. I suggest that anyone that want in this buisnes read this info and really listen to it!

Everyone at Epic got our jobs by producing cool stuff prior to trying to get a job doing it. This is essential, you must have some really cool stuff to show, and an easy going attitude to go along with it!

When you are working 20 hour days for 2 months straight, you will appreciate that you don't have to deal with someone's attitude on top of that!

Never have the attitude that you know everything already, if you do, you are wrong!
I've been in the industry for a while now, and one thing I've learned is you will always have to learn new stuff, Software techniques, etc. I enjoy this, because I like to learn new stuff. You can always get better no matter who you are.

Good luck to everyone, and dot give up!



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Shane Caudle
Art Director/Level Designer/3D Dude
For Epic Games on Unreal and Unreal Tournament
[email protected]
http://www.planetshane.com

[samdragon]

so um..does that mean I have to cut my hair and shave? Is bathing an option? Can I bring my lunch to an interview?.hehehe ok, now for the real questions.

great info folks! Now it's just a matter of getting these companies to recognize me! I'm working on that part....

From what I understand, game artist's do more than just one specific job right? I mean, you're going to be doing 2D as well as 3D right? Do people actually get hired for nothing but 2D work?
What about royalties?
Do all game companies just concentrate on one area like PC games , or do they cross over and do some console games as well? I guess it would have to do with the programmers right?
And do the artist get to actually talk to the programmers? Or are they separate? Just wondering what type of communication there is between the two. By talk I mean, can the artist say things like "I really want this weapon to fire a blue stream instead of orange, it would look much better" Or is that handled through some liaison or something.

sorry for all the questions, but I keep getting mixed answers on these issues. I have more questions but I'm too tired to remember them..30hrs of no sleep has that effect...

[Freddio]

whoah shane

quote

Quote:

When you are working 20 hour days for 2 months straight

Your a phsyco

No wonder UT was soo good

[phreaknasty]

great advise sofar. almost, if not all of the advise seems to be dead on....

I'd like to hesitantly add a fourth�. "Foot In the Door"

4. art grunt - sometimes with large game companies you can get a toe in the door by applying for the most lowly or art jobs - the art grunt. this position usually entails managing files, file conversion, resizing, recoloring, tiling and the like. if you can show yourself as a competent, organized, order-taking, long-attention-span having, artist with a good knowledge of photoshop and perhaps debabelizer sometimes you can get lucky. another approach is to go get a job in a less glamorous industry such as home productivity software or multimedia as an art grunt. when you've gain some valuable production experience and can prove that you know how to ship a product than you should be able to parley that into a game job.

On Finishing (of sorts)
kinda along the lines of cliffy's "Finishing" section I'd like to express a pet-peeve of mine. I can't tell you the number of times that you'll be surfing through a bunch of perspective employees' webpages only to be find a number of unprofessional, poorly formatted, pages with broken link and the like. when someone is going through perhaps 100s of resumes and portfolios a month you don't have much time to grab their attention. put your best foot forward. place your best work were it can be easily accessible. they'de probably rather be creating art then sifting through resumes so don't make them work for you info. a neat resume, webpage or portfolio is more likely to hold a potential employers attention longer and grant them easier access to your work.

a sloppy resume, a sloppy portfolio, a sloppy webpage are all indications of an untidy individual. or in cliffy's words "a poor finisher." use common sense. when your work for a game company your creating a professional product that will be seen by perhaps millions of people. A huge portion of the latter part of creating a product is bug fixing. Its not fun, its not glamorous, but its crucial. if you can't demonstrate the fortitude to go through a couple of pages of html and make it look neat and bug free then your not going to want to fix bugs, or more importantly hand off art to engineers bug free the first time around.

Your being consider for an artist position. If your page if fugly what is that saying about you sence of aesthetics.

games aren't supposed to be half done and poorly presented. your going to work in a production environment were organization and file management is going to take on a pretty important role. if your a great artist but you don't want to take the extra time to present your work in an accessible, well formatted way then why are they going to assume that your capable of working on a product. if you don't know how to organize your own work how are you going to organize the hundreds of files your going to generate for me.

Tips: create a clean resume, dress relaxed but neat (bay area - I don't know about else were) if you create a webpage make it clean, navigable and fix broken links. if your established in the game industry then put all the little personal stuff you want on your webpage but until then don't put up pictures of your dog, your favorite music links etc� make it a job getting webpage. create a ascii version of your resume with your url included. email this to every company you are interested in. many companies don't mind word docs and the like but many hate them. they may not be running the same version of word as you and they many not want to risk getting a virus. don't fax a graphic intensive resume. Its gonna turn all black and will more then likely get chucked.

On personality-attitude

I can't stress this enough. Like some of the above posst have aptly stated, when your working form 11am-4am for a couple weeks straight (including weekends) you better like the people your working with. Arguments are inevitable, but if you get along with your co-workers arguments will occur less frequently and be smoothed over more quickly. when choosing between a bunch of relatively equal skilled artists more often then not attitude will take precedent over schooling, software knowledge etc�. you can't teach attitude. your going to be "living" with these people. you best like them.

and in conclusion, the sheer length of this post is bound to mean its got a number of problems so please feel free to pick it apart. I know I went a little overboard on the webpage crap, just a little pet-peeve of mine. I guess what I'm really saying is don't spend hundreds of hour creating a dynamic portfolio and then squander your chances of getting a job by presenting yourself/it poorly (resume, portfolio. Reel, webpage, yourself). your personal attire, resume, and webpage don't need to be master pieces, just decent. go into the interview with knowledge of the industry, and the company your meeting with, and BE A COOL, NICE PERSON.

good luck and sorry if I've somehow lead you astray�.

phreaknasty

[This message has been edited by phreaknasty (edited November 23, 2000).]

[Jenn]

Meow.. I want a cool job.. Everyone wish me luck for when I get to Aust

Oh... My portfolio is almost done too

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DarkChyld

[phreaknasty]

didn't mean to come off pissed. i just see a lot of talented people struggling to get a job because they aren't presenting themselves to the best of their ability.

i was surfing around and stumbled upon this relevant link http://www.igda.org/scholarship/ . a basic summary is that IGDA is awarding passes to GDC (game developer conference) to qualified students. GDC is an excellent source of information on the game industry and a great place to get hired. it is one of the best place in to gain access to a wide verity of game developers. E3 is certainly more entertaining but most of the people you meet there hr and pr people. at gdc you meet the developers, and learn from the developers. there is also a job fair (which is were i got my current job from). so do yourself a favor, and if you meet the qualifications apply to get the scholarship. good luck.

[N Pak]

Wow this was eye opening. Thanks for the added comments MilkMan, I know now that I must work harder! WORK HARDER!!!

/me slathers at the mouth and drinks a bottle of pen ink before his supervisors can pin him down and work a thick slab of raw steak between his gnashing teeth...



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"Worthless advice is worth thrice the price."

[SuperGirlQ3]

To: The Milkman

Your information is insightful, however I maybe mistaken but, did you copy one of Paul Steeds "thinking out of the box" articles for the information you posted in your post?

And if no, where did you gain the knowledge behind your statements?

____________________________________________

SuperGirl
Game Designer & Sound Designer
ARTEMIS SOFTWARE
Designers of MYTHICA www.artemissoftware.com