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[MUSIC]
Welcome back.
We've been talking about interviewing, right?
And so
one of the key things that I like to talk to people about is asking questions.
And the way I frame this usually is that interested people are interesting.
And what I mean by that is that if you show interest in something
that somebody else is working on, they're gonna find you more interesting, right?
Interested people are interesting, right?
If you can pay attention and listen and get somebody else involved
in that interview process with you, you're gonna seem more interesting to them.
So, let's talk about asking questions at an interview,
because that's really important.
Because the reality is that every single person you talk to is gonna say,
what questions do you have for me, right?
Those of you that have a lot of work experience,
and have interviewed, you know this question's coming, right?
What questions do you have for us?
And the worst answer to that question is I don't really have anything.
I don't think I've got anything.
Because if the interviewer asks you that, and you say no, you're gonna look dumb.
So now that I've said it's super important to be able to ask questions,
let's talk about questions you don't wanna ask.
Because I know the saying is that there's no such thing as a stupid question,
in an interview there is, right?
Don't ask questions about money unless it comes up, not on your part, right?
You don't wanna ask self-centered questions, right?
So if you're asking about, well, how much time off do I get?
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That doesn't help them think of you as an employee that's gonna come in and
be excited about working.
That gets them thinking about you as an employee that comes in and leaves, right?
So don't do that.
Don't ask questions that could be answered from the website, right?
That actually demonstrates that you haven't been paying attention, right?
You haven't been interested.
You're not paying attention to what they're doing, and
you don't know anything about them.
So, it's critically important to not do those things.
And I know those are questions that we have,
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But the things about money and time off, that stuff can come later
when it's part of the conversation that's brought up by the employer.
Doesn't need to happen when you're trying to impress them.
Let's talk about the end of the interview.
One of the most important things that I encourage people to do,
particularly in game development, is ask for a business card.
Why would you do that?
Why do you think I would say ask for a business card?
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Because a business card contains a human's email address,
not just hr@gamecompany.com, right?
Because that one fills up all the time with lots of people sending their resumes
out, and if you've made it that far, that becomes a contact, right?
That's somebody that may be down the road even if you don't get that job,
when you see them at the game developers conference, or you see them
somewhere else, maybe it's a local group meetup and you're like hey, right.
It was really great chatting with you the other day.
You know their name, you know their email address.
It's really helpful.
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If they don't have one, ask for their name and email address, right?
Hopefully, you wrote their name down when you started talking to them or
even before.
Maybe you sort of looked up the things that they've worked on.
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Think back to the very beginning of some of these Coursera classes where we said
go look at game designers or people who make games and
the kinds of games that they've been credited on.
Go look and see what those people have worked on because they're real people that
have worked on games, and
if you know more about them, interested people are interesting.
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I saw that you'd worked at this other company on this game and I was a huge fan.
Can you tell me a little bit about the process or
what you thought was fun about that project, right?
That's a question that's gonna leave a really
glowing impression on somebody, right?
They're like, you actually looked me up and that's super exciting, right?
We all like being recognized for things that we do, right?
Always send a thank you.
That becomes the reason for why you go that email address.
But, you're saying thanks for your time.
And, in games, there's so much time and everybody has meetings and so
time is really precious.
And acknowledging that hey, right, it's difficult to get this far, and
thank you for giving me your time and for the opportunity.
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That means a lot to people.
If you're curious about that just go Google interview thank you letter,
right, for how you should structure it.
It's pretty easy.
And the reality is, be human, right?
Say hey, it was great, I enjoyed chatting about x and y, and about the position, but
don't always expect a response from that.
Again, it's okay.
The last thing you want to do is send a nasty email, and
if you get the rejection, that's okay.
As I mentioned before, right,
the distance to Kevin Bacon in the game industry is one.
And so if you're a total jerk to that person and
then somebody comes along and says, hey, this person is interviewing for this job.
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Do you know anything about them?
And they say, yeah that person was a total jerk.
They sent me this nasty email.
That doesn't help your cause.
So, let's talk about conclusion, right?
So, you can go after internships, right?
Go after them early and often, and you're not always gonna get them, but your
main goal is to gain as much technical skills in your area as possible, right?
If that's a designer, it's writing scripts, or
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as in scripts, not like scripts that people narrate, right?
Gameplay scripting within Unity.
If it's an artist, it's working in Illustrator, or Photoshop, or
3D Studio Max.
Your goal is to acquire those technical skills and
demonstrate them by making stuff.
Now, the other thing is even if you don't get the job,
you're making connections, right?
And make those connections as often as you can, right?
And be super cool about it, because people talk, and pay attention.
And when you post that nasty thing on a forum and
suddenly somebody recognizes that name that's not a good thing because it
is a tight knit social group and you're trying to get into it.
There's a reason people call getting into
the game industry breaking in cuz it's difficult, it's hard.
But you can do it if you have that portfolio and you present yourself well.
[MUSIC]
Casey O'DonnellAssociate Professor
