From: Robin Green
Subject: Advice to job applicants.
Date: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 9:40 AM
Been doing a load of interviews these past weeks and I've got a few
pieces of advice for prospective candidates:
Please don't "lie" on your CV. Not even half truths.
What happens is this: We get a pile of CVs from recruiters and direct
applications. We read every CV looking for people to fit the posts
we have open. On the basis of your CV, we write back and ask you to
visit. You will be dragged down to our campus starting at some
godaweful hour of the morning. We too as interviewers will come in
early. We will go through your CV and ask you questions like whether
the reference to C/C++ in your CV means "C but I once read an article
about C++ in Byte" or whether you actually *know* the language.
If you say you worked on a project, what areas were your responsability?
So, you worked on that 2 million seller, but you did the high score
table as a summer intern? You say you have "considerable knowledge of
Game AI", but you haven't heard of A* or Finite State Machines? You
say you "have experience in assembler" but never got beyond 8086
segmented architectures and that was 8 years ago?
You will then go home, not get the job and have wasted your time
and ours. We asked you to visit as a possible game programmer in our
new market breaking thriller, you go home as a bewildered kid out
of your depth and out of pocket because you "exaggerated a bit" on
your CV.
Please keep your CV clear, truthful and up to date.
Be prepared to defend every statement in it and be able to provide
proof that you can do what you say you can do. Because, trust me, we
*will* ask.
Please have at least one clue about the job you've applied for.
Having a clue about the job you're being interviewed for does
help, really it does. Some knowledge over and above what your mate
once read in Maximum PC or Edge Magazine, some idea how games are
made and how the industry works is valuable. A clue or two about
gameteams, producers, alpha, beta, gold, source control, design docs,
artists, file formats, basic maths and the current state of the
art. That should get you through the first half hour of the interview.
After that you should be showing us where you excel, what really
excites you about programming, where you're special and why we
shouldn't just say "Well, it's been great. You'll be hearing from us
by the middle of next week", see you out of the door and go off for
a coffee.
Please, please think about your CV, your application letter (those are
getting rarer and rarer these days) and the job you're applying for.
Don't just let the recruiter send you everywhere because, to them you
are just a piece of meat with some redeemable market value. (Hi Barbara,
I'm not talking about you). They will send you round the houses until
you get a job and they get a fee of 10% of your starting salary for the
cost of a few faxes and phone calls.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Robin Green, Research & Development rgreen<at>ea.com
Bullfrog Productions. tel:+44 1483 482916 These opinions are my own
----------------------------------------------------------------------