Original Post
I finally did it! Just go my first job in the game industry! It took me a while but now I'm in. No more fixing up my resume, no more email tests or phone interviews or waiting for someone to get back to you. I'm starting work at Terminal Reality on Monday. I don't feel excited or happy, all I feel it tired. I worked so hard at finding a job; now that I'm there I'm scared of the change. Man life is weird some times. I'm sure once I set my foot in the door Monday I'll have a silly grin on my face and feel like a million bucks. Anyway I've got some tips for anyone still out there looking to get their foot in the door. A lot of them might only apply to programming positions in the US. Not all positions are posted but that doesn't mean you want to spam you resume. None the less more than once I got an email tests from companies I forgot I even sent resumes to. I just happen to sent out my resume even though they didn't have position available at the time and got keep on a database or something. All tests are surprisingly different, except sometimes between different studios with the same mother ship. Some test are timed some are not, some allow any reference book or a compiler you want some allow none, some ask general questions about game development some are just C++ and math specific, some ask you to write a whole program some are just little snippets. All you can do to be prepared is work on your C++ and Math. You should know C++ perfectly; the mechanisms of virtual functions or how to reverse a string should be trivial. As far as math goes, know vector math perfectly and try to learn something new once in a while. Phone interviews are about making a good impression; the trick is to be in a good mood. Before the interview, exercise do meditation have sex, anything that works for you is fine as long as you feel great. Oh and if you're not from the US, this is really important: don't ever interrupt. I screwed up more than one interview due to this cultural gap, glad I'm not looking for a job in Japan. Have a list of questions to ask an interviewer and ask the ones most fitting the situation. What is your turnover rate, will I be working with next generation consoles, what kind of soft drinks are available. Any you'd really like to know. If you do get a chance though try and use this question. Q: "Can you get me all hyped up about COMPANY_NAME? I mean what's better about COMPANY_NAME than COMPETITOR_NAME?" What it does is make the interviewer talk a lot and be proud, you might even learn something. One picture can be worth a thousand words. Send your resume as a PDF with the best pictures of your demo at the end. My resume is a 10MB word file and only a 250k PDF file. I use a free WORD to PDF converter. The trivial things: Make a kick ass demo. When you're done, make another. Work in a serious team. Take initiative within the team. Get the Meyers Effective C++ CD. Have a good looking web site with additional information about yourself. It's real simple; I just used a free CSS template and FrontPage. To be honest I don't even really know HTML. This is my web site for example. Ask questions here in the forums, even ones you'd feel ashamed not knowing. Better looking stupid here than on a test. Try and answer questions in the forums. Most of your work will focus you in one area. Answering other people's questions will keep you sharp in a lot of different areas and it might even teach you a thing or two. Last but not least, you might get lucky but I think that for the most of us it's not always an easy ride, you just have to keep at it. There are some things you can't help like living far away from game companies, not having experience or just being an idiot. I don't know about the last one but if you really want to make games you'll find a way past a lot of obstacles. In any case Good luck!