How To Get Prepared For a Job Interview

Alander787

Hello, tomorrow I'll be attending my first Job interview that is related to 3D.

I'm pretty nervous and I don't want to screw it.

What are some good advices you could give me?
What are some things I shouldn't say or I should definitely ask? 
How to make the best impression?

Also, it's good to note that it's not going to be face2face because of the coronavirus but we will be having a conference call.

Alex_J

before a big thing I've always found the best practice is to do nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just behave like you normally would.

Don't say too much personal info. Ask questions that are important to you. Just be yourself. They are humans too.

Biomag

There are some simple things I do before a interview:
1. Check the participants on linkedin - it gives you a better impression who you are going to be talking to and what their own role is. For example you don't want to ask HR about technical details of your work. 
2. Get a good idea how big the team is and what they are working on - not always possible with big studios, but sometimes you can already gain some info in advance.
3. Check again the job description - know the information in there to not ask redundant questions and also think about what they might ask you in regard to it.
4. Have your portfolio by the hand - could be they want to go through it and ask you things about it.
5. Make sure you have everything by the hand that they might ask you to prepare - for example salary expectations.

Things I usually ask are depending on who I'm talking to: 
HR only meetings are brief and usually pointless as they just repeat the job offer and present you the company - all information that you can gather by yourself. So the only questions I ask them are usually about the recruitment process and basics about the role they have in regard to the team.

When talking to team leads other artists - the discussions tend to be more technical, they will be checking your technical knowledge and you having a chance to find out about their pipeline and exactly what you would be doing there. You can also try and get an idea about the company culture or ask how the day to day life is going to be for you (are there daily stand ups? how do reviews work? what problems are they facing?...). You can ask if there is some additional software they might want to use or other specific things to working with them. To sum it up, these interviews are great to get a feeling of what working there is going to be like and if it involves moving to a different place you can also get an idea what to expect there.

You can also use these interviews to see what they have in mind for you mid to long term.


Like Alex pointed out they are just human, so just be yourself and talk to them the way you would with other people you just met. Be polite and not weird. Just use common sense. It is pointless to play a 'role' for an interview, since you won't be able to keep it up on a day-to-day basis once you start working there. So be yourself and also don't forget that just because you have an interview you don't need to take the job even if they offer it. Use the interview to get to know the place you might end up working at. Maybe its not even the right fit for you.

Ashervisalis

Know a few of the projects they've already finished.

Remember to smile and be friendly.

Ask about their workflow and programs they use.

Smile! Be friendly!

poopipe

The main thing to remember is that it should be a two way conversation - the purpose of these things is to find out what you are like as a person and whether they feel you'll be a good fit for the team.  You stand a better chance if you can develop a rapport with the inteviewer

Zi0

From my experience interviews can go two ways. If its a big company they might ask HRish questions like how would you behave during a specific situation, what  is your best quality / worst behavior. Smaller companies tend to have a more relaxed approach to interviewing, its more of a casual conversation.

Meloncov

What's helped me is to remind myself that I'm just gonna be chatting with video games and art with some cool people for a couple hours. Sure, you'll probably be asked a few tricky questions here and there, and you don't want to be too informal and unfiltered. But fundamentally, if you come off as happy to meet them, excited about the work you're doing, and excited about the work they're doing, you're ninety-five percent of the way there.

Alander787

Meloncov said:

What's helped me is to remind myself that I'm just gonna be chatting with video games and art with some cool people for a couple hours. Sure, you'll probably be asked a few tricky questions here and there, and you don't want to be too informal and unfiltered. But fundamentally, if you come off as happy to meet them, excited about the work you're doing, and excited about the work they're doing, you're ninety-five percent of the way there.

Well, it isn't a game company, but they do make models for game engines and VR too. I hope it's gonna be okay. I made it to the second part of the interview which is going to be done in person. So far, it was just a quick Skype call that turned out great. Thank you for your comment.

fdfxd2

Oh God I needed to see this thread yesterday so bad. I just potentially ruined my chances at getting hired at a game studio

Tips I learned

1. Prepare your entire portfolio in a zip file, with short text files in each project explaining the context of what you did,project requirements,etc

2. For the love of god make sure that your recent work isn't mostly recreations of guns, when the position you're applying for is a studio that works on space sims. They're gonna look right past your ok-ish AK, and straight into that awful sci fi helmet you made 3 years ago for a project that didn't pan out. Make sure your portfolio is actually relevant to the job you're signing up for.

3. Try not to be nervous. Much easier said than done, don't you just wish that all interviews could be done via text? maybe in a company discord because DMing people is a bit awkward. I know it would be really impractical and a bit irresponsible but man voice calls are hard.

And of course the best tip for last,

4. There is always a next time, and there's something to be learned from every failure

right?

But hey who knows? Maybe those things aren't the reason they're gonna reject me tomorrow, and it'll actually be this display of, sheer confidence in my ability, in a public forum that'll do the trick.

Alander787

I got hired! As a Junior 3D Artist, and it feels do damn awesome. I actually took some advices here and it helped! Thank you guys.

Zi0

@Alander787 Congrats!

sacboi

Alander787

Cheers. (kickstarted my day on a good note )

Brian "Panda" Choi

Welcome to the war!  Stay hungry learning and keep notes, being dead serious.

garcellano

Congrats!

Maned_Wolf

I know you already had the interview a while ago but for anyone else who may chance upon this post I have few suggestions:

1. First research a bit about the company that will be interviewing you. You could potentially tailor your responses to some specifics about the company and what they do. Also the employer will generally appreciate if they can see that you've done some research on their company. It shows that you're serious about the job.
2. Have a list of questions that would most likely be asked and practice how you would answer them. Print them out if you need to. Do this the day before or the day itself as well but NOT shortly before the interview because (if you're anything like me) you'll just be amplifying your nerves at that point and you'll want to focus on just being relaxed as best you can instead. The point is to avoid a "deer in the headlights" situation when you're unprepared to answer what may actually be a very simple question. Basically you'll want to generally know what to say but don't have a script memorized as coming across as rehearsed is a bit off-putting. The most important questions are probably the "why do you want this job" or "why should we hire you" types. This is where some knowledge about the company may come in handy as you have some more material to build your answer off of. My first few interviews were quite embarrassing because I didn't have a proper answer to these very basic questions aside from saying something along the lines of "I'm passionate about concept art and you are hiring for this position...so yeah"
3. Try to remain calm shortly before the interview. Don't about think about what's about to come. Don't rehearse! I think the biggest stress is the anticipation just before the interview. Things should ease up as you go along. 
4. If you're bad a coming up with questions on the spot you should have few questions at the ready beforehand for when the interviewee asks if you have any questions at the end. It just kind of shows you're actively thinking about potentially working there, I think. If they genuinely already answered all that you wanted to now, just say something along the lines of "I had a few questions in mind but I think you already covered all of them, thanks" instead of just "no I don't think so..." No big deal.