Recruiter / HR Screening Call

(10-30 minutes)

The first call you have may be a brief screening call. These are often scheduled with the recruiter or whomever you’ve been speaking to so far, and while they’re often put on the calendar as a 30-minute meeting, they often only take about 10. Screening calls are just a quick conversation to make sure you can legally work with the studio, are willing to relocate if necessary, clarify any basic questions from your application, etc. - this is not the same as the developer phone/shortform interview. I won't be covering screening calls in detail because there isn't generally much to ‘em - they’re just a quick gut check to make sure you’re a real person who they can pursue hiring.

At smaller studios, this screening call may be rolled into the shortform interview with the developers, particularly if the studio is too small to have a dedicated recruiter.

If you’ve been contacted by an external recruiter (some studios use external, dedicated recruiting firms for some or all of their sourcing), this call doesn’t typically change much; however, the composition of the rest of the interview may be significantly different. In some cases your contact with the developers prior to be hired may be minimal.

This can also be a good time to ask about the salary range for the position - it can be a huge help during the offer phase if they give you one. In some places, such as California, they are required to give you the salary information if you ask.

You

• "Tell us about yourself."

  • You will always be asked to tell them about yourself and what you do.  Have keypoints, keep it brief, and love what you do.

• "Why did you decide to get into games?"

• "What are your favorite games?"

  • "Why?  What are your favorite things about it?"

  • "What do you think they could have done better?" / "What didn't you like about it?"

• "Who are your favorite artists / biggest influences?"

• "What are you playing right now?"

  • "What’s your favorite thing about it?"

  • "What do you think they could improve?"

• "What’s your favorite thing you’ve gotten to do?"

• "What’s the hardest/most challenging thing you’ve had to do?"

  • Be positive! Was it a learning experience?  Was the challenge fun?

• "Tell us about your prior project(s)." / "Can you tell us more about [insert thing/project] on your resume?”

  • You can talk about games or game jams, personal projects, etc.  Like telling them about yourself, keep it brief and positive.  Detail the things you accomplished and learned during the project, challenges you overcame, etc.

Your Workflow / Process

• "Can you describe your typical process?"

• “Can you talk us through this portfolio piece of yours?”

  • This and the art test question below are the concrete cousin of the “typical process” question, and in all cases you ideally want to talk about overarching fundamentals you keep in mind as well as specific examples within your work.

• "Can you describe your (art/design/etc.) test and process for us?”

  • "What if we changed [x] about your test? How would you adapt what you made to that?"

  • "Is there anything you wish you could fix about your test?"

  • "How long did you wind up spending on your test?  If you were going to recreate it, how long do you think it would take you?"

• "Do you have any favorite tools / programs?"

• "Do you know (tool x)?"

  • If they use publicly-available tools, they will likely ask about these and you should absolutely tinker with them a little before your interview.  If they don’t, they will probably simply ask about tools that are part of your pipeline and they aren’t sure you know.

• "How do you handle a task when you don’t know how to do it?" / "How do you plan for a task whose length you can’t approximate?”

• “If we were to add [a specific mechanic / asset / etc.] to the game, how would you approach creating it?”

You and the Team

• "Why do you want to work on our game/team?" / "What do you know about our games/studio?"

• "What do you hope to gain out of working here?"

• "Have you played any of our games?"

  • "What’s your favorite thing about them?"

  • "What’s something (typically this will be tailored to your career type - gameplay, art, etc.) you think could be improved?  How?"

• "Why are you looking to leave your current company?"  (If currently at a studio.)

  • Remember to be positive - instead of focusing on what sucks about your current job, focus on things you hope to gain from this new studio, such as the chance to work on a game you love, learn from people you admire, better culture fits, etc.)

• "What kind of studio/team environment do you like working in?" 

• "What do you look for / think makes for a good lead?"

• "Have you ever had a problem with a coworker? What did you do / How was it resolved?"

  • This is mostly a test to see if you default to negativity or blaming others, and you can easily hang yourself with your answer, but it's very easy to turn it into a demonstration of your own focus on growing and improving yourself, and the humility to acknowledge that you made mistakes too.  If you've encountered a problem while working with someone, focus on the issues that cropped up rather than them as a person, and get to the things that you did to make things better, what you learned and applied going forward, any short- and long-term benefits of those changes, etc.

• "Are there types of people you don’t like working with?"

  • In my opinion this question kinda sucks because it defaults so negative. If you get hit with this you can instead focus on traits of people you know you really love working with. If they really push for people you dislike, that might be a red flag.

• "What are your career goals?” / “Where do you want to be in your career in five/ten years?”

• "What is your ideal day/week like at work?"

Conversational Questions

These are just safe, small-talky-type questions for rescuing a flagging conversation or if you want to learn a little more about your interviewers as people and developers.

• "What are your favorite games/artists/major influence?"

• "What games are you playing right now? How are you liking them?"

• “What’re your favorite parts of working here?”

• "What is a typical day/week like for you?”

• "You worked on [game/project/etc.] before you came here, right? How was that?"

• "You've been here for x years, right / How long have you been here? What've been the things that kept you here so long?"

• "What sorts of hobbies do you have?" / "What do you do outside of work?"

• "What field would you have gone into if you didn't go into games?"

Work-Centric Questions

These are less small-talk and more the sorts of informational questions I like to have ready to ask at the end of an interview, to help me clarify anything about my role I don’t feel I understand.

• "What skills would you like to see me improving while I’m waiting for an update?"

  • This is my personal all-time favorite wrap-up question because it emphasizes to them that you’re taking this application seriously and are very learning-oriented. It’ll also make it that much easier to hit the ground running if you do land the job.

• "What is a typical day/week like for someone in my role?"

• "How much feedback do you typically have over the course of an asset/design?"

• "How much would I be collaborating with... (other relevant developers/teams)?"

• "What do you wish you’d known when you started here?"

• "When should I expect an update?” / “What are the next steps after this?”

30-Minute/Shortform Interview

Time yourself to 25 minutes for both asking and answering each question.

• "Tell us about yourself."

• "So why [this team/game/studio], what’s got you excited about here in particular?"

• “Do you play any of our games?”

  • “What’s one of your favorite [mechanics/heroes/VFX/skins/whatever]? How come?”

  • “What’s one of your least favorites? Why? What do you think you would change to improve it?”

• "What’s your typical process for designing a [mechanic/asset/etc.]?"

• “Can you talk us through this portfolio piece of yours in particular?”

• "What kind of studio/team environment do you like working in?"

• "Can you describe a difficult situation or disagreement you’ve had with a coworker? What happened, how did it resolve?"

• "So what do you play outside of [studio games], what are some of your favorites?"

  • “Have you been playing anything new lately?”

• “We want to make sure you have time to ask us anything you’re wondering too, so, any questions for us?”

  • Try to bring at least two or three questions with you. For initial interviews in particular, I really like these ones:

    • "What the next steps after this?”

    • "What skills would you like to see me improving while I’m waiting for an update?”

60-Minute/Longform Interview

Time yourself to 45-50 minutes for both asking and answering each question.

• "Tell us about yourself." (Yes, again.:’))

• “So how’d you get into games? And your discipline in particular?”

• "What’s your typical process for making a [mechanic/asset/etc.]?"

• "If you’re assigned a task you don’t know how to do, how do you tackle that?"

• "Can you walk us through your (art/design/etc.) test and process?”

  • “Why did you decide to approach [x] the way you did?” (Pick some aspect of your test here.)

  • "What if we changed [x] about the test prompt? How would you adapt what you made to that?"

• “If we were to add [a specific mechanic / asset / etc.] to the game, how would you approach creating your part of it?”

• “We’ve got about ten minutes left and we’ve been asking a lot, do you have anything you want to know about?”

  • 2-3 questions will usually fill the time if all 3-4 people answer them.

    • "What the next steps after this?”

    • "What skills would you like to see me improving while I’m waiting for an update?”