Guest Lecturer - Nick Rathbone

Our guest lecture this week was presented by Nick Rathbone who is our second guest lecturer who has also studied at the University of Bolton. He graduated in 2008 with first class honours and managed to secure a job straight after graduating at Climax studios as a graduate designer. He is now a designer at Codemasters.

In his lecture Nick talked about many things, but the main topic was breaking into the industry. On this subject he talked about how important it is having a good looking CV and portfolio and how to prepare for a job interview. Nearly every one of our guest lecturers has brought up these points but it’s good to see a wide range of ideas and also similarities.

One of the things a CV and portfolio needs to show is that you are capable of doing the work, you need to sell yourself and this can be achieved in a whole matter of ways. Nick talked about getting as much experience as you can and also try and do as much work in your free time as possible; this is also a recurring suggestion through our lectures. There is a great article on gamasutra that goes into full explanation on how to write the perfect CV for applying for a job in the games industry. The article goes into detail about doing research into the company you are applying for, researching their games and playing them and also linking them to your portfolio website, all these points are the same that nick made in his lecture.

Finally the last point to talk about is the interview process, Nick explained that it is nothing to worry about as long as you are confident and know what you will be saying. He also mentioned that you should prepare for any tests that the company may give as well as preparing any questions you may have for the interviewer. A great blog post I read by Sharad Mitra explains that an interview is just a conversation, he says, “Be as honest as you can be. A company generally gets only a day with you, maybe two, to gather all it can before making a life-changing decision, both for you and for them.” This is great advice as they need to see who you really are rather than whom you think they want to see.

References:

Darius Kazemi . (2009). Writing a Resume for a Game Company. Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DariusKazemi/20090428/83855/Writing_a_Resume_for_a_Game_Company.php.. Last accessed 8th May 2015.

SHARAD MITRA. (2010). Game Job Interview Questions And How to Answer Them. Available: http://laidinpeace.blogspot.co.uk/p/game-job-interview-questions-and-how-to.html. Last accessed 8th May 2015.