STAFF PROFILE: TOM, INTERN
What is your background?
After many years of youth wasted away playing, reading and thinking about games, I came to the decision of which University course to study. Putting my computing interests and games together I chose to go to the University of Teesside to study their course in Computer Games Programming.
From here I learnt to program properly, and started to branch out into various systems, mainly focusing on Graphics and Engines. By the time my second year finished, I'd decide to try for a placement year in the games industry; a nigh on impossible task indeed. Until of course Rare started taking on Interns, and lo and behold I found myself in Sunny Rare-ville.
How did you get to work at Rare?
Loads of effort and a dab of spit and polish! I tried to pack as much effort and polish into everything Rare saw from me. Right from the application form, to the test days and my Portfolio CD. It took a lot of effort, but I think it shows when you're trying to find a job. Some tips I could give:
- Make sure your portfolio is impressive; making it into an offline webpage on CD will allow you to make it more visually striking and easier for whoever's interviewing you. If you don't have an artistic bone in you, get someone else to do it!
- Prepare for your video and telephone interview, there's nothing worse than standing there lost, saying "errrm… yes!".
- Try to look at yourself from Rare's eyes and what they've seen of you. If you were in the same situation, looking for someone to employ, what would you think was bad about you? Try to rectify that weakness, or come up with a reason for why it doesn't matter (because something else about you is so good, for instance!).
Oh, what did my portfolio contain, you ask? An offline webpage that I spent some time making look nice, containing descriptions of my work, and then links to the work itself so that it was easy to view. I probably had about five or six pieces, but I only gave two pieces of work source code. It was all nicely laid out, so I'd suggest doing the same. |
