"Soft" Skills Are Hard! Acing the Non-Technical Interview Questions

[music]. Thank you, welcome to my talk about interview questions, and somebody told me, if that dies, hopefully it is not going to die, so I'm not going to read you all the text because I am really tight on time, but this is who I am. Show more

At the end there will be a QR code if anyone wants to add me on LinkedIn or Twitter or any of the things. I would love to be connected with you, and the one thing I do want to tell you off this slide is that, like my reason for existing in the game industry is that- third bullet point- I want to make sure that you all can build the careers that you want, keep yourself safe, avoid burnout, resist Crunch and, if you weren't there, please watch the recording of the talk on occupational burnout. It was absolutely fantastic and that's that's. That's what I'm doing here, and happy to always help not just my own students, but anyone else in the industry who needs an assist with stuff like that. So today we're going to talk about soft skills, because I really hate that phrase. Show more

We'll talk a little bit about the anxiety of interviews and then we will get right into the different types of questions that you are asked in the interpersonal interviews, which I know everyone. You know people are like why these questions are kind of useless. But I promise you they're not. There's a really good reason for these questions. We'll get into that. The really scary questions are not traps, they are opportunities. We'll talk about that and then we'll talk about how to ask good questions at the end of an interview. We probably won't have good time for questions in here, but I'm happy to stick around in the wrap-up area across the hall afterwards. So I hate the phrase soft skills because it feels rather pejorative to me. Show more

It's like your hard skills or you know, your technical skills and whatever, and the soft skills is all the other crap. That's kind of no, that is not the case. That is not true. Your communication skills, your teamwork skills- all of that is the stuff that is going to help you build your career, move it forward, succeed Excel, become an amazing leader, all of those good things. So please, if you have a section on your resume that says stuff like team player, excellent Communicator, hard worker, please get rid of that. You don't need it, it's filler. There are other ways that you can demonstrate those skills as you go through the interview process. So a lot of you probably have a fair amount of debilitative anxiety around this kind of thing, partly because you know you're going getting ready to go into an interview. Show more

The stakes are high, you are working yourself up really hard and that can shut you down completely, and I don't want that to happen, and so ideally, you'll be able to take all of this stress and excess energy and focus it on the preparation, because the best you know, the best way to go into an interview is really thoroughly prepared. I want you to be prepared for questions that you might not even get asked, because that is, you know, the best way to know that you've you've got this, you're ready. So the other thing I want you to remember going into an interview Loop is that you are on a short list. They took those 300 people, or 1200 people, and you are one of the last people standing. So it's not a guarantee that you're going to get the job, but it's actually a really good sign, because at this point you know they want to fill this position. They don't want to have to start searching all over again from the beginning. So you're in a very good place going into a full interview. Thorough preparation is absolutely the best use of your energy. The one, one more thing I want to remind you on here is that this is now about what you can contribute to the company. It's not like, oh, this job would be so great for me. It's here's what I can do for you. Here's what I can bring to your teams and to your organization. So you've already got a blueprint for this. It's your resume. Your achievements are on there. So you're going to make a master document. You're going to go through the bullet points on your resume, look at your achievements and go, okay, these are the things I'm going to talk about in an interview. Show more

I mean, what else would you talk about? These are, these are your achievements. So make yourself a document, but don't memorize your little stories. Pick out stories and then have a few key words or phrases that you can have, you know, on your notes or, if you're being interviewed on video, you can have them on another monitor or whatever, so that you can just look at those keywords and you know which experience you're talking about and basically what you want to say about it, all the major points you want to hit. You don't want to memorize a script that will make you come across as very, very robotic, and so start with the keywords and then you'll find that very quickly you will get to. You know you will be able to get rolling from there. So why do these questions exist? Well, they help people understand how you're going to fit in on their team, how you're going to fit in, you know, with the different personalities. Show more

They've already got in there with the team that they're trying to build. If they're building a team from scratch, and they also give you a great opportunity to be like: this is the career I'm building for myself, this is the narrative I'm putting together, and so you will have chances to to basically tell them how you envision your future and hope that that matches up with what they Envision for you. So these questions also, very, very importantly, give you the chance to demonstrate your values and your priorities. When you are answering things like you know teamwork questions that will tell people a lot about, about your. You know your compassion, your empathy, your ability to listen to feedback and to work with other people and come to consensus and all of that. And you know also your, your growth stories. You will be able to to tell a lot of growth Stories. The one thing I want you to know is that every question has a question behind it. So when you are asked a question, like you know, tell me about a time when a project didn't go as planned. Okay, you're going to tell them about a time when a project didn't go as planned, but I think what they're really asking is: how stress reactive are you when everything goes to hell, like when the, when the plan falls apart? Do you run in circles, screaming, or do you take a deep breath and, and you know, figure out a plan to make things better, figure out a new Direction? So for every question you're asked, there's always going to be another one right behind it. Look for those when you get your lists of common interview questions that you can find in a lot of different places or that you can get from me after this. I'm happy to share that with you and always think about the question behind the question. So you are going to be asked almost certainly about your strengths and weaknesses, and I want you to remember that your strengths are not just the tools you know how to use. You might be able to- absolutely you know your. Show more

You use zbrush like no one else, or you know program in C plus, plus or whatever. But those aren't your only strengths. Your strengths are many other things about who you are as a human being and who you are on a team, in a group of other people. So come up with some strengths, come up with the words for them and then come up with a little way to talk about them for a few minutes. So it's not, it's not just like: my strength is perseverance, the end it's, you know, perseverance, because this thing happened and here's how I handle it and I just kept going and pushing through and so on. So make sure that you have examples of your strengths, your weaknesses. Please don't do that strength masquerading as a weakness thing where you go. I'm a perfectionist. That's my greatest weakness. Please don't do that. Come up with a real weakness, but you know, reach. Reach a little way back, and I'll talk about that in terms of failure questions as well. Reach a little way back so you can say, okay, this is, this is my weakness and here's how I've been working on it for the past three years. Here's the progress I've made. Here are the. You know the strategies and and processes that I'm using to get through this and please don't give the deal breaker weaknesses like I only shower once every three weeks, whether I need to or not, or you know, I I kind of have anger issues. That's not a good way to get a job. So please, you know, avoid that. One more really important thing: disabilities are not weaknesses. So please do you know, if you, if you start talking about your disabilities as weaknesses, that's, that's not going to be great. You can save those. You do not have to disclose those until much later in the process if you need to, unless you, of course, need reasonable accommodations during an interview. So your disabilities aren't weaknesses. Honestly, in some cases they may be superpowers. So please remember that. And so now we're going to talk about goals. These are my goals. Actually, I'm a, I'm four-fifth is the way there? Show more

Oh, I, you know, I. I have one bottle of wine, but I have four cats. So we're good. And the way you talk about your goals is gonna have a couple of things. It's going to do a couple of things for you. First of all, it's going to let them know if you actually know what this job is about and what you can do in this position. You know, do you understand what this job can do for you and what you can do for it. It may also show whether this is the right place for you, because you may have a set of goals that, if you are speaking authentically- which I hope you will be- you might not be, you know, the greatest match for this position or this studio, and that's okay. Show more

I would rather you found that out much earlier in the process, rather than getting a job and then realizing three weeks in: oh no, I've made a terrible mistake. I don't want you to go there. So you know, this is where you get to decide: are we a match for each other? It's not just their decision. So if you're having trouble narrowing those down, those goals, which is sometimes tricky if you're a student, because it takes a while to figure out- you know the different career ladders and how things work- do some homework. Go on LinkedIn. Look for people that you admire, look up some of the people you've met here- it's not stalking, I promise, and you know. Find those people and say, okay, what was their first job out of college and what did? Did they do after that? And somebody who works for this company: okay, what was their path? Did they move up in this company? Did they come from somewhere else, and so on and then come up with a reasonable set of goals. Look at it in terms of like one to three years out of college. You know that'll be your getting used to being a professional period. Then you know you get promoted. What do you want to get promoted into? And then you know, move forward from there. So be ambitious. Also be realistic so that you know they have this sense that you have a balanced understanding of where you are going from here. Sometimes you will be asked what your dream job is and I want you to be very careful about that, because this industry graphics and dream jobs and companies know I also hate the word passion. They know that you're passionate about what you do and that can sometimes be a really good way to exploit you because they know that you love this enough that you will. Show more

You know some of you will work for free. Please don't ever work for free. That's a whole other talk. I'll be pitching that for next year maybe. But you know, be careful around dream jobs. You have goals, but your first job out of college is not your dream job. It's your first job out of college and you know you will get to the other goals later on. So a lot of the questions are going to be situational questions, which are the ones that start with: so tell us about a time when this happened and that often send people into a panic. I was talking to somebody the other day, a friend who has like, oh, I think she's got 25 or 30 years in the industry, and she said, yeah, when somebody asks me that, my brain goes blank. So prepare these responses, because then it doesn't matter if your brain goes blank. Show more

You have notes, you are ready, you can, you can go back over the planning that you've done, and so we're going to go through all of these separately, but I want you to have that Master document and in there you're going to prepare for strengths, weaknesses, goals, the accomplishments that you're most proud of, your team experiences that were amazing, your team experiences that give you nightmares still, you know, 17 years later, or something the you know, conflict resolution, stuff with individuals, with teams, and so on. And there are times when you'll answer a question and you'll realize that your response felt a little flat or maybe didn't give them quite what they were looking for, and so you know, at that point you can go: wait, I've got another one. And because you have another one and you'll be totally ready to then go and then this other time this happened and you can reinforce the stuff that you've been wanting to talk about. So you have a lot of accomplishments. I've seen some of your resumes, I've worked on some of your resumes, and the way you know when you're, when you're asked what are the achievements of which you are most proud, that tells people a lot about you. When you answer that question, like you know, are you most proud of it because it won an award? Are you most proud of it because you took a team from the brink of disaster and turned it around and actually had a completed project out of it in the end? Show more

You know there are various reasons that something might be considered an achievement that you're proud of. So think about that carefully because it is going to be important in terms of their understanding of you, because it's also tied up in your understanding of you. I know a lot of you work on team projects. A lot of you I have to tell over and over again: please take your team name off your resume if you're a student, because it confuses people. But I know you love your teams mostly, but please don't just shift into a general discussion of the project, because they're not hiring your whole team. Maybe one day they will, but right now they're just hiring you. So make sure that you are focusing on what you contributed through all of this, through this line of questioning. A lot of you- and I know this because I've been teaching in the game industry for 15 years- a lot of you are very, very good at tearing yourselves apart and apologizing for things you don't have to apologize for, and I don't want you to do that. Don't don't say, oh well, this was nothing much, it was just this little thing. Don't do that. Get out of your own way, please, and let them decide. They're interviewing you because they looked at your stuff and thought this person might work out. So let that happen, please. Like, do not get in your own way for this stuff. Humility is fantastic. I don't want you to go in all arrogant and stuff, but but I also don't want you to be too self-deprecating. This is tough because for a lot of us, including me, self-deprecating is like our default, especially when we're nervous. So you know, please be careful about this. Make it part of your planning. If you're running mock interviews with people, have somebody just like go man. Every time you say something bad about yourself- and I promise you it will- it will start to get better after a little while. So your team experiences are really important. You are being hired to work as part of a team and so people will often want to ask you questions about the team experiences that you've had. Show more

Please take responsibility for the good and the bad things that you've done. We will talk more about failures in like the next slide- here it comes, but but you know, also give credit where it's due. If you worked on something and you know you managed to turn this project around, because you had the best producer ever or because somebody came up with a- you know- a brilliant idea somewhere in the process, give them credit for that. Show more

Employers like to know both that you can take responsibility for your own work and that you can recognize other people's contributions. That's really, really important. Also, please don't throw anyone under the bus ever. I know you all have experience. I'd be very surprised if there isn't someone. You know, if there's anyone in this room who has never had the experience of somebody else completely like tanking a project. I want you to think about what you could have done differently in that situation? Is it something that you know earlier communication could have solved? Is it something that, if you had tried to, you know work alongside the person you could have sold? So please don't ever say this project failed because Joe screwed up- unless you're Joe. In that case, even then, I don't want you to really do that. So, you know, make sure that you're focusing on this thing happened. There were a lot of people involved in this. Here was my part in it. Here's what I could have done differently, and also, in terms of the not throwing under the bus thing, the way you talk to your interviewers now about your previous boss. They're like, yeah, what's gonna happen when they leave this job? And they're talking about us in an interview. So I want you to be really careful about this. We've all had bad experiences. Your interview is not the time to air all of this stuff with with a group of people. So let's talk about the failure questions, because people say those are terrifying. You want me to be vulnerable? You want you want me to admit that I failed at something? Hell, yes, I do, because one of the strengths that you're going to have to rely on throughout your career is your ability to come back from failure, to take it, to learn from it and then to move forward doing things slightly differently. So for, in your master document, with all of those questions, I want you to have this three-part set up where it's like, okay, here's the story, here's what happened, here's what happened at the time, whether it was a good or bad outcome. Show more

I mean, if it's a failure, it probably was a mostly bad outcome, which is fine. And then you say: here's the takeaway, here's what I learned from that, here's how I did it differently on the next project, because that's what they want to see. Can you learn from your mistakes? Do you have enough self-awareness that you can then move forward and do things differently? So have that three-part thing going for failures, for conflicts and, you know, even for weaknesses as well, as if you're digging back far enough for that stuff. This is your Redemption art. Everybody loves a Redemption Arc. So you're going to reach back a little bit. You know your accomplishments, you. You want to do the recent stuff because you don't want anyone to think you peaked during your freshman year. So you know, for that you want the recent stuff. For your weaknesses, your failures, all of that. Reach back a little so you can say: well, a couple years ago I was on this project and here's what happened and you know, here's how it all fell apart. And then here's how we put it back together or didn't. And here, here's how I do it differently now. I make sure that when we put a team together, you know everyone knows what their part is and you know we have clear communication channels and all of that. Show more

I'm a Communications Professor. I have to talk about Communications constantly. It's in my contract, actually is in my contract. So when you're talking about conflict, sometimes you will have stories that like: here is the conflict and here's how we resolved it. Other stories will be like here's the conflict and in the end you know there wasn't a good outcome either way. I want you to make it clear that you do everything possible to resolve conflict effectively in a healthy way, without either shouting people down or just rolling over into that submissive posture and just, you know, letting the other person have their own way. And you know, if I, I would prefer, if you didn't, you know, tell you if your stories weren't. That time somebody gave me feedback and their feedback was just totally wrong, because I know how good I am. No, that's. That's not the way I want you to go at this either. I want you to talk about things that you know, the ways that you have approached this stuff. There's a wonderful book, by the way, called crucial conversations, if any of you are interested in that, and it really does help a lot in terms of how to approach high conflict or high stakes conversations. And, of course, this will also help people see how stress reactive you you are and you don't want to be really, really stress reactive. So your problem-solving questions: sometimes these will come up where you are given a scenario and- and you know well, okay, you have to choose between these two things- why they're looking for your thought processes, your, you know how you approach a problem, how you think through it, how you work through it, and so, instead of just going- I would do this- go back to the experiences you've had. Say, well, last year, my team actually faced a situation very similar to this. Here's how I handled it, here's what happened next, and and so on. And so this will show them how you, how you deal with challenges when you know- with, with other people or without other people, how your brain works, how you decide how to get your way through to the other end of a problem. Show more

So then there's the why do you want to work for us? Which is much easier, of course, if you've been playing some games since your parent handed a controller through the bars of your crib when you were three years old, or something not so easy. If it's like, well, I've never really heard of this company, but I can go look for them, you know, look for their website and and so on. So do that homework too. It's not going to take you that long, it'll be totally worth it. So read through their website, read the press releases, you know, look at any news that you can find about the company. A lot of companies will have little videos that are like: here's what it's like to work in our studio. Watch those little videos because you can learn a lot from them, because you you may find that the stuff that you learn isn't the stuff that they're saying in the publicity, you know commentary. Show more

It's the other stuff about. You know how you see people working together and so on. So if you're a fan, that's great, but you don't want to be just a fan. They're not hiring fans, they're hiring you to be a peer and a colleague and that is really really important. So at the end you will be asked: do you have any questions for us? Do not squander this opportunity. It is a fantastic opportunity for you to find out more about the position, for you to assess the way the people in your interview, like you, interact with you, the way they talk about the company and all of those things. Be aware of all the cues that they're giving you. Please don't ask them to discuss active controversies, like if they are in the headlines for big things. Don't go like: so how's that harassment thing going like? Please use your whisper networks for that. You will all, by this point, have your whisper networks or you will be starting to get them. Ask those questions there and, of course, don't ask them about NDA protective material- unless they have already had you sign an NDA before going into the interview, because they want to talk with you about that stuff. Show more

So ask them questions that show them that you are actually trying to see yourself doing this job on a day-to-day basis. You know, ask about you know. So how many, how many people on the team? Who would I be reporting to all of those questions if they're in your field, so, so awesome. So what do you think makes a good designer- or, you know, narrative designer, what you know, whatever it is? Another good idea is to show them that you're still willing to learn, that if there are skills that you don't have yet, you're willing to pick them up. You know, if there was, if there was one thing you'd suggest I learned between now and my start date, if you hire me, what might that be? And and then maybe we'll get some information that you can use over, you know, weekends to to pick up a new tool of some kind. Here is my favorite question ever, and I can. I want to thank Katie golden for this one. She came in and did a talk in my class A couple years ago. She's with Riot right now and also save point industry Gathering, which is a wonderful Organization for underrepresented game developers. So thank Katie for this one. If you ever run into her- and it is, do you have any concerns about my suitability for this position or whatever you would say? You know to sound like you, because what this means is that you get one more chance. They they might say, oh yeah, well, we're not sure if you know how to do this thing and you're like: oh yeah, you know that's not, that's not high up on my resume, but I actually have worked with that thing. You get another chance to explain what you've done, what you know, who you are, and so on. You might not like the answer you hear, in which case don't blow everything up. Show more

Thank them for their feedback and then you know you'll go away determined to to you know, come in better prepared next time. But this is my favorite question ever. Sometimes I have students who are like they'll message me on Discord or something. I'm going back in from a break, I'm going to ask the question. Then, an hour later, I asked the question. It was awesome, it worked out so good, so so hey, it's, it's working for a lot of people. I don't know if you know, please let me know if you ever try it and how it works out for you. So, getting ready to wrap up here, I can't believe that I've been talking for nearly half an hour and I've only had two sips of water. I understand that interviews feel really threatening it, because it's like these people have my life in their hands, they have my future in their hands and to a degree, I mean, yes, this is a high-stakes situation, but remember, you're not going to get every job you apply for. You're not going to get every job you interview for. So you need to get used to this a little bit and learn to use these things as a way to increase your power. Going into these situations, moving forward, and if you are going in prepared and you know the things that you want to talk about and you know the good stories that you're going to tell, this actually does shift the balance of power somewhat. So this is an audition and I love that the game industry is so full of theater kids. Show more

I was talking with some people about that at a party the other day. This is an audition, but you are auditioning them too, and if you're in a group interview and there's something about the way people are talking to each other or treating certain members of that panel that you don't like, Please Listen to Your Instinct on that. Not every job is a job that you want and I know that you have student loans, most of you, and some of you have Hefty student loans, but I still think that it's better to keep looking than to take a job where you can already tell at the interview that you're going to be really unhappy, because being really unhappy is one of those first steps toward burnout, and that's where I don't want you to end up. So the other thing I want you to think about is your non-verbals. I'm not asking you to do like the power pose thing- although you certainly can if it will work for you- but do think about how to make appropriate eye contact with people, not the I'm staring at you kind of eye contact, but you know, basically, when somebody asks you a question, answer them directly. I know a lot of people who say that if they ask a question and the person answers who they perceive as the highest status person in the room, that's a problem, that's a no hire for them. So make sure that you are doing this appropriately, make sure that you are, you know, going in confident, not all like curled up like a dead spider bites, but you know good, like you're up there, you're, you're ready for this, whether it's in person or whether it's on camera. You know, go in there with some non-verbal confidence as well. So the end of this is that your skills are really important, but I know you're getting those skills. I know that you are learning from. You know whoever you're learning from how to do the tasks, how to use the software, how to do all of those things. This is also really, really important because you are going to be part of a team and so this part of the hiring process you don't want to blow off this part. Show more

You don't want to blow off any part. You want to make sure that you give this equal attention as you do the more technical aspects of your interview. So you know what these questions are. I'll give you a list. There are so many lists, like I said. So prepare for this as thoroughly as you would prepare for a programming test, an art test to design, test, production and all of those things. And basically you're on your own, but you're not, because you have faculty and you have Career Services, people, and you have mentors- and- yeah me if you're interested- and all of those things, and I wish you a lot of luck moving on from here into the next amazing thing. Thank you so much. [applause]. [music]. Thank you. Show more

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