"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 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 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 uh 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 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 um 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 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 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 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 uh 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 um 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 uh 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 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 uh 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 uh you know the strategies and uh 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 uh you know I I kind of have anger issues that's not a good way to get a job so uh 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 oh I you know I I have one bottle of wine but I have four cats so we're good uh 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 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 um 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 um 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 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 um 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 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 uh 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 uh 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 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 uh 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 uh this stuff humility is fantastic I don't want you to go in all arrogant and stuff but uh 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 uh 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 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 um 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 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 uh unless you're Joe um in that case even then I don't want you to really do that so um 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 uh 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 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 uh 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 uh 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 I'm a Communications Professor I have to talk about

Communications constantly it's in my contract actually is in my contract so um 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 um 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 uh 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 uh and so on and so this will show them how you how you deal with challenges when uh you know with uh 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 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 uh I can go look for them you know look for their website and uh 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 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 um 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 um 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 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 uh 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 uh 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 uh and then maybe we'll get some information that you can use over you know weekends to uh 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 uh 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 thank them for their feedback and then you know you'll go away determined to uh 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 um 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 um 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 I was talking with some people about that at a party the other day uh 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 uh 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 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