A note on applying to jobs in the video game industry...

Literally every day of my life I'm stopped in the street by some college kid looking for tips on how to "break in" to gaming. Usually, I just hand them the squeegee and spray bottle I carry with me and have them clean my car before I answer, but today is 10/02, so I'm going to share my wisdom of nuggets with you without requiring the manual labor.

A lot of resumes cross my desk and a lot of candidates come in for interviews...here's some good tips that will get you hired every time:

• Always apply for whatever position is available. Just graduated from school with an English degree? Go ahead and apply for that senior online programmer with 10 years of experience position.
  
• Always go ahead and let us know that what you really want to do is design games, regardless of whether or not we are hiring for a designer position. Designer jobs are easy to come by...every game company has openings for people who we want to pay huge salaries to sit around and think of a "cool idea" for a game. There is no shortage of skilled people to fill hard roles like programming and art...finding someone who can say "wouldn't it be cool to make a game like World of Warcraft" is virtually impossible.
• Always write your resume in a non-standard font. Please. If I don't have to go to Adobe.com and pay $40 to download your font I probably won't read your resume.
• Never dress appropriately for the interview. We're a bunch of game developers...we wear jeans and t-shirts all day long. The last thing I want to know is that you care so much about getting this job that you are willing to iron your one dress shirt to make a good impression. You are a special rock-star, better than our best, and you should let us know this by rolling out of bed in whatever you slept in the night before and stumbling into my office.
• Never let on that you actually want the job. Nothing will hurt your negotiating position more that letting us know that you actually want the job you are applying for. Please make sure you seem disinterested the entire interview. Don't make eye contact. Don't talk about games. Don't seem passionate.
• Always answer the question "what do you do for fun" by stating that you do whatever job you are applying for in your free time. So, if you are applying to a programming position, say that you only program in your free time. The last thing I'm looking for when I ask this question is any insight into what you might be like as a human being and what it might be like to...I don't know...spend 40+ hours a week in constant interaction with you.
  
• Whenever I ask the question "Do you have any questions", always respond with "no." I'm definitely looking for employees who aren't inquisitive about the position or the company.
• Always liberally insert anti-Semitic or anti-American comments throughout the day.
• Never show up on time. You don't want to appear needy. A good rule of thumb is that if you are scheduled for a 10:00am interview, don't show up until around lunchtime. REFUSE to address the fact that you are late.
• Whenever you are asked to solve a problem on the board, instead decide to draw a cute picture of your private parts or a graffiti tag with lots of "swears" in it. Also, please take a long time to actually draw the aforementioned item, because the last thing I want is to see that you are able to think quickly on your feet. After I ask the question, go to the restroom, read the paper, grab some coffee, and only then should you draw your "junk" on the white board.
• Always comment about how much the games we have made in the past "suck." Please point out your detailed knowledge of every glitch, bug or poor implementation of gameplay we've ever done. DEMAND that we fire everyone involved with the last title because they were clearly raised by illiterate, diseased primates.

Using these tips you should land your dream job in no time! Good luck and hope to see you soon.