Advice on Submitting Sample Programs/Work

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Hey Erusuwasu

From experience many companies will show interest in you simply from impressive screenshots of the work you described. I find the main difficulty is when sending out demo work / portfolio work email isnt always the best option due to file size, but sending via the post slows the whole process down.

I would recommend sending out your resume + a pdf / web page outlining all of your game and technical work, companies who are interested will then go on to request the actual exe, by then, you have contact with them, a contact name and email and hopefully a telephone number.

If your considering working abroad drop me a message as i have quite a few interesting companies in Europe for you to have a look at

Best of luck!

 

Loathed as I am to agree with a recruiter (spit blah cough ) Johns spot on there. Most companies get a load of big emails and CD's in the post daily from prospective wannabe's and seldom have the time to put the CD's in the hole.
A good paper letter with some excellent eye candy to grab their attention will do wonders. Grabbing their attention when they open the mail is the best way to get them to look at your demo/showreel.

Emails in contrast should be as simple as possible, many HR people have their spam filters tuned to sniff out a prospective employee's image or exe file and direct it straight to the delete folder, so if you must use email a short tidy mail with links to a well laid out webbie will get more response than a huge piccy loaded file with Megs of attachments.

happy hunting

 

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I think that with Brian's and John's advices you'll make through the big corporate machinery without them instantly binning your CV, but after it get's to the actual evaluation of your application by other programmers, then I wouldn't think a screenshot means that much. (unless maybe if you're going for a graphics programming spot and it has some unique stuff in it) Then it's all about the demo and code.

One thing that makes a very good impression is a good, finished demo game, with all the elements like menus, sounds, graphics properly implemented, that shows you understand all the elements that go into games and have the energy to finish what you have started. If you're going for a really specific job, then the one subsystem obviously has to be the impressive part. But even more important, at least in our company, is your code. It should be clear and easy to read (proper and consistent formatting), have good code desing that shows that you know what you are doing (no copy paste coding, no 23456 line do_everything() functions, etc. etc.) and it also should be properly documented (but don't go overboard, some people seem to think good documenting is about writing a line of comment per every code line...).

(Disclaimer: I've only worked at small companies, so I'm no expert if you're applying for EA or something. If you can spell and put a capital letter at the start of your sentences, your CV is ok by me. )

 

I guess the first step does depend on the company. I've heard of places where if you have no experience they will send you a simple two-hour test that you have to answer and send back to them. This is used as an initial filter, as it can be automated easily.

Once you're past that, the real process begins. You have to specify clearly in your resume how your experience is relevant to the position you're applying for. If you haven't worked before, don't worry. Explain what you learned at the university, or what you did as personal projects. Focus is key, here. Most people will look for shipped titles, and if they can't find any, they won't browse through a 4-page resume. Use one page and outline the important stuff.

As Kimmol said, if you can prepare a finished and polished demo, that will get you big points. Many programmers lack the drive to complete what they start, and tend to leave most work unfinished. If however you don't have a demo like that, don't panic. Send some code samples, that show that you can write quality code. It doesn't have to be a complete application, and don't send any code that you don't have a right to send, or that you didn't write personally. Send something that shows that you can implement an algorithm (not a trivial one, don't use something like a linked list that you can get off a book) and that your code is clean, efficient and easy to understand.

If they get you on a phone or personal interview, try to answer questions precisely and to the point. The interviewer will be looking for clues to decide whether your personality might be a fit, and whether you are technically able to work in that position. If you don't know how to answer a question, don't block and surrender. If you show that you're trying to solve the problem, and demonstrate good reasoning skills, then you might be ok. If they ask how the compiler implements virtual function calling, don't automatically go to "I've no idea" and expect them to tell you the answer. Try to figure it out. Think how virtual functions work, and how you would implement a function that can be different for each pointer. Maybe you add some extra information to that pointer, like another pointer to the virtual function?

Smart interviewers won't be looking for specific pieces of knowledge, like obscure C++ features. They will be trying to decide whether you're smart and can learn. Also be prepared to discuss situations in the past where you showed initiative to solve problems. Think about that time when you spoke up and suggested improvements to a class or a work situation. When instead of just complaining you did something to fix it.

Whoa! That was a long post. Hope it helps.

 

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I've never had a company request code samples until the second or third stage of the interviewing process. And haven't been on an interview panel once or twice, I can tell you that we never looked at the source code. I think one guy ran the exe to make sure it wasn't complete trash.

Its more important that you can communicate effectively, code on a white board, and think fast. Having pretty demo code is nice but I've never worked on a project where we had enough time to make things pretty. I hate to admit the amount of shipped code with "// Prototype only. Refactor during beta" still in it.

I think your cover letter is the most important part of the process. You need to really communicate a passion for the industry -- specific examples help. Answering why you want to put up with low pay and too much crush when you can have some corporate job with 9-5 hrs is important. Programmer turn over is one of the more expensive facts of life.

 

I read a lot of programmer resumes and I have to say, just send it to me in a small text file. I HATE getting .pdf's, image files, or .exes and many times those are just spam filtered anyways.

In your cover letter, and on your resume, have a link to your personal homepage, there have descriptions and screenshots of all of your projects, and downloads of the .exe's if you want (if you dont want that info private you could provide a password in your coverletter). dont provide source code unless requested imo.

 

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