Preparing for Job Interviews [The Animation Industry: Preparing for a Career - Unit09]
Preparing for Job Interviews
09/02/25
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| Screenshot from Watch a Job Interview with Game Developer Turbine (2013) |
Introduction
Lecture Notes
This section reflects on the key findings from the blog post 'Animation Interview Strategy with Kevin Richards' (Williams, 2022) :
- When you'll get an interview - You'll typically earn a interview after your demo reel has been successful in the sift of candidates. The studio trusts your work and wants to find out more about you as a person, your skills, experience and to work out whether you would be a good fit for the studio.
- Your experience - Be honest with your experience and show your journey. Shine a light on anything relevant that you have done. This will include your work experience, side projects, educational experience, competitions and anything else that shows what you have engaged with professionally.
- Explain your living situations - where are you based and are you willing to move town? How flexible can you be with remote working?
- Strengths and weaknesses - be honest with this, however, explain the steps you're taking to improve your weaknesses. This is cheesy and cliché but it is showing an awareness of the areas you want to develop and how you're doing this.
- Salary expectations - research common salaries and be prepared to ask for what you're worth. Explain that you're flexible but don't under or over sell yourself. This should be reflective of your experience - remember you're adding value to a company as much as they are providing you with work.
- Animation tests - These are a normal part of the interview process. The studio is trying to see how you respond to a particular brief. They are also looking to see if you can match their style and do the type of work they need you to do. Finally they are trying to see how you respond to work on short timelines.
- BECTU Rates - BECTU is a trade union working to support workers from exploitation and achieve fair salaries and working conditions (BECTU, no date). £125 a day is a minimum standard. This helps you consider your worth and gives you a starting point for negotiation. Studios offering less than this should be avoided.
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| Rate guidance for Animators (BECTU, no date) |
- Tell us a bit about yourself?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Why do you want to work here?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- Why should we hire you?
- Challenge at work and howe you dealt with it?
- Greatest professional achievement?
- Why are you leaving your current job?
- How do you handle stress and pressure?
- Do you have any questions for us?
Mock Interview
Can you tell us about yourself and your journey as an animator?
- I'm Matt I have 12 years experience working across the games industry and Games, Animation and VFX education. I worked as an Animator for Eutechnyx in the games industry for 3 years, 9 years experience teaching predominantly Games, Animation and VFX related courses from college to degree level and some experience working in a freelance capacity on various projects, including an indie game project where I was the sole artist and animator.
- I love games, animation and VFX related outcomes. I've been a gamer since a young age and always enjoyed animated films. I often find myself admiring the art and animation in products. The complexity of realism paired with stylisation in the series Arcane; the wonderfully barmy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; the exaggerated, comic book style animation in the Spider-verse or the storytelling in Indiana Jones and the Great circle. I love the range of complexity and artistry you can achieve in these products, which is why I love working with them.
- I'm confident using a range of 3D and 2D animation software with my primary digital content creation tool being Maya, which I've used since 2008. I've worked with both Unity, Unreal and company specific game engines to integrate animation elements. I've worked with Spine 2D to create 2D bone based animation for games. I've also produced some motion-graphics style animations in After Effects. I'm comfortable working with Photoshop, Illustrator and the Affinity suite to create illustration, concept art and other drawing based outcomes. I've worked with Motion builder to create motion capture animations for games. I've used Blender 3d for both modelling an animation. Due to this wealth of experience in a range of software packages I find it relatively easy to pick up new software packages and use common terminology to help me research and learn processes in different tools.
- I have an undergraduate degree in animation from De Montfort in Leicester and I'm currently working towards completing my masters in Character and Creature animation from the University of Hertfordshire. I also have a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education) in Secondary Education (Art, Craft and design) with QTS (Qualified Teacher Status). Furthermore I completed the Advance HE Accredited Provision to achieve fellowship status for the work I have done in developing and teaching higher education courses.
- My journey as an animator started in sixth form where I specialised in sculpting in my Art classes where I sculpted weird and wonderful creatures. I wanted to work in an artistic role and felt like animation would align well with my experiences in art. I studied at De Montfort University and achieved my role as an animator at Eutechnyx within a month graduating.
- During my time at Eutechnyx I worked on a range of titles including the Nascar the Game series, Warhammer: Storm of Vengeance and visualisation projects for Jaguar Landrover. I worked with both motion capture animation and keyframe animation to bring characters to life and integrate them into the engine. I developed rigs for characters, vehicles and mechs for specific scenarios. I worked closely with clients and responded quickly to feedback to achieve outcomes that satisfied shareholders. Warhammer was one of my favourite projects to work on because of the stylised nature of the characters. I created a range of stylised walk cycles and special kill animations with two characters interacting. I collaborated with a range of different job roles including designers to bring game mechanics to life through animation and programmers to develop tools in engine and integrate complex assets such as branching cutscenes. One of the most complex cutscenes I worked on was the pit stop cutscene. Players could choose an array of options on entry such as full tyre change, partial, fuel etc. Based on these inputs I had a series of animations that worked together to show the pit crew working on the vehicle, interacting with each other and props. This was really complex but really rewarding to see in the game.
- During my time at Eutechnyx, I mentored an array of work experience students to show them what my role was like. This got me thinking about how worried I was that I wouldn't get a job at the end of my degree and how I could potentially support other young people to realise their aspirations. This prompted me to look into teaching and start my PGCE. This was a challenging experience combining working in schools with studying. However, it was really rewarding to work with young people. I was also incredibly focussed on achieving the best I could and getting the most out of this experience and I achieved a first in all written assignments. After achieving my PGCE I worked in a secondary school teaching art for a year to complete my NQT year and then moved to a further education college to teach on the NextGen: Games, Animation and VFX level 3 course.
- On the NextGen course I taught skills ranging from concept art, animation, 3D modellnig and game design. I also taught an array of soft skills including employability, project management, team work, communication and more. I worked closely with a range of studios to integrate industry into the curriculum ranging from BlueZoo, Sony, Ubisoft, D3T, Double Eleven and more. I worked with students on external competitions such as the WorldSkills 3D Game art competition and had students reach the final year on year. I wanted to give students the best experience possible to help them with their futures.
- I worked with Romanian and Greek partners on an Maths animation Erasmus funded project to produce short animated videos that taught fundamental maths concepts. This was a great opportunity to collaborate with internal departments but also with partners oversees to reach a common goal. This was hard work on top of a full time job but was such a unique experience that took me across the globe!
- In 2021 I worked with Sunderland College and Cumbria University to develop a games degree programme for delivery at the college. I wrote half the modules including 3D Character Animation, 2D Game Animation, Introduction to Real Time VFX and Indie Game Development. The design of this course aimed to follow on from our current further education student's experience and serve as course to give people the skills to develop their own games. I really wanted to include modules that weren't commonly taught such as real-time VFX skills, character rigging and business skills.
- Throughout my 8 years teaching at a college I now have an alumni of students working in the industry that come back and share their experiences. Students are working for companies such as Rebellion, Double Eleven, AirShip Interactive, Dink and others.
- Further to my role in education I also worked with the exam board AIM Awards as an external verifier and principal examiner. The external verifier is a quality driven role that support other colleges with their delivery. The principal examiner role moderates the marking of other examiners to ensure that marks are awarded fairly.
- In 2020 I felt I had achieved sufficient progress in education after achieving consistently positive feedback from lesson observations and other sources. Therefore, I wanted to reconnect with my skills as artist and animator to produce creative outcomes. I began working with a programmer colleague on an indie game title called 'Squishy Sports'. Squishy Sports allows you to compete against your friends and family in this infinitely replayable 2d, physics-driven, local multiplayer sports collection where the characters are shapes and everything is squishy! I created background and character art and animation mainly but also developed the social media presence; VFX; sound effects; web design; storefront assets; game trailers; bizdev and many more things! Illustrator and Spine 2D were the main tools I used to create the art and animation. We toured this game around various events in the U.K. including Norwich Games Festival, Yorkshire Games Festival and were invited to talk at EGX. We pursued publishers for funding and support to go into full production and launch the game however, unfortunately couldn't secure enough interest. We're now working towards self publishing this title to release it into the wild.
- As part of my indie dev journey, I was accepted in the 2021 Tentacle Zone Incubator for under represented developers. This was a 3 month incubator that offered mentor support, master classes, live events and more. This really helped me develop my bizdev skills, particularly when working with Jason Della Roca to learn how to effectively pitch a product.
- I worked with NextGen and Rocksteady studios on a 12 week course designed to teach people with non-games backgrounds and support their journey into the industry. I delivered an course of sessions over 12 weeks focussed on game art (concept and 3d) with a game design perspective to demonstrate how art fits into a game development pipeline.
- I've also ran a small side hustle selling illustrative art prints globally on Etsy, ranging from children's illustration to tattoo art inspired illustrations.
- I'm now currently working to complete my masters. I decided to do this to not only reach a higher level of education but to also work on my 3D character animation skills. Squishy Sports has been incredibly fun to learn 2D animation but I wanted to develop my core skills as a 3D animator. Similar to my PGCE, I really wanted to push myself and perfect the core fundamental animation skills. I haven't achieved anything less than a first so far and have received numerous high grades of 85% on animation outcomes. Alex Williams has been the module tutor and it's been great to learn from his knowledge and receive valuable feedback to improve my work. I've produced outcomes ranging from creature animation to lip sync to character performance, mechanics and locomotion. This is some of the best work I have ever created.
Why are you interested in this role, and what makes you a good fit for our studio?
I'm interested in this role because I want to bring characters to life. I've spent a lot of my career supporting others and feel I have developed myself professionally and achieved a lot, however, I crave immersing myself creative outlet again. I've used my masters as a way to develop my skills as a 3D character animator and my work in my demo reel is the best I have ever produced. I have a vast array of experience in a range of different software's and have proven that I can adapt to the needs of a project. The quality of my outcomes is good and I've shown that I can deliver and iterate quality over time.
I feel I would be a good fit for the studio because there are few people that have the skills and experience that I do. My animation skills are good and I feel I've proven that I can do the job, however, due to my experience across education I've shown that I can communicate, lead and handle stress exceptionally well. I'm used to giving and receiving feedback which will foster good development within teams and allow me to raise the quality of my work to deliver what is needed. I have a positive, hardworking attitude that means I am someone that can be relied upon. I am highly reflective and I'm always looking for ways to improve my work and across my professional experience to date I feel I have demonstrated significant growth in a variety of areas.
Can you walk us through your demo reel and explain your creative process?
I've refined my creative process over the years and have seen the biggest jumps in quality when I explore preproduction in depth. I begin by thinking about the idea and the outcome to imagine how the shot or animation will pan out. I often develop multiple ideas and compare them to reflect on what would be the strongest outcome. I'd then move into gathering research from games, films and real life to study movements and develop these ideas further. The goal here to understand who the character is and how they move. Are there any subtle actions or quirks that could be implemented to build the strength of this character? How big or small are the actions? What is the overall timing of the way they move?
Next I would act out the scene as close as I can to the core idea if possible. This would allow me to study timing and key poses within the animation. I would create thumbnails, particularly if the idea wasn't actable, to break down the core idea. Next I'd block out the core animation, inspired by my preproduction and aim to seek out feedback on the strength of the key poses. Next I would iterate and refine the animation over time ultimately ending with animations passes that focus on refining particular aspects of the animation such as hand movements, overlapping action or other key elements to ensure the animation reaches the highest level of quality. I would seek feedback throughout the process to make sure the animation is heading in the right direction before it becomes too costly to make large changes.
In a studio the process would be the same, however, I'd also rely on the roles and preproduction that came before my stage in the pipeline and I'd take on board the direction given for the shots. I'd explore these preproduction materials to understand who that character was and how they should move.
How do you handle constructive feedback and tight deadlines?
- I'm Matt I have 12 years experience working across the games industry and Games, Animation and VFX education. I worked as an Animator for Eutechnyx in the games industry for 3 years, 9 years experience teaching predominantly Games, Animation and VFX related courses from college to degree level and some experience working in a freelance capacity on various projects, including an indie game project where I was the sole artist and animator.
- I love games, animation and VFX related outcomes. I've been a gamer since a young age and always enjoyed animated films. I often find myself admiring the art and animation in products. The complexity of realism paired with stylisation in the series Arcane; the wonderfully barmy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; the exaggerated, comic book style animation in the Spider-verse or the storytelling in Indiana Jones and the Great circle. I love the range of complexity and artistry you can achieve in these products, which is why I love working with them.
- I'm confident using a range of 3D and 2D animation software with my primary digital content creation tool being Maya, which I've used since 2008. I've worked with both Unity, Unreal and company specific game engines to integrate animation elements. I've worked with Spine 2D to create 2D bone based animation for games. I've also produced some motion-graphics style animations in After Effects. I'm comfortable working with Photoshop, Illustrator and the Affinity suite to create illustration, concept art and other drawing based outcomes. I've worked with Motion builder to create motion capture animations for games. I've used Blender 3d for both modelling an animation. Due to this wealth of experience in a range of software packages I find it relatively easy to pick up new software packages and use common terminology to help me research and learn processes in different tools.
- I have an undergraduate degree in animation from De Montfort in Leicester and I'm currently working towards completing my masters in Character and Creature animation from the University of Hertfordshire. I also have a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education) in Secondary Education (Art, Craft and design) with QTS (Qualified Teacher Status). Furthermore I completed the Advance HE Accredited Provision to achieve fellowship status for the work I have done in developing and teaching higher education courses.
- My journey as an animator started in sixth form where I specialised in sculpting in my Art classes where I sculpted weird and wonderful creatures. I wanted to work in an artistic role and felt like animation would align well with my experiences in art. I studied at De Montfort University and achieved my role as an animator at Eutechnyx within a month graduating.
- During my time at Eutechnyx I worked on a range of titles including the Nascar the Game series, Warhammer: Storm of Vengeance and visualisation projects for Jaguar Landrover. I worked with both motion capture animation and keyframe animation to bring characters to life and integrate them into the engine. I developed rigs for characters, vehicles and mechs for specific scenarios. I worked closely with clients and responded quickly to feedback to achieve outcomes that satisfied shareholders. Warhammer was one of my favourite projects to work on because of the stylised nature of the characters. I created a range of stylised walk cycles and special kill animations with two characters interacting. I collaborated with a range of different job roles including designers to bring game mechanics to life through animation and programmers to develop tools in engine and integrate complex assets such as branching cutscenes. One of the most complex cutscenes I worked on was the pit stop cutscene. Players could choose an array of options on entry such as full tyre change, partial, fuel etc. Based on these inputs I had a series of animations that worked together to show the pit crew working on the vehicle, interacting with each other and props. This was really complex but really rewarding to see in the game.
- During my time at Eutechnyx, I mentored an array of work experience students to show them what my role was like. This got me thinking about how worried I was that I wouldn't get a job at the end of my degree and how I could potentially support other young people to realise their aspirations. This prompted me to look into teaching and start my PGCE. This was a challenging experience combining working in schools with studying. However, it was really rewarding to work with young people. I was also incredibly focussed on achieving the best I could and getting the most out of this experience and I achieved a first in all written assignments. After achieving my PGCE I worked in a secondary school teaching art for a year to complete my NQT year and then moved to a further education college to teach on the NextGen: Games, Animation and VFX level 3 course.
- On the NextGen course I taught skills ranging from concept art, animation, 3D modellnig and game design. I also taught an array of soft skills including employability, project management, team work, communication and more. I worked closely with a range of studios to integrate industry into the curriculum ranging from BlueZoo, Sony, Ubisoft, D3T, Double Eleven and more. I worked with students on external competitions such as the WorldSkills 3D Game art competition and had students reach the final year on year. I wanted to give students the best experience possible to help them with their futures.
- I worked with Romanian and Greek partners on an Maths animation Erasmus funded project to produce short animated videos that taught fundamental maths concepts. This was a great opportunity to collaborate with internal departments but also with partners oversees to reach a common goal. This was hard work on top of a full time job but was such a unique experience that took me across the globe!
- In 2021 I worked with Sunderland College and Cumbria University to develop a games degree programme for delivery at the college. I wrote half the modules including 3D Character Animation, 2D Game Animation, Introduction to Real Time VFX and Indie Game Development. The design of this course aimed to follow on from our current further education student's experience and serve as course to give people the skills to develop their own games. I really wanted to include modules that weren't commonly taught such as real-time VFX skills, character rigging and business skills.
- Throughout my 8 years teaching at a college I now have an alumni of students working in the industry that come back and share their experiences. Students are working for companies such as Rebellion, Double Eleven, AirShip Interactive, Dink and others.
- Further to my role in education I also worked with the exam board AIM Awards as an external verifier and principal examiner. The external verifier is a quality driven role that support other colleges with their delivery. The principal examiner role moderates the marking of other examiners to ensure that marks are awarded fairly.
- In 2020 I felt I had achieved sufficient progress in education after achieving consistently positive feedback from lesson observations and other sources. Therefore, I wanted to reconnect with my skills as artist and animator to produce creative outcomes. I began working with a programmer colleague on an indie game title called 'Squishy Sports'. Squishy Sports allows you to compete against your friends and family in this infinitely replayable 2d, physics-driven, local multiplayer sports collection where the characters are shapes and everything is squishy! I created background and character art and animation mainly but also developed the social media presence; VFX; sound effects; web design; storefront assets; game trailers; bizdev and many more things! Illustrator and Spine 2D were the main tools I used to create the art and animation. We toured this game around various events in the U.K. including Norwich Games Festival, Yorkshire Games Festival and were invited to talk at EGX. We pursued publishers for funding and support to go into full production and launch the game however, unfortunately couldn't secure enough interest. We're now working towards self publishing this title to release it into the wild.
- As part of my indie dev journey, I was accepted in the 2021 Tentacle Zone Incubator for under represented developers. This was a 3 month incubator that offered mentor support, master classes, live events and more. This really helped me develop my bizdev skills, particularly when working with Jason Della Roca to learn how to effectively pitch a product.
- I worked with NextGen and Rocksteady studios on a 12 week course designed to teach people with non-games backgrounds and support their journey into the industry. I delivered an course of sessions over 12 weeks focussed on game art (concept and 3d) with a game design perspective to demonstrate how art fits into a game development pipeline.
- I've also ran a small side hustle selling illustrative art prints globally on Etsy, ranging from children's illustration to tattoo art inspired illustrations.
- I'm now currently working to complete my masters. I decided to do this to not only reach a higher level of education but to also work on my 3D character animation skills. Squishy Sports has been incredibly fun to learn 2D animation but I wanted to develop my core skills as a 3D animator. Similar to my PGCE, I really wanted to push myself and perfect the core fundamental animation skills. I haven't achieved anything less than a first so far and have received numerous high grades of 85% on animation outcomes. Alex Williams has been the module tutor and it's been great to learn from his knowledge and receive valuable feedback to improve my work. I've produced outcomes ranging from creature animation to lip sync to character performance, mechanics and locomotion. This is some of the best work I have ever created.
Constructive feedback is a crucial part of the animation production pipeline. I want to know how I can produce the best animated outcome possible so I'd welcome as much feedback as I could get to steer my shots. I'd value feedback at key points and regularly throughout production in order not to waste time and steer the animation in the right direction. Animation blocking is one of the most important points for feedback so we can perfect the key poses of the characters and imagine how the scene will pan out through the character animation. If you can fix any major issues here then the rest of the shot should develop nicely. Everyone in the studio is working towards the common goal of producing an amazing animated outcome therefore feedback is crucial part of the development pipeline.
I handle tight deadlines well. Working in education has meant I've had to manage numerous tasks at once and respond to priorities. I love kanban and use Trello to manage my own work load as well as using this in teams to monitor progress. I love ticking off tasks and making progress. I like to have a synoptic view of where I am heading and when deadlines are so that I can understand how to prioritise tasks across development. This helps me set mini-deadlines for myself and lets me see how long I can spend on particular aspects of the animation development pipeline. This enables me to clearly communicate where I am currently at and where I'm heading next across development as well as maximising time to produce quality outcomes. I feel this is a strength of mine for this reason!
Conclusion
This was an enlightening but challenging experience, however, I think it serves as a great first pass. I think it shows that I have such a broad range of skills that would be attractive to an employer, however, I worry that I might not be talking enough about animation and elaborate too much on my education experience. However, within my education experience I have tried to focus on elements relevant to an animation job. I feel I could develop my response to why I want the job a little more, however, this will be easier when I have an actual studio potentially interested in me because I could tailor my response to the works of that studio. I raise an array of points to show my breadth of experience, however, this means I don't go into masses of specifics on some questions. My aim was to give enough depth to intrigue the interviewer and then hope that they might ask further details on specifics should they need it. I want to show them the type of projects I've worked on and the core skills I've used.
The most challenging part of preparing for interviews for me is the nerves. I typically prepare well and have strong processes but I tend to get imposter syndrome very quickly which can derail my thought processes. I need to try to remain calm and recognise that it is a two way conversation. I do tend to find that once I start talking I can keep elaborating and providing detail, however, I can find it tricky to understand just how much detail they want me to go into. This could result in me skipping over important things I've done or spending too long on one point. However, I do think here that you can learn from experience and the interviewer can always ask for more information on a point that is interesting to them so I think it is definitely a balance between covering points and detail. I'm typically pretty engaging when I talk, if I want something I would show this through the tone of my voice and excitement. There was one job interview I went for and I could tell that it wasn't for me very quickly and this probably came across in the way I presented myself.
In order to present myself and my work I make sure that I've prepared and made notes. I try to turn elaborate notes, like the ones on this page, into short bullet points that enable me to understand the flow of the conversation so that I can present the range of experience I have. In my work, it is all about presentation and the creative process. I love the creative process so I can talk extensively about what I have achieved - I demonstrate the depth of this creative process throughout my blog so this will be a great source for me to prepare!
The best advice for preparing for an interview is making sure you have examples to use in response to common questions so that you can give developed answers that set you apart from the crowd. If you do your preparation then you are putting your best self forward and if you're not successful then maybe you're not what the company needs. If you prepare and condense this information down into simple triggers then you will have a clear understanding of what you can talk about. The next most important piece of advice is to research the company. Show them you understand their studio and what they do. This will help you tailor your response to that specific studio opposed to providing general answers. The studio is going to want someone that wants to work for them specifically, opposed to someone who just wants a job. They are likely to want to invest in you so they are want someone reliable, someone who can do the job and someone they see potential in. Hiring and firing is expensive so companies want to get this right!
Learning Outcomes
- Understand how to research and prepare for animation job interviews.
- Learn strategies to answer common interview questions effectively.
- Reflect on how to present yourself confidently and professionally during interviews.
Reference List
- BECTU (no date) Get to know Bectu. Available at: https://bectu.org.uk/get-involved-in-the-union/get-to-know-bectu/ (Accessed 9th February 2025).
- Doing This (Almost) GUARANTEES You Get Hired In A Job Interview! (2024) YouTube video, added by Vinh Giang [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0siE31sqz0Q (Accessed 9th February 2025).
- Watch a Job Interview with Game Developer Turbine (2013) YouTube video, added by Dice News [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7AENaKu2pA (Accessed 9th February 2025).
- Williams, A. (2022) ‘Animation Interview Strategy with Kevin Richards’, Animation Apprentice, 7th September [Blog]. Available at https://animationapprentice.blogspot.com/2022/09/animation-interview-strategy-with-kevin.html (Accessed 9th February 2025).
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