I have a phone interview with EA in about an hour.

I have a phone interview with EA in about an hour. What should I say?

Tell them they suck.

um, see what they say first. Phone interviews are mostly just an introduction where you should just try and be yourself and talk about what you do, answer any questions and get done with it.

In my experience it's usually a producer that does the most useful talking at interview, or some kind of exec. YOu will probably start off with a human resources person right at the beginning. Usually programmer and art leads are too busy to take time out till an actual face to face interview.

What might happen is that you may get emailed some kind of test, or simply be invited to for a proper interview. In my experience the phone interview is just to guage that your not wasting their time and are who you say you are. Just try to sound enthusiastic, easy going and knowledgeable :)

Ask to talk to their developers, then ask the developers how many hours per week they work, then decide if the pay is worth the hours worked.

(yeah, I'm being negative - but the amount of hours people work at game companies is outlandish)

E.A. has a pretty crummy rep as far as working hours are concerned...

Most developers have a crummy rep, it's when they start crunch in the last 3 months of development and put down a mandatory 12 hour work day, plus weekends that things get bad and the work place starts to smell like sweaty old socks and mountain dew that things are getting bad :).

The other 12 - 18 months can be a lot of fun where people often stick around for after work activities, movies, life drawing classes, DJing, warhammer and showing local highschool beta testers stuff.

The problem Adrian is that EA have a reputation for enforcing permanent crunch, once a team goes in they're often stuck in crunch indeffinitely.

The did make a concerted effort to start cleaning up their reputation as so many good programmers now refuse to work for them that they're starting to recognise the pitfalls of that strategy.

Last I heard though they where laying people off, some article posted on this forum a few weeks back hinted at large-scale cuts.

He never said what the job was - could be a cleaner, tea boy, janitor, etc something like that.

My only run in with EA was towards the end of Bullfrog in 97. EA had the ground floor and Bullfrog the 1st. Back then things weren't too bad but you could see a definite difference between the two companies. Bullfrog you had to be in by 10 and finish at 6. EA you started at 9 and finished around 5. The difference was that at EA you had to wear trousers shirt and tie. Whilst at Bullfrog you could wear whatever the heck you wanted.

That was an age ago when they had offices off of the A3 in Guidford.

i would assume he wants a job as art guy. after looking at his site, he appears to be a very talented artist.
speaking of which, i have a question for you Craig. http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=81455

Make sure you have read whatever requirements are foer the job, current projects etc. any info on how they like to work so you can show that you're keen.

Answer their questions and demonstrate via the conversation your ability to take information in and respond clearly and efficiently.

Be yourself, talk clearly and enthusiastically but with decorum and don't leave any long dead silences ;)

Lastly, be prepared to have some questions regarding the position yourself and make sure you ask them.

Basically, like any interview really, but they will be looking (listening?) for quick, accurate facts and a summary of your skills/history.

Strange. When I worked at Gremlin/Infogrames there wasn't a dress code - well, other than that you wore some (and that was only assumed). Plus, hours of 9:30am to 10pm weren't uncommon. Obviously we didn't have the Working Time Directive back then.

I've only ever had one job in my life that required shirt/tie and I hated every damn second of it. Although that was probably because it was nothing to do with games/programming/computers, too.

Anyway - how'd it go?

No dress code at BFG either and flexi-time. I'm going in to the office today for the first time. If things don't work out with EA, maybe think about casual games instead as the industry is booming.

Grey,

The thing about a dress code is simple for me - it defines when I am at work and when I am at home.

By having a dress code and sticking to it, some people can benefit by being able to know when they can relax (at home) or concentrate (at work) and what kind of behaviour is expected of them. Its like a role play or a mask.

IPete2.

Someone had to do it...

http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

@IPete2: I know what you mean, I used to wear a shirt and tie to work, and when I went on demos a full suit. Right now I'm dressing casual smart :-)

Soo.. no post back from Craig for '1 day' now. We can safely assume he is under mind trick by the overpowered EA juggernauts!

EA is good, EA is great, he's surrendered his will, as of that date.

Nananananananana E-Aaaa... Nananananananana E-Aaaa... E-Aaaa... E-Aaaa...

Simpsons is on in the background.

Here at foppygames we have quite a strict dress code but my cat says he can't read it so he'll just ignore it. >:(

..im working for Sony quite some time(not games), and long as we perform well, we can walk naked if we want to .. however, we do have some stupid music every morning (like Countries have their representative soundtrack, I dont know exact expression on english, sorry)...but other than that, its fine..

o.O
Sony's dress code sucks.

Ah yes the corporate songs, I used to work under a company who sang motivational songs together every day. My lot used to remix the words and sing back to them, much to their annoyance!

I had to laugh when i went to the states and arrived at a Target store a little too early. All the staff were doing star jumps and special motivation exercises. P****d myself laughing and i think a couple staff saw me too. Shame for them :o)

Come on Craig H. Nisbet, tell us how it went.
Latest i heard, EA was working on a project to 'suck' ones soul through a telephone. I wonder how that project is doing ;)

But seriously, motivational exercises? company songs? There is not one company in The Netherlands that would even dare to dream about such a thing. I think its a crime against humanity. Who would actually accept that kind of humiliation? The company just has to make sure they have my (our) motivational coffee and that it.

@Foppy: As a catlover myself i can strongly recommend you take a look at http://www.carnibest.nl (NOT SPAM and i'm in no way affiliated). They don't advertise, they rely soley on word-to-mouth.

C grade meat is C grade meat whichever way you look at it. If you really want your kitties to have a good diet dont feed them wet food too often, keep them to dry food most days. *shrug* Other than that its more a case of trying to remember what flavours the fussy little furrballs like and dont like.

Ah yes, I have unpleasant memories of Bruno Bonell's "Magical Mystery Tour" after Infogrames took over Gremlin, where we had to sit in a conference room for two hours, shuffling awkwardly and listening to him tell us all how great things are going to be while plying us with free alcohol.

Then he sacked everybody.

The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" makes me want to burn French flags to this day.

He he - just like at Ocean. We were told the buy-out\merger meant Ocean was now a fully fledged chest beater and superbly placed to take on the world - then the sackings rained down hard upon our heads.

There must be some special place where you can buy bullcrap speeches to be used for making everybody redundant.

> There must be some special place where you can buy bullcrap speeches to be used for making everybody redundant.


It's called management training school.

@Banshee: "C grade meat is C grade meat ". <edit: removed preaching> Its human edible A-grade meat and it's not very cheap but it's the natural food for any predator-like pet. Seriously, read the ingredients. Dry food may be better than the canned wiskas stuff but its still crap unless you get Hills or Royal Canine.

@dynaman: Lesson one at Management training school: shouting in German.

I tried, it was in Dutch lolz, I am learning but i'm still a beginner. Thanks for the correction :).

We get canidae for our two dogs. Thats all human grade stuff too and doesn't actually cost the earth it's comparable to the most popular food you can buy in any supermarket. Just damned hard to find outside of speciality pet shops. Here stuff like Iams is expensive and a big chunk of the sticker price goes towards advertizing their products everywhere.