Interviewing for a Job As a 3D Artist?
Tips to thrive in your next interview
Job hunting as a 3D Artist is the worst.
First, there’s all the time you have to spend tediously crafting your demo reel, breakdown sheet, resume, and cover letter. Then you have to be constantly scouring LinkedIn or other job portals just to find openings. Then, once an opening pops up, you navigate to a company’s website and fill out their lunky online portal where, for some reason, you both upload the PDF of your resume AND manually enter that same information!?!? After all of that, the chances of the company actually contacting you are slim to none.
Do that a couple of hundred times and mix in a sampling of blindly sending messages to recruiters who never respond and a dash of self-doubt and inadequacy and you’ve got the perfect recipe for modern-day job hunting!
I often equate it to all the terrible parts of online dating…
But once every blue moon, you do get a response. And what do you know…they actually want to set up an interview! Wooohoooo!!! But wait…what do I do? What do I have to be ready for? Do I have to talk about my work? What’s this interview process even look like…Ahhhhhhh!!! Take me back to that awful online portal!
Fear not…I have a few tried and true tips to help you through the interview process.
Research the company
This sounds so basic but coming in without basic info on the company interviewing you can torpedo your job interview. Back when I was working at Blue Sky Studios, people would interview and compliment us on some film we didn’t create. Don’t get me wrong…I love How to Train Your Dragon too, but that lack of preparation could completely end any chance of that person getting the job.
Dry run the interview
If the interview is in person, take the time to do a dry run to the office at about the time you will head into the interview. Figure out what traffic looks like. Figure out where to park. Figure out where the front door is and what floor the office is on.
If the interview is remote, make sure you check which service they are using (Zoom, Teams, Google Chat, etc…) Make sure you have the app downloaded on your machine and you are logged in. Make sure the audio and video settings are correct and set up a test call to ensure you are good to go.
All of this sounds anal but knocking that stuff out early will greatly decrease your stress on interview day.
Treat every interview like you are just catching up with an old friend.
People often mirror the emotion that they are presented with. If someone approaches you with a smile, you are likely to return a smile back at them. If you enter an interview room nervous, the interviewer may feed off that energy and get nervous too. But if you come in warm and open, they will often mirror that behavior too.
So my trick is to convince myself that I’m not going on an interview; I am just meeting up with an old friend who will ask me questions. We used to be close but over the years have drifted apart and now I am excited to catch up.
Their questions will often hint at the “right” answer. Listen to the question “Do you have any problem speaking directly with the clients?”
Recognize the Interviewer’s Style
If you are in an interview with an individual (versus a panel of interviewers) pay attention to the style of that interviewer. If she/he is giving brief, open-ended questions like “Describe a time you overcame a difficult situation at work?”, they would like you to give more robust, thoughtful answers. This is how good interviewers do it and many are structured this way.
There are times when you get a verbose interviewer. Someone who would like to tell you about the position and the company and everything else. They will occasionally as questions but they are often built into their long monologue. For these types of interviews like, just go along for the ride. They are driving the ship and you can just sit back and allow them to go. This is good for two reasons…
If you try and respond to what they are saying, you will more than likely be interrupting them. Very verbose people are like a flowing stream. Roll with it and it’s nice and easy. Try and push back and there may be a lot of friction and they could read as you being rude.
By staying quiet and just listening to what they are saying, they will pretty much feed you the answers they want to hear in their questions.
Something like…
“So we have a lot of meetings with clients. That’s one of the things we pride ourselves on is having a close, personal relationship with our clients. Do you have any problems meeting with clients on occasion?”
Look at what just happened there. They stated they strive for a good customer relationship and then ask if you want to do that too. The key giveaway is they started the question with the word “Do.” So often when a question starts with “Do” the asker is unknowingly putting a little bias on it.
So if you are getting questions like this, just take the layup question and move on.
Prepare Questions for the Interviewer
Be prepared for the interviewer to ask you what questions you have. And when I say “be prepared” I mean definitely, definitely, definitely ask questions. I’ve spoke to hiring managers that will eliminate candidates that don’t show up to an interview prepared with questions.
If you don’t know what else to ask…try these:
What is your favorite part of working here?
What’s the biggest challenge I will face in this position?
Can you tell me about the team I’ll be working with?
What are the company’s plans for growth and development?
What’s different about working here versus anywhere else you have worked?
Wear something clean and presentable but not too stuffy
I get this question a lot and the honest answer is just to make sure what you are wearing is clean and presentable. We are an informal industry and individuals generally wear whatever they like. That being said, I would steer somewhere between wrinkled, stained sweatpants and a prom dress. Anywhere in that range and you should be safe.
That’s it! The rest is up to you :)
3D News of the Week
A roundup of interesting 3D-related news you may have missed this week.
Nuke 14.0 Released with a new USD-based 3D System - cgchannel.com
Adobe Stock Accepts AI-generated Images- engadget.com
Greyscale Gorilla releases over 180 Beautiful Clay Shaders for Cinema4D - GreyscaleGorilla.com
Neil Stephenson, the author who coined the phrase Metaverse, is helping launch Lamina1, a blockchain-based open Metaverse - geekwire.com
Amazon Launches State-Of-The-Art Virtual Production Studio - virtualproducer.io
JangaFX Announces a New Terrain Generation Tool GeoGen - 80.lv
3D Artist of the Week
Pablo Munoz Gomez
Pablo Munoz Gomez is prolific. He is one of those artists that's always popping up on my social media feeds. He produces incredible artwork and valuable tutorials and courses. Would highly recommend checking him out on your platform of choice!
3D Tutorials
Arvid Schneider is one of my favorite artists creating 3D tutorials. This week, he released an overview showcasing how to render using Arnold inside of Houdini’s Solaris lighting system. Good stuff!
3D Job Spreadsheet
Link to Google Doc With A TON of Jobs in Animation (not operated by me)
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