Through my career as an Environment Artist. I went through lots of interviews. I succeeded at some and failed at some. This is what I learned.

In most game studios, there are 4 main steps that roughly all candidates go through.

Step 1- After applying you get a response within 2 weeks give or take that company X wants to talk to you. At this point you'll be communicating with HR to set up the next step.

Step 2- Depending on your portfolio and experience there are 2 options here:

a- Phone interview with Art Lead/Art Director OR
b- Art test, then if you pass it, Phone Interview with Art Lead/Art Director

The Phone Interview is the first important step in the interview process. The interviewer is pretty much going to ask you about your experience and portfolio pieces while making sure you can talk comfortably about your work and workflow (and if you did a test, be ready to talk about it). It's ok to be a bit nervous on the phone, everyone is. These conversations last about 30min.

Step 3- If they like how you sound on the phone, the last crucial step is to bring you over for an onsite interview with the team. This depends on where you are, overseas studios and smaller companies are now doing it via Skype to not have to deal with VISAs and/or to save on the cost of flying you over. An onsite interview goes approximately from 10am to 4pm, usually includes a one hour lunch with some of the team members.

Step 4- And depending on how you do in the interview, you'd either get an offer or rejection email from HR welcoming you to the studio or telling that you don't match the criteria they are looking for.

This is my personal experience with this process, yours will probably be slightly different.

In my upcoming posts, I will write in more details on how to prepare for all these steps, so stay tuned for more.

Let me know how your interview process was in the comments below and if you have any questions about this subject, shoot me an email!

Wishing you the best success in your career.

Mouhsine Adnani