Interview at EA: Tips on recognizing bugs?

[taks]

40-70 hours? Your paycheck is gonna be awesome! (w00t)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

assuming it ain't at a buck an hour, 1.50 w/OT!

taks

[Oerwinde]

40-70 hours? Your paycheck is gonna be awesome! (w00t)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

assuming it ain't at a buck an hour, 1.50 w/OT!

taks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

$10/hr, Time and a half($15) after 8 hours in a day, Double Time($20) after 12 hours.

 

I'm really hoping I get this job. I think there were a lot of applicants though, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

[DemonKing]

Then they split us into 2 teams and made us build a tower out of paper cups, straws, paper clips, and rubber bands. The winning team was the one with the tallest tower that was the most stable.`

 

The warning lights should have come on at this point of the interview. This kind of exercise bears no reflection on the real world and I doubt it reveals much about what kind of team player you are. It probably tells you more about the idiots in HR who think this is a good idea than the people who have to do it.

 

The guy who interviewed me didn't know what Planescape Torment was.

 

Second warning light!

 

Oh well...good luck to you.

 

I have a video-conference interview tomorrow for a job at the Australian War Memorial Museum, so fingers crossed they don't ask me to make defensive barricades out of paper cups and rubber bands!

[mkreku]

I once had to sort these numbered cards into their respectively numbered slots on a job interview. The numbers on the cards and slots were like 348765 and 348675 and 347865, meaning they were VERY similar to each other and could easily confuse you. Then they said "You have two minutes to sort 100 cards, starting now. Good luck."

 

I just threw my cards randomly into the slots. The funny thing though, is that the test didn't really matter, and I knew it wasn't a big deal. They just wanted to see how we reacted under pressure. One guy became all white in the face, his hands started shaking horribly and after a while he couldn't even hold the cards and they fell everywhere. Then he gave up and walked out of the room, sobbing. It was damn funny.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I wouldnt do very well at things like that. I always see through stunts like that and I have a major authority problem, so itd probably be

 

 

-Ok, we want you to take these colored sticks and put them in the correct holes...

 

-Go f*ck yourselves.

 

 

I dont think Im a very good employee.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Then they split us into 2 teams and made us build a tower out of paper cups, straws, paper clips, and rubber bands. The winning team was the one with the tallest tower that was the most stable.`

Sounds drearily familiar. I prefer the one where you construct a mechanism that allows you to drop an egg one metre without it breaking.

 

No, it doesn't tell you anything about the people involved. It's just another pseudo-scientific method to cover up the fact that HR really does have no idea how to test whether applicants will perform well at the job.

[Aaron Contreras]

Good luck, Oerwinde.

 

I've heard good things about the potential to move up if you get recognized at EA QA. Mostly from people who worked the Los Angeles office...but from everything I've heard EA Vancouver is the place to be.

 

...and my experience with Vancouver triple-super-quadruple reconfirms this info.

[Oerwinde]

After living in Vancouver, and visiting several other areas(Alberta, Saskatchewan, Washington State, Southern California), I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Vancouver is a liberal haven, which fits with my views, BC is absolutely beautiful, and it has the 2nd highest concentration of video game companies in north america (after California), so if I can get higher up in EA, and decide I want to try somewhere else, I can try for one of the other places like Relic, Radical, Rockstar, etc.

 

Again, assuming I get the job.

 

And yeah, the guy who interviewed me started in QA, then moved up to Human Resources, and dabbles a bit as a moddler when they need a little help. Thats eventually what I want to do, so it would be really nice to have a foot in the door.

[Baley]

Not BIO ?

[Oerwinde]

Not BIO ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'd love to work for Bioware, since theres no RPG developers in Vancouver, but then I'd have to move to northern Alberta. I like my 16 degree C winters thank you very much.

 

Maybe if I manage to get a job in the art department at some time I could get a bunch of other guys and see if EA wants to start doing RPGs. Since its the only genre they don't do, and they're expanding EA Canada like mad (Opened a new dev studio in Montreal and are tripling the size of the Burnaby campus, which employs like 1300 people right now)

[Baley]

EA RPG ...not bloody likely...they prefer games that sell way more and are easier to dumb-down

 

And how's N Alberta,btw ?

[Volourn]

Their sports games aren't dumbed down. Nice try, fool. Go play DS and MW and come back to tell me that CRPGs are dumbed down or don't sell.

[Oerwinde]

EA RPG     ...not bloody likely...they prefer games that sell way more and are easier to dumb-down

 

And how's N Alberta,btw ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Northern Alberta is COLD. My dad lived in Cold Lake(gives you a hint) and he said some winters you could skate on the roads because they were covered in so much ice.

 

And I'm sure if they gave it a try and didn't use a license (like that LotR RPG) they could do a decent JRPG style RPG. Which tend to sell pretty well. FFX I think had something like 4 million pre-orders in Japan, so don't tell me RPGs don't sell.

 

Also, like Volourn said, their Sports games aren't dumbed down. NHL 2004 is one of the best hockey games ever, if not the best. (Too bad they screwed up with NHL 2005), And Sim City 4 is far from being a dumbed down game.

[Baley]

They are dubed down...check the latest Fifa and then PES4

 

MW was hardly dubmed-down,boring yes but not dubmed-dow

 

DS is not an RPG it's an action game

 

And I'm sure if they gave it a try and didn't use a license (like that LotR RPG) they could do a decent JRPG style RPG. Which tend to sell pretty well. FFX I think had something like 4 million pre-orders in Japan, so don't tell me RPGs don't sell.

 

 

JRPGs sell better but I was refreng to western RPGs

 

Then again how many good western JRPGs do you know?

 

And wasn't NHL 2005 dumbed-down just compare it to NHL 2004

 

Sim City 4 ...that I agree....at least they have Maxis

[Oerwinde]

I don't even know what he's talking about with DS. If he's talking about Dungeon Siege then it wasn't much of an RPG from what I've heard, as for it being dumbed down, the friends that played it said they could just leave it on auto and leave the computer for a while.

[Baley]

DS was an action-rpg

That said the only RPG elements it had was an inventory and some stupid stats...Even Diablo is more an RPG than DS

 

EA is afraid of change...they love money...that's why they only make minor changes to thir sports games every year

 

Perhaps dubm-down was a not the best way of putting it ...stagnating is better "

[Volourn]

"And wasn't NHL 2005 dumbed-down just compare it to NHL 2004"

 

No.

[Baley]

Fine...an arcade version of a great game if you prefere....

 

And I wasn't talking about NFL...which you seem to care about ...I never played that "

[Volourn]

I wans't talking NFL either. I was talking NHL just like you... "

[Baley]

No when I called them dumb-down ....which might have been a little harsh...but English is hardly my main language

[Volourn]

I don't really play that many EA non sports games so I couldn't say.

[Baley]

The only ones I used to play were FIFA,NHL and NBA...never understood NFL

 

Fifa (the PC version seems to get even worse)..thank god we have PES4

 

NHL(i loved 2004...but 2005 was let's say <_< )

 

NBA (horrible without a gamepad )

 

They stagnate and sometimes are even worse than their predecessors...that's what I mean by dumb-downed

[Volourn]

Fifa's fun. I liked NHL 2004 more too; but 2005 wasn't dumbed down. NBA was horrible as it has been for eyars. NFl is awes, and keeps getting better everywhere.

 

Sometiems theyc na be worse; but never stagnate. Theya re always twisting and trying to improve on the past. Of course, sometimes it backfires on them and they "accidently" get rid of the good stuff..

[Baley]

Fifa might have be fun...but the last PC version was annoying,especially the music and the menus ....I haven't really liked the Fifa's since Fifa 99,00,01 + the gameplay is nowhere near Konami's game :D

 

I can't play NFL coz I don't know anything about American Football it's very

[Volourn]

Learn. Before I started playing the NFl games way back whgen they first came out; I wans't a big fan of the NFL either. The game is what got me interested in the sport...