Ack. That Anonymous poster is actually me ;)

Quote: Original post by Guardian Legend
mod work. I hope it impresses :)

Also, today, I got a second and third call from EA for two other tester jobs o_O
The third job doesn't seem hopeful, but job #2... I got a face-to-face interview set already! Sweet!

Wow, sounds like things are looking up for you! Good luck. [smile]

Quote: They respect you more when you show integrity and honesty than when you engage in craven attempts to curry favor.

I interview a lot of candidates, and I have to agree. The ones who do well are the ones that are themselves, and have significant substance to contribute to a conversation, without being overbearing (i e, always listen, even when you're talking!)

Regarding software testing at EA: be very careful about the specific position. A typical "software tester" at EA in the SF Bay area makes $8/hour, and it's pretty much slave labor, with very little chance of ever getting advancement. For comparision, the local In-n-Out burger chain is seeking burger flippers at $9.50/hour. You can NOT live on $8/hour in this part of California.

If the position is actually "QA engineer" then it might be something better.

I agree that honesty is the most important thing in an interview.
Half of the purpose of interviews is to get a feel for your personality, the other half is for your skills/experience.
Being an honest down to earth person, who can get along with anyone, even when they're dumping shit on you, and communicate well is just as important as having the talent to do the actual work.
With that said, dont sell yourself short tho, mention all of your experiences with things relating to work, and making a demo CD is a very good idea! Record video clips of your work (if it's visual), copies of code (if youre a coder), even mod/game installers. Many interviewers will have a laptop which you can show these demo's on while talking about them, plus if they keep the CD with your resume, they can look at it in detail later (if you pass the personality part!).
Once in an interview I even took a pirate copy of HL packaged with my HL mod, and installed it on the lead-programmers laptop! - I wouldnt reccomend doing this kind of stuff with HR people tho, I only did it because my second interview was only with these programming ppl who mentioned in the 1st interview that they wouldnt mind using a pirated version for demo purposes.

I got hired! Thanks for all your advice!

Congrats!

Welcome to hell. :)

Quote: Original post by Guardian Legend
I got hired! Thanks for all your advice!

So for all the future people who get invited to an EA Open House, would you care to answer your own question:

Quote: What happens at an "open house" event? Is this how EA interviews their potential employees?

Oh, the Open House deal was for the first EA job. I got hired for the second EA job offer, and never had to go to an open house event for that. As for the first job offer, I haven't been invited to the Open House like the lady said I would. I dunno what's going on. So I can't answer my own question still. D'oh!

Quote: Original post by Guardian Legend
I got hired! Thanks for all your advice!

So are you making $8.00 / hr or did you take the jon at In&Out burger?