How to find an internship in the Games Industry

Tim Browne, Creative Director at Avalanche Studios

December 7 2021, several classes at Forsbergs Skola had the pleasure to get advice about how to find an internship in the games industry. This was during a guest lecture with Tim Browne, Creative Director at Avalanche Studios. He has been working in the games industry for 23 years and is on the Advisory Board for our gaming educations.

When Brown himself has been employing people, he has seen that cover letters and a cv:s which have been flashy have not been a good way to gain the interest of him and his coworkers.
-Quite the contrary. Instead content is king, when it comes to applications in our industry, says Tim Browne.

Do careful research
Over and over, Tim has experienced the importance of the applicants doing carefull research before sending their applications. His advice is to take a lot of time to do research on Linkedin about the company and the people at the company.
̶ To some people this might sound like being creapy or behaving as a stalker. But that is not how I see it. Knowing much about what you are applying to is key to success, according to Browne.
He himself has used Linkedin since the early 2 000 and has hade lot of help by it, when he has done research to apply for jobbs trought the years. Twitter is another tool he suggests for doing research about companies and people in the business.

Don’t take a bad interview personal
Since the games industry is growing fast, many companies have problems allocating time for interviewing students applying for internships.
̶ Not too seldom, the people in our industry doing interviews with students applying for internships, are not well trained to do interviews well, Browne told the students.
HIs advice was not to take a bad interview personal, since it might quite often be due to this problem.

Tests are common
Browne sees that tests are more and more common during recruiting. His advice is to be prepared for doing a presentation and to be honest. The final advice from Tim Browne that aplies to recruitement tests and everyting else in the recruiting process is this:
̶ Honesty wins over perfection.