MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Aardvark Swift and Microsoft are visiting 3,000 students across 60 universities, all within a month and a half. It’s a challenge, but it’s worth it.
Each year, we bring our free Get In The Game careers tour across the country. A series of travelling careers talks from Aardvark Swift and our friends in the games industry, the tour is the backbone of our Grads In Games initiative.
Our specialist graduate recruiter, Mark Hope, will be speaking to students in Computer Science, Games Development and games related courses about what it’s actually like to work in the games industry and how to land those all-important first jobs with developers. We give free advice, guidance and information to increase the employability of the next generation of games developers.
Our partners at Microsoft invite their interns to relate their direct experiences of working in the industry, while also explaining the benefits of the student resources and initiatives that they’ve made available for graduates. We’ll also have Unity speaking on the advantages available to students in using the Unity platform, Perforce on the value of versioning and source control, and speakers from local dev studios to mentor and share experiences of the games industry on a more direct scale.
Regional tour legs have been confirmed. See below to see when we are coming to your area:
Scotland and North East – Week Commencing 20th October 2014
Yorkshire – Week Commencing 27th October 2014
Midlands – Week Commencing 3rd November 2014
London – Week Commencing 10th November 2014
North West and Wales – Week Commencing 24th November 2014
South West – Week Commencing 1st December 2014
Free tickets and details for each visit are available via our online resource centre, GradsInGames.com.
Aardvark Swift will also be bringing the Grads In Games initiative to Play Expo in Manchester on October 11th and 12th, where we’ll be providing careers guidance and information as part of their new games careers section.
During the tour, we’re also accepting applications for the 2015 Search For A Star and Rising Star programming competitions – our industry backed showcases for graduate and undergraduate students.
Search For A Star 2014 Finalists, from left to right: Shane Jennings (winner), Ciaran Deasy, Kevin Meergans, Felix Jones.
Each competition follows three stages that will see entrants first having to pass a tough coding assessment designed by professional developers in association with Codility. They’ll then have just one week to develop a fully functioning game using Unity, which they’ll publish onto the Microsoft Windows 8 Store.
Those who reach the final stage will be invited to the finals day at the Microsoft UK campus to receive personal mentoring sessions from top developers and industry representatives. The winner will be decided by facing a panel of industry peers, interviewed about their skills, knowledge and ambitions for the future.
Prizes for the main Search For A Star competition include huge goodie bags of games and tech, with guaranteed job interviews with our partners. Rising Star competition winners will receive guaranteed interviews for six to 18-month internship placements, with previous winners offered jobs at Sony, Codemasters and Boss Alien
Last year’s Search For A Star winner, Shane Jennings, used his competition win to help successfully land his dream job working with Stainless Games on one of his favourite game franchises. All finalists were able to secure great jobs within the games industry upon graduation.
Grads In Games, including The Get In The Game tour and the Search For A Star competition is run by Aardvark Swift Recruitment and generously supported by Microsoft UK, Unity, Exient, Boss Alien and Perforce. More information on the campaign, tour and competition can be found at www.GradsInGames.com.
