I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Blizzard Entertainment (Irvine, CA) in Jan 2016
Interview
1st part:
Phone screen interview. Didn't experience anything negative here and it allowed me to ask some basic questions. Spoke with project manager, art leads
2nd part:
Roughly 1 week later an art test was sent my way. That took two weeks. It had time restrictions and was sent to me over a major holiday, horrible time to send an art test. Had roughly a 3 week gap before I heard back about the test, another holiday in there. Think the response would of been faster if that wasn't the case.
3rd part:
Onsite interview: Spent 15 hours travelling there and back for a 1 hour on site plus lunch interview. Have to admit I didn't take it serious because of that. I almost canceled. 1 hour interview literally gave me 0 time to ask any questions I might of had. It also made me think they had someone else lined up and wanted to talk to me as a potential back up candidate.
The team interviewed in one big group making it impossible for me to ask managers about the workers and the workers about the management/leads. Having some separation would of been very nice. A lot of rumors out there about crunch, egos, schedule and what not. Would of been nice to ask about that stuff.
Result:
No offer, in the end I was told I didn't have the right skill set. Which makes me wonder why I took an art test, one I assume I passed since they did an onsite with me. Art test should of tested me for the right skills needed for the job.
Noticed a few weeks later the job was still open and the description got a major overhaul. Curious to see if it is open for the duration of the project.
My recruiter:
She was actually good at her job. Got things taken care of and was probably the one positive about the experience.
Follow up and follow up n follow up with Blizzard. Some of the recruiting staff fail to send critical emails and make calls.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Blizzard Entertainment in Feb 2018
Interview
First interview with recruitment as a quick screening went great, really friendly person. Seemed interested and easy to talk to, had lots of back and forth. Admitted that they were trying to improve their recruitment process which I thought was interesting but with what was to come it made perfect sense.
The second interview was a whole other experience, I was interviewed by one of their long standing artists who came off as incredibly dry and completely uninterested in what I had to say. Questions felt like they were lifted from a how to do an interview cheat sheet. There was absolutely was no back and forth and during the process I found myself wondering if this was genuine. It was almost as if the interviewer was preoccupied with another task while we conversed. The interviewer admitted they couldn’t remember my portfolio, I understand they probably go through many but some preparation here would have been wise. When asking questions about the project no information was given, sometimes that happens but on the back of this usually the interviewer will focus on other positive areas about the studio – trying to sell the culture, etc. But nothing except very short and snappy responses.
I want to note comparing this to an interview to one I recently had with a director at a large Canadian studio was an absolutely world away from my experience with Blizzard, I’ve had great interviews that have ultimately gone nowhere, inspiring even. Yet the interview process with Blizzard left me feeling very confused and totally unsure as to why they contacted me in the first place. Before finding out that I didn't get the position I was already having serious doubts as to if this was worth relocating my family for.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Blizzard Entertainment (Los Angeles, CA) in Sep 2009
Interview
I was contacted via email by their internal recruiter. We emailed back and forth a few times getting more and more detailed information about each other. Then, I had an email Q/A session with the managers there. When that went well, I had a formal phone interview for about 2 hours. I heard from them a few days later and found out that I was not getting the job.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What would you criticize about one of our current games?
