Search for a Star is a nationwide competition designed to highlight and reward the UK’s most promising video games developers. This is an excellent chance to shine the spotlight on your course, your university and most of all on your programming superstars!
Why are we running Search for a Star?
We regularly visit universities and give careers advice to students, as well as conducting regular research with our clients so we know what skills and experience games development studios are looking for when they recruit graduate programmers. We feel that this places us perfectly to shine the spotlight on the future stars of the UK development sector!!
There has been much debate and comment about the standard of games development courses, and the standard of the graduates that they produce. Many studios certainly want to employ more graduate programmers, but they feel that the graduates are falling short of their technical requirements. Equally, those students from more traditional programming courses sometimes are not knowledgeable enough about video games technology.
So, as well as providing opportunities for the successful graduates, we’re hoping that Search for a Star will help provide a valuable link between UK games developers and academic institutions. This should help universities focus future course content which will in turn help to produce graduates with the skills/knowledge required to begin a career in the video games industry.
How does Search For a Star work?
This competition is for individuals. There is no team element to the competition. It’s designed to; test programming ability, not be too time-consuming for those participating and also not to clash with exams and coursework.
It will allow students to take-part in a nationwide competition, gain significant media exposure, and will increase their chances of securing that elusive first role in the video games industry.
1) Course leaders are to nominate a maximum of 10 of their best students for the competition. These can be from any discipline, as long as they have a strong academic background, have knowledge of C++ and have an interest in games.
2) Round 1 - Those nominated will be sent a set of 10 questions in a word document. They must work through these and have completed them within 2 hours. Relentless Software have written these questions.
3) Round 2 - Those chosen to progress to the next stage of the competition will be sent a task to complete. This will be a timed task and all details/instructions will be contained. A panel of technical judges will assess the tasks. We will then short-list our finalists.
4) The finalists will be invited to a final stage, a panel interview. The panel will contain representatives from different backgrounds. There will be games development professionals and recruitment experts. The panel will discuss the task with the students and assess their interest/passion for games.
5) The winning student will be invited to the Develop Awards in July to receive their award. For more information about the awards, please see: www.develop-online.net/develop-awards
For more information on Search for a Star, please contact Hollie Heraghty on 01709 876877 or email: hollie@aswift.com
Why are we running Search for a Star?
We regularly visit universities and give careers advice to students, as well as conducting regular research with our clients so we know what skills and experience games development studios are looking for when they recruit graduate programmers. We feel that this places us perfectly to shine the spotlight on the future stars of the UK development sector!!
There has been much debate and comment about the standard of games development courses, and the standard of the graduates that they produce. Many studios certainly want to employ more graduate programmers, but they feel that the graduates are falling short of their technical requirements. Equally, those students from more traditional programming courses sometimes are not knowledgeable enough about video games technology.
So, as well as providing opportunities for the successful graduates, we’re hoping that Search for a Star will help provide a valuable link between UK games developers and academic institutions. This should help universities focus future course content which will in turn help to produce graduates with the skills/knowledge required to begin a career in the video games industry.
How does Search For a Star work?
This competition is for individuals. There is no team element to the competition. It’s designed to; test programming ability, not be too time-consuming for those participating and also not to clash with exams and coursework.
It will allow students to take-part in a nationwide competition, gain significant media exposure, and will increase their chances of securing that elusive first role in the video games industry.
1) Course leaders are to nominate a maximum of 10 of their best students for the competition. These can be from any discipline, as long as they have a strong academic background, have knowledge of C++ and have an interest in games.
2) Round 1 - Those nominated will be sent a set of 10 questions in a word document. They must work through these and have completed them within 2 hours. Relentless Software have written these questions.
3) Round 2 - Those chosen to progress to the next stage of the competition will be sent a task to complete. This will be a timed task and all details/instructions will be contained. A panel of technical judges will assess the tasks. We will then short-list our finalists.
4) The finalists will be invited to a final stage, a panel interview. The panel will contain representatives from different backgrounds. There will be games development professionals and recruitment experts. The panel will discuss the task with the students and assess their interest/passion for games.
5) The winning student will be invited to the Develop Awards in July to receive their award. For more information about the awards, please see: www.develop-online.net/develop-awards
For more information on Search for a Star, please contact Hollie Heraghty on 01709 876877 or email: hollie@aswift.com