I've been a mechanical engineer for the past fourteen years and have recently been looking for a new job and a change in industry – currently in refrigeration and will be moving to a place that design and make big electric motors, which I have no experience of.
As part of the second interview I had to give a presentation on my achievements but I'd already given a kind of mini-presentation of my prior work, showing things that I'd designed and the kind of calculations / analysis work I had done. So for the second interview I decided to do a presentation on making computer games (I've attached a pdf version of this for you to look at).
The presentation mainly focused on my game Purple Complex (written in DBPro) and I started by talking about the game in very broad terms and then narrowed it down to some very specific details of how the enemy AI behaves. I also talked about creating and animating CGI models but stopped short of demonstrating the sound effects as I didn't think it would be appropriate to fill the meeting room with the sound of gun fire.
I finished the presentation by listing what I think are the key skills that are required to make a game - imagination, problem solving, ability to learn, planning, dealing with critique and feedback, determination and motivation - which I think is a pretty good set of skills to cultivate.
This was a risk, it could have all gone horribly wrong and I hate doing presentations, but I'd put a lot of effort into the presentation (the one I used had various video clips to show the games in action) and I spoke with confidence and clarity. I was pleasantly surprised that the technical director was genuinely interested in the development process and impressed at the effort as he had no idea of what was involved in making computer games.
People often comment that DBPro is not proper coding, that it's had its day and that it won't help you get a job as a coder. I find this a very narrow view as making computer games allows people to learn a wide variety of skills, whether they're using DBPro, AppGameKit or any other game making tool, and that these skills are useful in all manner of industries and jobs.
I was offered the job yesterday and accepted.