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Miyamoto: I wouldn't get a job here now News
Wii DS News by Tom Bramwell
Shigeru Miyamoto has said that if he were applying for a job at Nintendo these days with his original qualifications, he probably wouldn't get in.
"Nintendo has become one of those companies that graduates from colleges and good universities really want to work for," Miyamoto told Edge in its latest issue.
"Because of that, the competition's really become so fierce for positions. And that means that a lot of the recent recruits for Nintendo have tended to have the higher degree from the prestigious colleges and universities and whatnot.
"I often say to Mr Iwata: 'If I was applying for a job here today, I, with my actual college degree, would probably not have been employed by Nintendo!'"
Mindful that qualifications don't always mean the world, apparently Miyamoto has taken to getting involved in the interview process himself to make sure Nintendo's multi-stage recruitment process isn't missing anything.
"I might pick up on them," he said of applicants, "and try to find out something really different within them which you can't judge just by a college degree. That's one of the special little jobs I set myself."
The full interview can be found in Edge's Christmas issue.
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Comments: 1-22 of 22 in total
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andywilkie35
23/11/09 @ 09:27
+4
Fuck sake, why couldn't he have said this before the frankly excellent New Super Mario Bros Wii came out?! I/99% of EGers could have said it was because he doesn't make games anymore and just absolute dross like Wii Music, but now that he's redeemed himself slightly I feel harsh.
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kangarootoo
23/11/09 @ 10:13
+1
When you have a lot of applicants, a degree is just a reasonable way of clearing down some of the numbers. Of course it doesn't mean that people without a degree can't do the job, and equally there are plenty of graduates who might not be up to the task.
Hopefully a good company will have decent systems for finding the right employees regardless of academic record, but if you are dealing with hundreds of CVs you have to reduce that number somehow in the first instance. And requiring a degree is at least at the right end of the scale (which is of little consolation to the talented people without degrees that miss out I'm sure). |
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+1
Since I got my job I've interviewed people with better qualifications than me and we've had to turn them down in many cases. I'm well aware that I started when the company was a bit desperate for staff and no one else was applying. I guess this case is an amusing one because we've all seen what happened as a result of Miyamoto joining Nintendo.
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kangarootoo
23/11/09 @ 10:49
+1
@gjgjg
That sort of thing is very easy to check. If you have plenty of experience, it hardly seems worth the risk. Degrees only really matter for more junior roles or graduate recruitment schemes (and those sorts of recruitment are far more likely to check your recent history). |
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+1
Oh, having said that, the last person I interviewed who we then hired had started work on a degree but had decided it didn't suit him. After a year of that he left and went for some more practical experience in the real world. From the interview it quickly became apparent that he was much more suited for the job than the other candidates with degrees. He's been working here for nearly a year now and comes up with solutions for things that I've never even imagined existed. So sometimes the interview process does succeed.
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0
I think in Japan especially it's amazingly hard to get a company job without a degree. There's a reason why students work themselves to death to get into the best universities. I mean, sure, it's possible to open your own business or be a carpenter or something without a degree, but I think that is nowhere near as acceptable in Japan as it is in other countries.
Hope that it changes, though. |
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+1
It really pisses me off, even in the UK, when job adverts say that you must have attended one of the top universities in the UK. The one I went to is probably no where near the top, but I had more than enough UCAS points to go somewhere better. Did I want to go to oxford or cambridge? no. could i afford to go to london? no. I chose my uni based on the sound of the course and where in the country I wanted to go. And I think i'm a pretty good programmer. Companies shouldn't be allowed to descriminate on grounds of race, sexuality (etc), or where you went to uni!
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+1
Anyone who has worked in the industry for a while knows that a degree is no guarantee of anything, least of all skills. It's ironic that the greats like Miyamoto wouldn't have been in the industry at all if they had tried to some into it today. The likes of Mario and Donkey Kong would then have stayed on a drawing board or in his imagination and never seen the light of day.
While I have a degree and even did a masters I am the first to admit that they teach you squat about how to make a great game level or come up with an amazing character design. Degrees can only give you technical not creative skills. Even an art degree only teaches painting techniques. It's the artist themselves that create the masterpiece using those techniques. |
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0
Where i work we tend to bring people in at the very bottom with no special qualifications and pay for them to do part time and distance learning education once they have proven themselves so by time get to higher levels in the company you have the extra qualifications. The main reason for this is the specalised nature of the work however its a good model i think for many businesses.
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Comments: 1-22 of 22 in total
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