2D Animator Interview Questions

One of the more challenging aspects of the job application process to prepare for is the live interview segments. Most jobs, once they have narrowed down the pool of candidates sufficiently, will bring in applicants for a live interview with either the hiring manager or a committee of hiring managers. Since this tends to happen near the end of the process, interviews can be very important in determining whether or not you are hired over any of the other candidates being interviewed. Thus, it is important to be prepared for your interviews by understanding what kinds of questions you are likely to be asked. While you can’t predict the exact questions you’ll be asked, you can prepare answers for a few common, general questions.

What to Expect in a 2D Animator Interview

Most interviews for 2D animation jobs will be fairly straightforward, though more advanced jobs may require multiple rounds of interviews with different stakeholders. Since the quality of your work is made evident in your demo reel, it is unlikely that you will need to produce new work during the interview, though you will almost certainly be asked process questions.

Top Interview Questions for 2D Animators

The best way to prepare for an interview is by conducting interviews, wherein friends or colleagues play the role of a hiring manager and ask you commonly asked questions. This will help you prepare for the interview process by letting you workshop general answers and giving you a feel for answering questions on the spot. While you can’t predict all of the questions, having a few prepped answers is a great way to feel more comfortable with your abilities. It is also a good way to prepare for answering unexpected questions since you will have a stable of answers you can draw upon.

How would you describe your animation style

Almost every interviewer will have looked at your demo reel and be interested in some elements of your work (since you made it deep enough in the process to warrant an interview). Thus, they are likely to want to hear you describe your artistic style or how you see your unique creative voice contributing to their company or studio. The goal of this question is to gauge whether or not the hiring manager has a proper read on your work and whether or not the things that they found compelling about your demo reel aligns with the things you find compelling about your work.

How to answer

The best way to answer this question is to have a few elements of your demo reel that you point to as demonstrative of your animation style. You don’t want to be too vague or jargon-filled with the answer to this question. Instead, focus on pointing out examples from your work that you think really speak to your personal style and the kinds of projects that you think you are best suited to work on. For instance, if there is a sample in your demo reel that you are very proud of, this is a good place to discuss how it reflects your personal style.

Can you describe your creative process

This question serves two major purposes for interviewers. First, it helps them gauge how a prospective employee handles different aspects of the creative process, helping them figure out whether or not they are a good fit for the culture and systems of the hiring studio. Second, it lets them gauge whether or not they think that the candidate can work under the deadlines that will be set for them. A hiring studio may love your demo reel, but if you need seven months to finish a single asset, it doesn’t matter how impressive they find it.

How to answer

One way to answer this question is pretty simple, you can just explain your creative process from start to finish. You can rely on examples of work you’ve done in the past, but explaining how you go from receiving an assignment to submitting a complete animation is an excellent way to answer the question. Another reliable way to answer this question is to select a single project in your demo reel and walk through the process of creating that specific asset. This can be a good way to help the interviewers visualize your process since you can more readily point to things like the work you did in the editing process or how you brought the project through to completion.

What experience do you have on collaborative projects

If the studio or firm looking to hire you regularly has its employees work on collaborative projects (which is most of them), you can expect to answer a question about your background with collaborative projects. Hiring managers will want to know if you have the soft skills and training required to work on a project involving multiple departments or animators and whether or not they will need to ensure that you are working constructively alongside your coworkers on assigned projects.

How to answer

If you have a background in collaborative projects, either through your training or your college classes, this is a fairly straightforward question. You’ll want to talk about how you work alongside others, how you overcome different opinions about the direction of a project, and how you trust your colleagues to handle their aspects of the project. If you don’t have a background in collaborative animation. In that case, it will be helpful to have a related anecdote on hand that you can draw from to discuss how you have worked with team members on some kind of collaborative project before. Suppose you don’t have an anecdote to draw on (or you don’t think it is relevant enough to bring up). In that case, this is an excellent place to be honest with your hiring manager and say that you don’t have a lot of experience working on collaborative projects, but you are excited about the opportunity. An assertive admission that you don’t have an answer is preferable to stumbling over a non-answer.

How do you respond to feedback and what does your revision process look like?

Interviewers are also likely to ask questions concerning your revision process and how you have responded to feedback in the past. This will help them gauge whether or not you are able to quickly and effectively respond to feedback from clients, managers, stakeholders, or supervisors. It isn’t enough that a prospective employee can respond to feedback. It is essential that they can do it in a reasonable amount of time and in a reasonable amount of iterations since taking too long on any given step of a project can cause cascading delays down the line.

How to answer

As with the collaboration question, the best answer you can give here is to provide a real-life example of a time you needed to respond to feedback on your work and explain how you went about the process. This response is especially valuable if one of the projects you are discussing is in your demo reel, so you can give the hiring manager an understanding of what the finished project looked like. Suppose you don’t have a particularly solid example in your demo reel. In that case, you should be able to draw on a moment in your training (either in a bootcamp or in a college program) wherein you were given feedback and tasked with revision. Unlike the collaboration question, however, this is one you probably need an answer for, as saying, “I can’t think of a time where I had to respond to feedback,” may raise a red flag for interviewers that you either don’t have a lot of experience or you don’t take feedback well. 

Why do you think you are a good fit for this studio/company/firm?

Hiring managers will often ask prospective candidates what it is that drew them to apply for this job in the first place. While this may seem like a weird question, they are looking for someone they can expect to work with for quite some time, meaning they want to hire a candidate who is a good fit for the environment in which they will be working. The format of this question can vary (some may ask what attracted you to this job opening, some may be interested in what project they’ve worked on you found most compelling, etc.), but the general purpose of the question is to get you to talk about where you see yourself fitting in at this specific job.

How to answer

This question can be challenging because it is so wide open, and there are many ways to answer it. While this can be intimidating initially, it makes the process somewhat easier since there isn’t a right or wrong answer to the question. Hiring managers aren’t looking for a specific answer as much as they are looking for a candidate to demonstrate that they have researched their prospective employer and thought about the company as something more than “a place with a job opening.” You don’t want to be overly effusive in your answer (the manager isn’t looking for you to praise the company). Still, you want to demonstrate that you have thought about why this particular job appeals to you and how you can see yourself being part of the team for a reasonable amount of time.

Learn the Skills to Become a 2D Animator at Noble Desktop

Once you’ve committed to learning the skills necessary to become a 2D Animator, Noble Desktop is available to make that dream a reality through professional skills instruction. Noble offers a wide array of 2D animation classes, available in person or online, and all of these classes are taught by expert instructors with years of on-the-job experience. This structure means that regardless of how your course is delivered, you’ll receive real-time instruction and be able to ask questions and receive personalized feedback on your work. Similarly, no matter whether you take the course in person or online, you’ll benefit from small class sizes and all of the professionalization support options, including one-on-one career mentoring in the career-certificate programs. Finally, every Noble class comes with the option for a free retake within one year, meaning that you’ll have the chance to build your portfolio and get even more hands-on experience in preparation for entering the job market.

Students interested in a career change may consider enrolling in Noble’s Motion Graphics Certificate program. This class aims to teach students how to use tools like Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro to create evocative 2D and 3D animated assets for many practical projects. In this class, students will be guided through the process of using After Effects to animate text, photos, and videos, and they will learn how to modify these animations in subtle but perceptible ways slightly. Students will also learn how to create animated images using layered Photoshop and Illustrator files (this course does not include instruction in either of these tools, they are prerequisites for taking the course). Finally, students will learn how to use Premiere Pro to edit their animated assets into video files. All this work will culminate in a series of professionalization seminars, including a portfolio-building workshop and a one-on-one mentorship session, intended to prepare students for a career as a 2D or 3D Animator.

Students who aren’t ready to make a significant career shift but do want to learn 2D animation skills may want to consider one of Noble’s many motion graphics bootcamps. These classes include the Adobe After Effects Bootcamp, which provides students with guided instruction in the use of After Effects for creating animated digital assets and the Adobe Premiere Pro Bootcamp, which teaches students how to use that program to compile their animated assets into a completed project. These courses are excellent starting points for new animators looking to learn the trade. However, they don’t provide students with any of the professionalization services offered through Noble’s career certificate programs.

Finally, students who aren’t sure that they want to start learning 2D animation but are intrigued by the possibility should consult some of Noble’s free training resources to learn more. Noble’s Learn 2D Animation page, as well as their Learn After Effects and Learn Premiere Pro page compiles a weird range of articles, free seminars and resources that students can use to help them on their 2D Animation career path. Noble also provides prospective 2D Animators with a career information hub to help them decide if a career change is right for them.