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Thanks to things like forums, modding and trade shows, the game industry gets closer to its audience by the year. How does that affect the job of the recruiter?
 You haven’t mentioned social networking, which is probably a bigger influence than the other three. Sites like LinkedIn are a godsend for internal recruiters in particular, as well as for people with their own LinkedIn profile who want to talk directly to employers. But in terms of the role of the recruiter – and yes, it’s changing all the time – I’d say that recruiters these days are much less a necessary middleman than a necessary guide or confidante, or even a trusted professional advisor. That can be for employers as well, not just jobseekers. We offer that extra bit of expertise in what is a very fast and changing market.But aren’t developers trying to step into that mentor role themselves to an extent?
The difference between that and a jobseeker talking to a recruiter is that developers only have the one job to offer, which is with their particular company. Recruiters are paid to have a knowledge of the overall market and don’t just offer a portfolio of potential jobs – they can also talk to jobseekers on a job-by-job basis. If you’ve got a job with Quantic Dream, they’re not going to offer you a job at Ubisoft down the road – they’re interested in their immediate needs, so they’re never going to be able to offer the advice that we give, which is really to look after people over their whole career. What tends to happen when a company like Realtime Worlds goes into administration?
Realtime Worlds is an interesting situation because there have been companies going up to Dundee to meet RTW staff, or offering to meet them. But it’s been very public. There’ve actually been press releases about Sega, Sony, Activision, Blizzard, Crytek and CCP going up to talk directly to RTW staff. Now, historically, if a recruiter had done that – and don’t forget the recruiter’s working on behalf of the developers who can’t find their way up to Dundee – they would be called ambulance-chasers. Recruiters have been known to stand in car parks as people have walked out the building with the doors closed behind them giving out business cards. That’s always gone on yet, in the RTW case, people are trying to highlight themselves as the saviours of the employees. In reality, there’s an element of self-interest, and that’s always been the case whenever a high-profile developer with top talent is in serious trouble, certainly over the last five years. RTW hired the most talented people they could find in the industry, and because of the MMO genre they were hiring a lot of people from outside the UK, because obviously the UK’s not a hotbed of online games. They were hiring people from outside of Europe, getting them work permits and that kind of thing. And these are the people who are going to be really stuffed now because you can’t transfer work permits, so they may have to go back the country they originally came from.
What you advise people who look at that and balk at the idea of working in the industry at the moment?
I don’t think people from the UK industry, or people thinking about working the UK, should be overly concerned. It’s obviously a blow for the industry, and it’s a blow for Scotland in particular, but the factors at RTW were atypical, and so it doesn’t call into doubt, necessarily, other developers within the UK. Can something like that destabilise an ecosystem like Dundee or Newcastle?
Some of that depends on how big that ecosystem is. Don’t forget that Cohort Studios had 50-odd people in Dundee and went down a week or two before RTW, so there’s no chance of that particular area being wiped out. But there can be a dent there. It’s a bit like Midway Newcastle and CCP, because there’s talent that’s available and would prefer to work locally if they can, so people who are looking to build a team or studio locally are going to be well-received. And there’s enough developers doing well around the world for top talent to be snapped up. So as far as Dundee is concerned, it’ll be a blip but there may well be four or five smaller developers springing up as a result.
Where does your role start and finish during a candidate’s overall journey?
That’s an interesting one because technically – legally – the job of the recruiter is just to make the introduction between the jobseeker and the employer. That literally takes a split-second in terms of an email hitting the relevant person’s inbox – but I would argue that the job of the recruiter never ends. We’re representing people over their careers, not just for the next job. That’s certainly the principle we’ve tried to adhere to.
 In one of your interviews, Quantic Dream refers to understanding their heritage and ‘passing the test’ during interview. What kinds of things should applicants brace themselves for in general?All developers are different and all the interview processes are different. Fortunately, the UK and European industry is nowhere near what happens in the US, where people go for all-day interviews and it’s a test of stamina as much as creative and technical skills. Every recruiter at every level will tell people looking for a job to do their homework, and because every company is different you need to play their games and be able to comment critically on what you like and don’t like. It’s also important for people to have not only credibility, but also a form of desirability. They’re going to have to add value. And whilst that’s very difficult for people new to the industry, it helps the developer tremendously if the jobseeker has a reasonable idea of what he or she wants. It’s difficult to say you need to be a little bit arrogant and trust your instincts, but for the really big developers like Quantic Dream, they do like someone who’s sure of themselves. Provided that self-assurance is real, I think people get credit for it.
How else do things differ in the US?
Interviews in Europe or the UK are a fairly standard format – not forgetting that, besides the face-to-face interview, there may be technical tests to take. But I was quite shocked a few years ago at GDC, where I went to a presentation with the hiring manager from Obsidian, and he was telling everyone what their process was. You turned up at nine o’clock and, over the next eight hours or so, were interviewed by everyone in the company. Then you were called in at the end of the day and quite craftily asked the questions you were asked at the beginning. And if you couldn’t get on with just about everyone in the company and stay focused when your mind was deadened… It wasn’t just about stamina but about: do you fit in? One of my initiatives at Interactive Selection has been the issue of women in the games market. You can imagine that, in that kind of eight–hour stamina test where people in the company are looking to hire someone in their own image, if the company’s full of blokes, girls might find it quite difficult to share most of the common aspects of the average male game developer. There is an argument that, in these kinds of instances, that you should be represented by a recruiter who knows what you’ll be going through before you go to these places. That’s a classic reason why people represented by a recruiter are more likely to be successful than people doing it on their own.
 You have a presence in Japan as well as the UK and Nordic region. What’s the truth about Westerners getting jobs over there?It’s almost impossible to get a job in a Japanese developer unless you speak fluent Japanese. There are one or two development studios that have been set up by Westerners – mainly Americans – who have hired people in the past from overseas. We’ve helped bring those people to Japan, but the Japanese economy is still very poor. Japanese game developers recognise they need to hire people from around the world so that their games sell globally, but the harsh reality is that Japanese developers are struggling even more than in the West. In fact, we’ve found situations where people have been successfully matched with a developer but the developer’s been unable to get the work permits, because there are people out of work in Japan. The government’s been conspiring, just as it does in the UK and other countries, to make it even more difficult for someone from overseas to come and work in their home market. That was one of the reasons why we thought it wasn’t a good time to invest a great deal in Japan.
Is there such a thing as a universal portfolio for each discipline, or do you have to tailor for the company you’re applying to?
The most successful weapon in a candidate’s arsenal is going to be credits on successful games. But if we’re talking about people looking to get into the industry at a relatively junior level, or progressing from that level, then of course the portfolio is very important. It needs to be focused on the employers that people are looking to hire. So, bearing in mind that portfolios can be websites and things like that, you don’t want your holiday snaps up there as well as everything else. And you don’t want to spread yourself so thin that you’re a jack of all trades and master of none. There’s really no such thing as a universal portfolio.
And what if you do find yourself employed on a product like APB? Given some of the review scores, how might an employer interpret that?
Generally, a lot of hirers look at sites like Metacritic when people have credits on their CV, and if they’re working on games that don’t score well, then they’ll rule them out for interview purposes. The quality and success of games on a CV do matter. With something like APB, I think employers are more likely to pay attention to the fact that, even though the game is new and not yet successful, it is an MMO and they’ve been doing some interesting things. So because it’s a relatively new genre as far as the UK is concerned, it wouldn’t matter a jot. The fact is that they’re working for a well-established and recognised company, and it’s struggled for reasons that aren’t necessarily to do with individual employees. People who worked on APB will be in big demand. There was uproar recently when QuickStart Global left flyers shaped as Canadian passports lying around the GameHorizon conference. What’s that all about?
That was somebody whose business is to set up subsidiaries overseas, in countries like India and Canada. It’s been successful and companies like Sumo Digital and Monumental have used that same company to set up in India. So it has worked, but they were trying to do the same thing in Canada and I guess they were a little overzealous, really trying to get developers to take advantage of Canadian tax benefits. They seemed to be targeting individual developers and that got everyone very excited about people poaching from the UK. When anyone talks about the brain drain from the UK, it’s a bit of a red herring because the UK is brain-draining people from Central and Eastern Europe as fast as they can. People working in Poland or the Czech Republic, or even France and Germany: if UK developers can attract them here then they will do. Brain drains work from typically low-cost countries to those with a higher standard of living, so yes, people from UK want to work in the US, but likewise people from Eastern and Central Europe are dying to get a job in Western Europe. It’s difficult to talk about national boundaries in games development. Thanks to Edge Online – Full article was first published at http://www.next-gen.biz/
David Smith, founder of Women in Games Jobs, commented: “This is an important event to further this initiative that was started nearly 2 years ago. Those looking from outside of the games industry can now see evidence that key figures in the games industry are taking steps to address the gender imbalance that exists in the video and online games industry, much as it does in other relatively new industries where comparable groups have also been formed. I think that games trade bodies in the UK and elsewhere are aware of many of the issues and Women in Games Jobs looks forward to working closely with all interested parties to progress this cause.” All those interested in this initiative should check the latest on the web site at Women in Games Jobs. You can join over 2700 women in games in the LinkedIn professional membership group here.
Things Get Complicated Just as the VP predicted, Peter eventually found the company online, and after an exchange of emails, the VP flew him out to interview. Not once, but twice. Soon after the second interview, Peter received an email from the VP, and it had the look and feel of an offer—almost. “We’d like you to come to work for us,” The VP wrote. “All we need to do is find out what sort of salary you’re looking for.” I know all about the email, because Peter had forwarded it to me and asked for advice. Now, I’m not one to hold a grudge; nor am I about to keep two interested parties apart, especially in light of the fact that the candidate was unemployed. So I advised the candidate to strongly state his interest and request a formal offer, with the understanding that if the offer was reasonable, he would accept the offer and set a start date. But instead of taking my advice, the candidate took a detour, which proved fateful. In the email message to Peter, the VP went on to say that their salary range was $100k to $150k. Since Peter’s last job had paid $100k, he figured there was some room to negotiate. So Peter emailed the VP that he needed more money to: [a] compensate for the higher cost of living where the job was located; [b] bring his salary up to “market” value, according to an online survey; and [c] provide him with a 6-percent increase to adjust for inflation during the two years he’d been unemployed. Want to guess how the VP reacted? He pulled the offer. I don’t blame the VP for being put off. But instead of saying, “Whoa, can we talk about it?” he took the sleazy way out. He wrote back that after careful consideration, his company actually didn’t have an appropriate position at this time. Which, of course, was a total lie. Maybe Next Time Had I been in a position to broker the deal, I’m certain the outcome would have been very different. Ambiguities, concerns and expectations would have been dealt with confidentially, and a smooth and orderly consensus would have been reached. Instead, Peter and the VP communicated in the manner or two dry sponges rubbing against each other; and as a result, our little drama morphed into a triple tragedy. First, a talented and deserving candidate still has a family to feed and a creative mind that’s going to waste. True, he overplayed his hand. But that was more a reflection of inexperience than greed or malicious intent. Second, a perfectly good company that could have reaped untold financial benefit by expanding its capacity is still turning away business. And third, the VP who regarded my services as worthless not only let his penny wisdom and pound foolishness cost his company ten times the money he would have paid me; he also stuck a sharp stick in the eye of our country’s economic recovery. So, the next time a company tells you they can’t afford a recruiter, you may or may not win the war of ideas. But at least you can state your point of view—that in fact, they can’t afford NOT to use you—with utter and total conviction. Kindly reproduced with permission from The Radin Report for August by Bill Radin see http://www.billradin.com/radin_report.htm
“Recruitment is a grind. Money spent on advertising. Too many CVs, or sometimes none at all. The slog of sifting through them, and hoping you have picked the right one. Wouldn’t you prefer a service that did that for you for free? Work Programme providers will get to know you and your business. They’ll get to know all the potential recruits. And they’ll bring you a small selection to choose from. Doesn’t that sound a better way to do business?” A free recruitment service from the government? It sounds too good to be true and well, yes, I am afraid it is. If you visit the company’s website you find that all the candidates that they can present to you are the UK’s unemployed. This does not appear to be a recruitment service provided by recruitment professionals searching out the best person for the job in a company competing fiercely against others in the UK and overseas. Interactive Selection is looking for experienced recruitment professionals to add to its team, for example. This is a private company hoping to secure additional government funds by reducing the unemployment statistics! Don’t get me wrong. Helping the long term unemployed is good and should be funded by government but please don’t dress this up as a recruitment service supporting small businesses in London. The letter quotes a successful placement from “an innovative car-cleaning business” that found the service a success, which is great for those that want to wash cars. In my opinion most small businesses need well trained staff with up to date skill-sets and, when hiring, need a professional recruitment service that will reflect the added value it provides.
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Happy Christmas & New Year from David Smith, Adrian Garrick, Cassandra Donnelly, Carrie Eckersley, Aurelie Busollo and Samantha Ambridge at Interactive Selection. The office is manned or should that be “peopled” on normal working days over Christmas.
Mentoring prospective students and employees has become something of a free-for-all over recent years, what with publishers, developers and even governments using the latest online channels, among other things, to pick the fruit straight from the tree. Not that it bothers the learned industry recruiter, whose role can extend far beyond the knowledge and self-interest of employers. David Smith founded 
Peter was a great candidate: Fine background, good skills, terrific references. So I decided to spin the dial and see if I could place him. After a little research, I found a company that seemed a perfect match for Peter’s talents. So, I placed a call to the vice president. The VP agreed that my candidate was indeed perfect, and could immediately help his company grow. However, there was a catch: Under no circumstances would they pay a recruiter’s fee. “So, you see no value whatsoever in working with a recruiter,” I said. “You got it,” he said, cutting me off. “We get 50 resumes a week from posting on Craigslist. So, if your candidate really wants to work for our company, I’m sure he’ll find us.” “Sorry I wasted your time,” I told the VP. I could tell from his tone of voice that any attempt to convince him otherwise was a waste of my time as well.
Interactive Selection