Game dev recruitment process

I’m curious about people’s experiance with the process of recruiting game developers. Mostly of the full time, come work in the same office as us variety.

I’m looking for thoughts on how potential employees are found. How thy are screened. Are psychometric tests common. What about technical exams or builds to specifications. How is renumeration normally done (salary, wages, overtime, bonuses, something else).

Still toying with switching industries and looking for a frame of reference. I realise there are probably as many ways to do this as there are game studios, but any input would be appreciated.

Seek is the main way in NZ. I got head-hunted by a recruiter through linkedIn the other day for a job at PikPok in Wellington, but I don’t want to move there, so that’s a no-go. You’re in the neighborhood though, so I would go and check out their website. They had a few roles going, including junior/senior.

How they are screened depends. If you’re going through a recruiter, they will try and determine if you’re a fit, but in my experience, most recruiters are pretty clueless when it comes to talking about technical ability, otherwise I imagine it is completely about the CV provided. Being a gamedev role, its handy to have working/released examples.

I’ve never had a psychometic test. Some places will make you do a technical exam (which IMO is completely stupid), some will just do a technical interview. It varies between companies. The last few jobs I got, have involved no technical interview at all. IMO the best method of determining if someone is any good is looking at code they write. ill often offer this up if they are interested.

Remuneration, they will usually ask you what you want, but will have an idea of what they want to offer (max). How much they want to hire you, will govern how much they want to pay you.

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Treating it as any tech job, my last real interview (IT technical but not in games) involved me applying for a job I saw advertised on Seek, the recruitment agency rang & talked to me then passed my cv to the company looking for staff. That company contacted me & I met the business manager for a coffee/interview/discussion. When I passed that their technical lead rang me for a 45min interview where I had to answer technical questions & then we chatted so he could gauge my technical personality (I guess, sounds weird writing that). I’m assuming if I took to long to answer they may have suspected Google assistance but I’m not sure. After that I was then interviewed by the personnel area to discuss terms, conditions etc.

If you are looking for a job I’d suggest a linked-in profile & then registering with some recruitment agencies as well as putting your cv on sites like Seek (I still get calls even though I marked it as not looking for work & retired) then also checking it weekly yourself.
If you are looking to set up your own business & can spare the time I’d suggest an initial cull of online resumes (don’t be to strict because sometimes the ones that just miss the criteria are the better option as they were probably more honest in their cv than the ones who meet the requirements perfectly), then call & chat to find out what they’re like while probing technical stuff, then if possible meet face to face to satisfy yourself you can work with them & they aren’t to fake. All of this is taken from my experience of being on selection panels for large employers I worked for. Psychometric testing, despite what they say, can be faked enough to distort the finding (i know, I did multiple for the same employer & got diametrically opposite findings just to prove to them how useless they are) if you concentrate & keep the answers consistent with what you are trying to portray.

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For coders expect to get some coding puzzles to show your abilities and knowledge. Beware of the “you must have a passion for games”. That is often a sign of major crunch time ahead and you have a young child and family and do not want to deal with the headache. Portfolio is often a big issue. One can be a C# developer but the Unity system is not the same as say doing windoze forms. Use all your small framework thingees you have been doing as your portfolio. You are obviously not seeking a technical artist or games artist job so amazing artworks won’t matter so much. And mostly what James said above about psychometric tests.

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When I saw the title of this thread, I thought you were going to be asking about hiring people. I figure that if I am really going to have a serious go at this that I am going to have to start hiring people within a year. If I’m not hiring people within a year, my project will probably forever be relegated to hobby status. All of the startup books that I have read assume that you already have a few to several cofounders/employees. None really talk about how to go from one to some. I’m not sure about how to make that step.

If you are interested in working with me the pros are:

  1. Work on truly ground breaking games.
  2. Work in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
  3. A large local game development community and large Microsoft presence.
  4. Full suite of development tools including Unity Personal Edition, Blender, and Microsoft development tools.
  5. I can probably get office space in a trendy area of town.

The cons are:

  1. Work with a game development newbie.
  2. Work in a city with the third most expensive real estate market in North America.
  3. I have no connections to said local game development community.
  4. I don’t have any money and can’t pay.

Amazing pros and deal breaking cons.

Yeah, I’m currently in the business of being hired. But insight from people doing the hiring is valuable.

All you can do is jump through their hoops, show them your best & hope they are honest in their portrayal of their company (unless you have industry contacts that can help with info). Good luck