What if game studios used game Jams to interview new candidates?
What do you think the pros and cons would be, for the candidates and the studios?
And have any studios used game jams or game making interviews to test candidates?
What if studios used go kart racing to interview candidates?
That studio would be a joke.
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On the flip side would you want to work for a company that does not Jam, Fedex Friday* or do Ninja Hack weeks?
*Companies that regularly use time to allow developers to work on problems outside of their normal work, these companies often have great staff retention rates and generate more ideas and improvements internally.
Thereās a huge difference in skill set between a game made in a weekend and a game made over months or years. Unless the studio does nothing but pop out a game every month, then there isnāt much of a point.
Is it really a positive sign that you know every way to cut corners and use ever shortcut no matter the costs?
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Completely unrelated to hiring. Most companies do those things for employees.
It would ridiculous and counterproductive to do it in the hiring process. As it stands today, a typical interview process can run several hours, (much more depending on the company). It is time consuming, but helps determines the fit and ability. A āgame jamā in hiring serves no purpose except a waste of everyoneās very valuable time. Any company doing that would instantly lose a lot of talented candidates, who donāt have time to waste with companies that donāt what they are doing.
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Wasnāt there ānospecā discussion in the past?
It would look like an attempt to exploit people who want to be hired. āDo that one test project for us we will look at it and then maybe hire you if we feel like itā.
Now, if they paid all participants, and there was a prizeā¦ But then again, using jam/competition to hire people is by default very odd. Unless the company pays truly insane amount of money for the job, it doesnāt make sense.
You know that those exist lol, they test your cultural fitness to the company.
Iāve done it once. A company as a ācoding testā required me to complete an eight hour game project for them. Thatās not something Iām ever inclined to do again. A company that canāt look at my existing portfolio and figure out my skill level doesnāt deserve my time.
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Wow. Yea, that says more about them than you. 1 hour ish narrow tests arenāt uncommon, but that is asking for a bit much. Google does several small tests, but those tend to for senior and higher.
Nobody does ācultureā tests. But it is pretty common for second and third round interviews to be with the whole team, or a large part of it to asses compatibly.
Yeah, it was my very first application in game dev, before I knew any better. In hindsight it looks like they didnāt even look at any CVs, just sent the same form letter out to everyone asking them to complete the exercise.
Itās a highly unethical way to screen candidates. Not to mention itās ineffective. It pretty much automatically knocks out any candidate who already has a job, as no one in full time work has the time to spend eight hours on a maybe. Even as a full time job hunter, pulling out eight hours to apply for a single job was difficult.
Still, you live and learn. Iām not going anywhere near that sort of company any time soon.
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Would be a massive waste of time, and would turn off any potential employee who is serious about finding work. They simply would not have the time to participate.
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