作者：Doru Apreotesei

在游戏产业待了15年的我发现，没有什么业务会比招聘这一依靠口唇的服务更赚钱。

当你未来的老板带你参观办公室时他们可能会告诉你：“的确，招聘非常重要。招聘决定着我们如何维护公司文化和价值创造能力，同时也能够确保我们在市场有需求的时候能够拥有所需要的动力和灵活性，并最终在市场中脱颖而出。”

也许这一答案有点官僚主义，但是其理论且正中要害。

我们中大多数拥有招聘经验的人都在现实生活中经历过这种情况，即在招聘优秀人员的时候我们其实并不是很理解他们到底需要做多少工作，并且我们总是会自大地认为自己公司的名气足以吸引到优秀的人才。我们也经常会低估过滤过程和协商阶段，这种情况往往也会出现在应聘者已经开始在公司上班的时候。

不过我也还未看过有任何人认为拥有合适的员工毫不重要。但是许多人都不能有效吸引并招聘所谓的合适员工。所以我将列出我自己的一些实践结果，即不仅是关于“如何正确地招聘，”更重要地还包括“如何在游戏产业中有效地进行招聘。”

错误的实践

我会在本文后面部分列出一些“可行”的方法，但我认为应该先说些“错误”的过程。因为这些都是很常出现但却具有破坏性的做法。

不要“追踪应聘者的过去”

请相信我：当你在审核应聘者时，参与项目的数量和质量以及其它过去是最不值得你追踪的内容。原因有很多；因为很多人会在简历里撒谎或夸大自己过去的经历，并且许多项目的成功也不只是因为他们个人的原因等等。你不能只是凭借良好的过去经历去给予候选者符合他们期望的高薪酬，所以即使候选者在简历中看来很优秀，你也该清楚自己的工作才刚开始。实际上比起一些新人，那些有着自身经验的人可能更难融合到你们的项目中—-因为他们往往更加刻板并且总是会拿经验说事。

不要只是执行简单的预算

当你在分配时间，努力和资源于招聘过程时，如果你不能有效考虑所有元素，你便需要面对一些糟糕的结果。有时候过度简化的模式还不如没有模式，因为它可能会扭曲你的期待并导致你做出糟糕的决定。而高估10%的招聘率将导致你们生产率的失衡。

招聘人员往往不能去请求代理机构的帮助。因为要求应聘者在第一年年薪的基础上支付15%至20%的佣金是非常昂贵的。即假设应聘者一年的工资是4万欧元，那么他们就需要交出8千欧元的佣金，这真的是一笔很大的数额！

让我们假设招聘者每年的薪酬也是4万欧元。如果需要以昂贵的代价通过外部代理获取应聘者的话，我们可以假设招聘者只要多投入2倍时间的努力便能够获得同样优秀或者更优秀的应聘者。这可是价值8千欧元呢！

关于这一模式存在一些问题：

在特定时间内找到适合特定角色的特定应聘者是不可能的。我便曾遇到过这样的情况，即即使求助于外部代理，我们在好几个月后也未找到相符的应聘者。这意味着招聘者需要花更长时间去寻找应聘者。

并不能保证招聘者的时间投入便能够获得有效的结果。我指的是我们是与多家外部代理进行合作。最终，他们中只会有一家代理找到合适的应聘者并获得佣金，其它代理可能都是“无偿”服务。这也将进一步复杂化每个雇佣者的工时陈本。

应聘者经常拥有时间窗，如果你所撒下的网太小，你可能便会漏掉许多人，因为他们可能更早就找到适合的工作。就像我们之前在瑞典曾说过的，这是一种“愚蠢的节俭”，即你现在虽然省下1分钱，可能之后你便需要多支付1欧元。如果你认为支付给代理20%的佣金过于昂贵，那请想想你的引擎团队将闲置2个月的时间去等待你所承诺的首席技术官的上任会是怎样的情况。

正确的做法

步骤1：准备

这点并不让人惊讶，即在你开始投入时间，努力和金钱去为你的公司招募人才前，你需要进行长时间的计划。每个公司需要计划的分量也各不相同，也许你们是一家刚开始的全新工作室，或者你们只是计划添加一支全新项目团队或成员。所以基于这点，你将需要做这些事。

明确你的雇佣需求

你们需要雇佣什么角色的员工，为什么？你需要多少这类型员工？是面向哪个项目？该项目需要花多长时间？你需要新雇员在多长时间内完成任务？如果他们不能按时完成任务，你需要延长多长时间？与其它项目中的其它角色项目相比，这一角色为什么更加重要？这些都是你在进入下一步前需要认真问自己的问题。

明确你的雇佣限制条件

雇佣限制条件既包括之前提到的外部代理，也包括工资级别，搬迁计划以及其它激励因素，还有你可能需要的任何技术或资源。你可以换种方法去看待这点，即“我们需要怎样的工具去明确并吸引合适的应聘者”，而这一问题往往与你的公司的业务现状相关。基于像“只雇佣最出色的人”等抽象目标看起来似乎是一种合理的前进方式，但你会发现这并不能有效地帮助你专注并明确一个策略。你应该着眼于为你的公司或项目雇佣一个真正合适的成员。

有条理

我已经看过许多人搞砸了这一步。我便看过一家工作室将所有应聘者信息都保存在部门总监的计算机里，他们与应聘者之间的所有交流都是通过电子邮件完成。

从管理角度来看这是没有规模性的。该公司想在一年内雇佣30名成员。尽管这符合他们不断增加的劳动力规模，但他们却需要为此进行更多的工作分配。也许这么做能够加快任务的完成，但他们也会因为过于混乱而迷失在周转周期中。

在我明确了情况后，我决定设置一个基于定制且简单的工作流的售票系统，即我们已经用于其它项目中的工具。它非常有效，每个应聘者都将拥有自己的票，并且将按照他们的专业领域以及即将合作的团队进行划分。这里也将添加评论功能，并且我们将通过电子邮件了解到什么时候有全新应聘者，评论等。该系统也可以附加简历和其它相关文件。更酷的是，HR和招聘经理能够在数据库中看到每一个应聘者并可以告知他们是否适合某一团队。这种透明度是“有机的”口头招聘所不具有的。

还有很多工具能够帮助我们做到这些。例如不需要太多配置的整套人力资源管理套件，并且它所涉及的范畴不只是关于招聘；它们还包含一些人才管理工具，而价格也理所当然很高了。不过这都将取决于你的需求和条件。如果你的预算不够，像Trello等工具将比只是发送电子邮件带给你更多帮助。

相信我，请一定要尽早设置妥当。

第二步：识别与吸引

下一步你便要开始将真正的应聘者带进你所设置好的框架中。为此你需要找到他们或想办法让他们找到你。

不管怎样你都需要为此投入更多时间和努力。这不只是意味着你需要明确你需要执行的任务，这同时也意味着你们必须在这时候攻占雇佣市场并安抚公司不断增长的野心。

你会发现在今天尝试着去吸引拥有主机和第一人称射击游戏创造经验的关卡设计师所具有的挑战与5年前大不相同。如果你之前使用的是Unity引擎，但却希望之后使用其它工具，你便需要注意“程序员”与“Unity程序员”是不同的。后者在离开Unity生态系统后的作用便大大降低了。

确保你的工作说明包含如下内容：

工作名称：（游戏邦注：如“内容或关卡设计师”）

任务：（不管项目是什么，该角色的总体目标是什么？他们需要带给团队和公司怎样的帮助？）

项目：（如果能公开的话。至少告诉他们项目类型和平台。）

典型的任务：（不管是较常见的还是较特殊的。）

应聘者介绍：（之前的经验，业绩记录等等。不要错过找到拥有相关技能人才的机会，特别是当这一角色非常小众时。如果你正在寻找一个现场运营经理，你便不应该错过那些过去曾接触过参数和品牌管理的应聘者。有些这样的技能是无价的，这比一些常见的节能更难培训出来。）

最后，你应该把握机会去推销你的公司，而不只是推销职位。如果你所聊的都是你们希望应聘者所做的每日工作，你便很难得到他们。因为很多优秀的应聘者都不希望改变工作，但却愿意改变环境，或者说是文化。

所以你最好能够别出心裁，即尝试着去尊重你的应聘者。我们中的任何人肯定都不希望听到“努力工作”这样的字眼吧。这并不能告诉对方你所提供的环境是怎样的。要记住，应聘者是游戏开发者。他们清楚目标和动机。所以请向他们解释在你们公司中怎样的行为才是“对的”以及你创造了怎样的激励系统。即是否存在基于表现的奖励结构？加班是否有薪酬？是否会提供“无尽的”假期？是否有同事业绩评价？人才管理系统是怎样的？只有这些内容才能真正将你们公司与其它游戏区分开来。

第三步：评估

因为其中所包含的元素，这是所有步骤中最难的。首先，对于你花费在每个应聘者身上的时间是有限的，更别提应聘者希望获得评估的时间了。就评估时间而言，你必须做到合理安排时间。需要对硬技能和软技能安排多长测试时间？审核应聘者和鼓动应聘者又要安排多少时间？

我不敢保证对此存在一种最完美的做法。但是我能够利用推销术和原型实践有效地将评估流整合在一起。

步骤3–1：面试

最初的面试是在应聘者和招聘者之间展开，并且将作为一种基本审查，即检验双方之间的交流，即彼此间的交流是否默契，是否会产生化学反应等等。这同时也是让双方提出对于工作说明和简历中感到困惑的问题的机会。

如果你之前曾进行过招聘工作，你可能会想“到目前为止一切都很正常”。但这里可能出现转折：即我刚刚提到的内容在交谈中的比例不应该超过一半。除非你们已经达成一致意见，否则关于交谈的重点应该是招聘者想办法让对方对这份工作，项目和公司感兴趣。

对于某些人来说这可能是违反直觉的。难道我们不该严厉地对待应聘者吗，即尝试着避免在他们身上浪费时间？当然不该这样。现在的我们需要努力奉承应聘者，因为在评估的下个步骤里我们将要求他们执行几个小时的无偿工作。相信我，很少有应聘者会心甘情愿做这些事。

步骤3–2：远程测试

对于远程测试，我们的标准框架如下：

该测试必须能够创造一些可交付的成果，即需要应聘者在工作中完成的任务。例如设计师所需要遵守的规则，结构和设计，美术师需要创造的图像以及程序员需要编写的代码等等。

该测试必须具有广度与深度。即你必须从应聘者的回答中获得基本信息。而为了做到这点，你为游戏/关卡设计师所编写的设计测试问题就必须具有理论性和抽象性。同时还需要一些更具体的内容，所以你便需要为此创造图表和模型。

除此之外你还需要拥有一个分数系统，即比起“肤浅”的答案，更有“深度”的答案能够获得更高分数。这也适用于实际任务。让我们假设你的程序员测试便是让他们在Unity，Unreal或CryEngine上复制游戏《Pong》—-那么你便可以且应该将这一测试分解成一些基于不同分数的部分。他们是否有限使用了正确的功能？他们所编写的代码质量如何？可读性怎样？他们是否使用了占位符？你也可以使用同样的方法去测试美术师和其他角色。即你只需要确保能够尽可能测试更多无法达成一致的可能性。从某种意义上来看我们使用了合适的原型创建方式。

同时你也需要考虑传达每个问题或任务的价值点数对应聘者的影响。我个人便选择不这么做，因为：

测试应该是具有时间限制的，那些错过时间的应聘者应该被判定为不合格或因此遭受惩罚。时间限制能够提供给你评估不同候选人的基线，如此你便无需基于时间消耗去衡量结果。这对于应聘者来说也更加公平；因为资深应聘者的时间往往比新手们更加宝贵。时间限制同时也能够帮助你判断应聘者是否足够稳重。他们会在哪个部分投入更多精力？这也是我并不会暴露每个问题最低/最高分数的原因；我更希望隐藏分数去鼓励应聘者们，但我同时也认同其他拥有不同看法的人。

在测试时，你不应该忘记“元”层面。即应聘者对于接受测试有何反应？他们是否会生气？他们是否乐意？他们对于你想要创建的文化有何反应？如果他们应聘的职位是招聘经理，你是否相信他们能够正视这一职位？如果他们认为自己过往经历便足以为自己说话，那这是否能够表明他们对于招聘事宜的看法？

必要的话你还可以提到这点：测试应该由相应的专家进行评估，而不是“制作人”或其他公司高管。

步骤3–3：现场评估

有些公司只会邀请部分人亲自上门面试。他们认为这是更加人格化的核查，即能够在将其招入公司前更好地判断彼此间是否能够产生化学反应。

而我的做法有点不同。在我的招聘过程中的第三部分便是进行现场评估，而这也与之前的步骤一样重要。我认为这部分本身就是一种测试，当然了这也是有关化学反应方面。而你也必须确保能够尽可能符合应聘者一天可能做到的标准。

我尝试着在现场评估中遵循以下结构：

1.（10:00–11:00）介绍和后续安排。应聘者将被介绍给那些他们将在今天一整天一起工作的人。比起只是聊天或彼此介绍，他们可以在这时候聊聊远程测试。即使是一名成功的应聘者在这时候也有可能因为压力而不能拥有完美的表现，所以这便是观察他们如何对同事以及合作者的反馈做出回应的时机。

2.（11:00–12:00）描述并讨论项目。在这里我将向应聘者展示他们将致力于怎样的游戏中，其中的愿景和挑战是什么以及他们应该创造出怎样的成果。我会在这时候尽可能提问更多开放式问题以观察我们彼此间的合作是否默契—-甚至是在测试非设计师角色时。我非常希望看到所有人都是朝着同一个方向前进，所以我希望看到如果让应聘者使用自己的设备的话他们会如何创造游戏。而他们的愿景与我们的愿景间存在差异不一定是坏事—-我们还可以从中了解到更多东西。这里存在的一个重要问题是，我们是否能够轻松改变应聘者的愿景？如果应聘者在处理有效反馈时过于固执且死板，那只能说明他们还不够成熟。

3.（12:00–13:00）午餐时间！尝试着在这期间组成团队并去了解彼此。如果他们都是外国应聘者，那么这便是了解文化差异并感受前往其它国家工作所存在的挑战。

4.（13:00–15:00）任务分配。应聘者将获得一个与自己的角色以及所参与的项目相关的任务。举个例子来说吧，一个系统设计师将需要设计一个全新功能或重新设计一个现有的功能。一些致力于内容设计的人将被要求重新配置游戏中的某一部分以确保它能够更顺畅地进行。作家将需要重新编写一个过场动画的互动对话，同时还要保持统一的分支数量。你可以发挥自己的想象力，但这些工作其实都是针对于你的项目和工作室。你必须记得这只是一次练习，他们并非想要从你身上获得“免费劳作”。相反地，这将能够评估应聘者的方向选择，工作结果并最终将这些内容呈现在客户和同事面前。

5.（16:00–17:00）展示。这时候应聘者将展示他们的想法，决定以及与一群组人创造的结果—-最理想的情况是与那些基于相关学科的人一起共事。在这里你将接受测试的是展示和交流技能，以及如何对反馈做出反应（甚至是那些直接且严厉的反馈），并且这是最接近你每天与团队的日常工作的部分。

这部分存在缺点也有优点。如果你没有完整的一天时间，你便可以将过程减半。

我听说过有些公司会让预备应聘者参与一个长达一周的付费项目。而这么做不仅不现实，同时也是不可能的。因为如果应聘者现在还有其它合同约束，他们便不能够做这样的事。也就是说这种“模拟”非常接近真实的个体合作。

步骤4：提供工作

最后我们将到达提供工作的阶段—-这也是我认为有些公司并未真正重视的阶段。很多公司都会只是将这些应聘者留给HR或其他负责雇员合同事宜的人，但相信我，你的工作还没完。

这里的要点是，一旦你决定雇佣这名应聘者，那可能是因为他/她在这一折磨人的过程中证明了自己的能力。而有可能在你们之前他们已经收到了来自其它公司的offer。此外，当你已经获得了关于这些应聘者的相关信息后就不要再丢给他们一个“标准”offer。现在的你应该已经足够了解他们，所以比起一个明确的起始日期你其实可以呈现一些更诱人的内容。即比起较高的薪酬他们是否有可能受到像奖金这样的激励因素的推动？他们是否希望比其他应聘者更频繁地飞回家与家人见面而你能够给予他们这样的帮助？有些应聘者有可能比其他人更看重这些要求。而如果你能够主动向他们提起，他们便会非常感激你。这说明你对他们足够关注且非常看重他们。

还有一点需要考虑的便是，在审核期间，你比其它公司更深入地了解了这一应聘者，同样地应聘者也更深入地了解了你，这便是之前那些工作的重要性。比起只是与HR进行交谈，接到来自之前在现场评估中扮演“黑脸”角色的工作人员的友好电话会更让应聘者开心。

步骤5：培训和上岗

我们终于完成任务了！应聘者接受了我们的offer，一切都很顺利不是吗？最困难且最有压力的部分已经结束了。现在你的招聘列表上已经减少了一个人。但显然这并不是重点。

的确，过去的我便错误地认为投入时间去找到合适的应聘者我便不需要再培训他们了。但这却是错误的。之前的评估过程只是在判断他们潜在的生产力以及与团队成员的匹配度。但当他们真正投入工作时这些东西却不一定靠谱。如果你忘记这一点的话你就危险了，特别是现在你已经关闭新申请通道并且已经拒绝了许多符合条件的应聘者。而如果要再招人的话你便需要投入大量时间，所以你最好确保选中的这个人能够有效工作，或者至少你能够尽早发现任何不匹配的因素。

不管你与新员工的接触频率如何，当你面对的是进入公司还不到一个月的新员工时你都应该在这一基础上乘以二。提供给他们足够多与你交流的空间。了解他们对于在你的团队中工作的想法以及期待。如果他们来自海外，一定要了解他们是否存在文化冲突。如果时间允许，请一定为国外雇员编写一份“新人指南”。在里面解释清楚像保险，银行账户，租赁/购房市场等你认为对方理所当然会知道的内容。当你在新雇员报道后的前几个月真正关注于他们身边一些“微小事物”时，你便会惊讶于他们对于你的忠诚度。

忠诚度非常重要。让我们正视这点—-一个严格的审核过程比只是扫一眼简历，进行电话面试并按照直觉去提供一份offer能够带给你和你的团队更多帮助。当然了，你会因为正视这一过程得到更好的结果，但如果你因为不能提供给他们有效的培训而失去他们的话，这一切便都白费了。

所以你应该重视这整个过程。因为对于任何招聘过程的最佳衡量标准便是一个角色的更换频率以及它能够帮助我们真正的工作，也就是游戏制作节省多少时间和精力。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

5 Steps to a Great Game Dev Hiring Process

by Doru Apreotesei

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 15 or so years in the games industry, it’s that few aspects of the business are paid as much lip service as hiring.

“Yes”, your prospective boss may tell you as they take you on a tour of the office, “hiring is extremely important. Hiring is ultimately how we maintain our culture and value creation capacity, while at the same time ensuring that we have the drive and flexibility needed to pivot when the market so demands – and also to beat that same market to the punch through everyday grassroots innovations”.

So far, so good, you think. A bit bureaucratic an answer perhaps, but the theory seems on-point.

And then they introduce you to Jane, the company’s lone in-house recruiter. Jane has been left to her own devices to dig up potential candidates or at the very least ensure that the candidates find her. She is also expected to manage all the vetting and stage 1 interviewing of every single eligible and interested candidate, regardless of subject matter area. Additionally, she is not allowed to use outside agencies to track candidates down. Too expensive, you see.

As you start looking around for the nearest fire escape, or at the very least a window to jump out of, you’re told by your host in a magnanimous tone of voice that Jane “has one of those fancy LinkedIn Pro accounts”. When you ask how many people she’s expected to recruit this fiscal year you quickly wish you hadn’t.

It’s a caricature, but one that most of us with hiring experience have, at least partially, experienced in real life. The reason it’s so common is because the underlying reasons are often the same. They include a lack of understanding of how much work is actually required in order to bring good staff through the door, as well as outright arrogance; thinking that the reputation of the company will magically attract the right people. The filtering process and negotiation phases are also routinely under-estimated, as well as what happens once the candidate has actually commenced working at the company.

I have, however, yet to meet anyone who claimed that having the right staff is not important. Many people just suck at attracting and hiring said staff. So I thought I’d put together a list of my own personal best practices for not only “doing hiring the right way”, but more importantly “doing games industry hiring the right way”.

Bad Practices

The process I outline later in this article is written in a “do” format, but I thought I’d get a couple of “don’ts” out of the way first. The reason is that these are so common, and so harmful, that even if the rest of my list implicitly covers them, I don’t want to risk anyone failing to read between the lines and fatally damaging their project or company in the process. The number one “don’t” is…

Don‘t Do “Track Record Hires”

When I say “Track Record Hires”, I mean the kind where you start frothing at the mouth over a candidate’s CV, making up your mind right then and there. Take it from me rather than learning this the hard way: the number and perceived quality of projects and past employers is among the least interesting things to track when trying to identify your next hire. The reasons are numerous; there are plenty of people who lie and exaggerate on their CVs, there are many projects that have been delivered in spite of – rather than thanks to – the individuals involved, and so on and so forth. You really can’t count on an impressive track record to accomplish anything beyond hiking up the salary expectations of the candidate substantially, so even if the person seems to be a brilliant fit “on paper”, your work has only just begun. In fact a more senior and experienced is more likely to be incompatible and unmalleable than a more junior person – as seniority often brings rigidity and “knowing what is right from experience”.

That’s all I’m saying about this one. Buyer beware!

Don’t Do Simplistic Budgeting

If you don’t consider all the factors when allocating time, effort and resources to the hiring process, you will get terrible results, one way or the other. Sometimes, an overly simplistic model is less useful than no model at all, as it’ll skew your expectations and make for poorly informed decisions. Overestimating your hiring rate by even 10% may well lead to disproportionate losses of productivity, for reasons you won’t understand except maybe after the fact.

Let’s revisit Jane from the intro again. Jane wasn’t allowed to enlist the help of staffing agencies in finding the right candidates. The 15-20% commission on the first yearly salary was deemed too expensive by management. Indeed, let’s assume that it’s the higher number, and that the candidate would earn €40 000 a year. That’s an €8000 commission – quite a hefty chunk of change!

Except it’s only hefty if considered completely out of context. Let’s assume for a second that Jane the recruiter also makes €40 000 per year. For a candidate to be “too expensive” in coming from an external agency, we’d have to assume that Jane can find that same candidate – or a better one – if she only puts in the equivalent of 2.4 months’ additional work. That’s what €8000 amounts to.

There are quite a few problems with this model, including…

… How brain-breakingly impossible it is to find certain candidates for certain roles during certain periods of time. I’ve been in situations where in spite of working with external agencies, we’ve not been able to find a candidate with a suitable profile for several months longer than expected. Meaning that Jane on her own would probably have needed still longer to find the candidate, except…

… There’s still no guarantee that time invested by Jane translates into hires. Because I meant what I said – we were working with external agencies, plural. And in the end, only one of them finally found the right candidate and could collect the commission from placing them with us; the others ended up having worked “for free”. Which further complicates the man-hour-per-hire cost. And there’s still more to it, as…

… Candidates often have timing windows attached to them. If you throw too narrow a net, you may simply not reach a candidate that would’ve been a great fit before someone else does. Which complicates the “simulation” further still.
Hopefully I’ve made the point well enough. Don’t be, as we say in Sweden, “stupidly frugal”; saving a cent now to spend a euro later. If you think paying an agency 20% is expensive, imagine having your engine team idling for 2 months in anticipation of the CTO you promised them.

The Right Way

With the “don’ts” out of the way, let’s have a look at the “dos”.

Step 1: Prepare

Perhaps unsurprisingly, before you start putting time, effort and money towards staffing your company up, a bit of planning goes a long way. The amount of planning you need to do will vary; perhaps you’re a brand-new studio staffing up from scratch or maybe you’re just adding a project team or even just one new individual at an arbitrary point in time. With that in mind, there are a few things you should always do to some extent.

Define your hiring needs

What role are you hiring for and why? How many of them? For which project? What’s the timeline of that project? By when do you need the new employee to be productive? What happens if they are not; how do hiring delays scale? What is the priority of this role relative to other roles for other projects? These are just a few examples of the kinds of questions you should be asking in order to more effectively tackle the next step.

Define your hiring constraints

The hiring constraints include everything from the aforementioned use of external recruiters to the salary brackets, relocation packages and any other incentives, as well as any technology or other resources you might need. Another way of thinking about it is “what tools do we have available to us to identify and attract the right candidates”, and this question must always be tightly connected to the business realities of your organization. Tying it to some sort of abstract goal like “only hiring the best people” will seem like a rational way forward, but you’ll find that it does little in helping you focus and define a strategy. Look towards hiring the right people, for your organization and for the reality in which it operates.

Get organized

I’ve seen this step messed up by people who really should’ve known better. At one studio where I was made department hiring manager I quickly found that candidates were being tracked in giant mind map saved locally on a department head’s computer. Communication with and about the candidate was handled through emailing.

To use management speak – this did not scale. The studio was struggling to hire even 30 people in one year. While this did correspond to a sizable increase in their workforce, they had delegated much of the work throughout the organization. It should have been faster, but much was lost in painfully slow turnaround times and “fumbles”, mostly stemming from disorganization.

After I’d done an inventory of the situation, I decided to put my foot down and set up a ticketing system with a custom, simple workflow in Jira – which we already used for other purposes within the organization. It worked beautifully; each candidate got their own ticket, categorized and tagged depending on their area of expertise and the team they were interviewing with. Comments were added to the tickets themselves and the only emails that got sent around were from that system, letting people know when new candidates, comments or other edits arrived. The system also allowed for attachments of CVs and other relevant files. A cool bonus was that HR and hiring managers throughout the company could see every candidate in the database and inform each other that “if he’s not a fit for your team, I’d like to interview him for mine”, and vice versa. This kind of transparency is hard to expect from “organic” word-of-mouth between hiring managers.

There are loads of tools available to help with this kind of practical stuff. There are whole HR suites that require little configuration, and that go beyond just recruitment; they have every conceivable talent management tool built-in, and are as expensive as you’d expect. It all comes down to your needs and constraints. But even on a slim budget, something like Trello will make your lives so much easier than sending emails back and forth.

Trust me, set it up early.

Step 2: Identify and Attract

The next step is to start putting actual people through the pipeline you’ve set up. For this to be possible, you either have to find them – or they have to find you.

Either way, spending a healthy amount of time and effort on the actual job spec is going to make things much easier. This doesn’t just mean being clear and unambiguous about what tasks you need performed; it also means accounting for the hiring market at this given point in time, as well as the growth ambitions of the company.

You’ll find that trying to attract Level Designers with console and first person shooter experience is a different challenge today than it was just five years ago. Also, if you happen to be working in the Unity engine, but hope to move to a different set of tools in the future, you’d do well to note that a “programmer” is generally not the same as a “Unity programmer”. Many of the latter are surprisingly ineffective outside of the Unity ecosystem.

Ensure that your job spec includes the following:

Job Title: (For example “Content/Level Designer”)

Mission: (What are the overall goals for the role, regardless of project? What do they bring to the team? To the company?)

Project: (If you can disclose. At least tell them the genre and platform(s).)

Typical Tasks: (From the more common to the less common.)

Candidate Profile: (Previous experience, track record and so on. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to find people with relevant transferrable skills – especially if the role is niche. If you’re looking for a Live Operations Manager, you’re not doing yourself any favours by discounting people who’ve been handling Metrics or Brand Management in the past. Some of those skills are invaluable, and can in some instances be much harder to train for than the skills normally associated with the role you’re hiring for.)

Finally, take this opportunity to sell the company, not just the position. If all you’re talking about is the day-to-day work the candidate’s expected to do, you’re quite likely to get the kinds of candidates that are running from something, rather than to you. Many of the best candidates are those who are not looking for a change of job – but could be convinced to change environments and, especially, cultures.

When doing this, try to be original – and by that I mean try to respect your audience. None of us want to read “work hard, play hard” ever again. It really tells us very little about what to expect in the environment you’re offering. Remember, we’re game developers. We understand goals and incentives. Explain to us what kind of behaviours are the “right” ones at your company, and what incentive system you’ve devised to get people to act accordingly. Is there a performance-based bonus structure? Overtime pay? “Endless” vacation days? Peer performance reviews? What’s the succession and talent management system like? These kinds of things will go a long way in differentiating your company from the many others out there.

Step 3: Assess

The assessment step is arguably the most difficult of them all because of all the factors involved. On the one hand there’s a limit to how much time you can spend on each candidate, not to mention how much time the candidate will be willing to spend being assessed. Once you’ve managed to find a sweet spot as far as total assessment time is concerned, how do you want to distribute that time? How much are you testing for hard vs. soft skills? How much is about vetting the candidate and how much is about convincing them?

I’m not sure there’s a perfect solution to all of this. But I have put together an assessment workflow that I personally think does a fine job, employing both salesmanship and good prototyping (!) practices.

Step 3-1: Interview

This initial interview should be between the candidate and hiring manager(s) and function as a sort of sanity check, to see if communication works between the parties; is there rapport, chemistry and so on. It’s also an opportunity for the parties to ask more in-depth questions about the things that should’ve already been communicated through the job spec and candidate CV/cover letter.

If you’ve done hiring before you’re thinking “so far so normal”, right? Well here’s the twist: the stuff I’ve just mentioned should be less than half of the focus of the conversation. Unless an immediate “deal breaker” is identified, the main focus of this chat is for the interviewers to get the candidate as psyched as possible about the job, project and the company.

This is counter-intuitive to some. Shouldn’t we be trying to be as hard on the candidate as possible, to try to avoid wasting any more time on them? Well no, not in this instance. Because the reason we’re buttering the candidate up is that the next step of the assessment will require them to do several hours’ worth of unpaid work. Trust me, very few candidates are interested in doing this off the back of nothing but a written job spec.

Step 3-2: Remote Test

My standard framework for remote tests is as follows:

The test should produce deliverables as close as possible to what the candidate will be expected to produce on the job. Rules, structures and designs for designers, art for artists, executable code for programmers and so on.

The test should go both wide and deep. It’s important to be able to figure out a “profile” from the candidate’s answers. To accomplish this, some of the questions in my written design tests for game/level designers are theoretical and abstract. Meanwhile, others are more concrete, requiring the creation of diagrams and mock-ups.

Additionally, you should have a scoring system, where “deeper” (not necessarily more verbose, mind you) answers should count for more points than “shallower” ones. This works for practical tasks too. Let’s say that your programmer test is to copy the game “Pong” in Unity or Unreal or CryEngine – you can and should still break that test down into differently-scored parts. Did they prioritize the right features? What’s the quality of their code? The readability? Their use of placeholders? You can do the same for artists and other staff as well. Just make sure to test for the biggest number of potentially deal-breaking things as possible. It’s in that sense that we are employing good prototyping practices.

Consider the impact of communicating the point value of each question or task to the candidate (1-3, 1-5) etc. I personally choose not to because…

The test should be time boxed, and candidates should be disqualified or at least heavily penalized for missing the deadline. The time box will provide you with a common baseline for assessing different candidates, so that you don’t have to “weight” the results based on the amount of time spent. It’s also fairer to the candidates; employed senior candidates’ time is more precious than that of fresh-out-of-university noobs. The time boxing also tells you something about the candidates’ sense of priority. Where do they choose to focus their energy? This is why I personally don’t expose the min/max score of each question; I prefer to not force anyone’s hand by dangling points in front of them – but I also accept that not everyone will agree with this method.

When testing, don’t forget the “meta” layer. How does the candidate respond to being tested? Are they offended? Are they happy about it? How does their reaction map towards the culture you’re trying to build? Also, if they were to be hiring managers themselves, would you trust them to take the process seriously? If they think that their own track record should speak for itself, what does that say about their view of hiring practices?

Oh, and in case it needed mentioning: the tests should be assessed by the relevant subject matter experts, not “producers” or whatever your company calls its bureaucrats.

Step 3-3: On-Site Assessment

A lot of companies only invite people to come visit them in person once they have more or less made up their mind about the candidate. They see it as just one more personality check, to see if chemistry lines up or whatever, before extending the offer.

My take is a bit different. The third part in my process is the in-person assessment, and it’s just as serious a step as the previous ones. I see it as a test in its own right. Sure – the chemistry aspect is there. But once more, you should make sure to get as close to what the candidate will be doing on a daily basis as possible.

I try to follow the following structure for the on-site assessment:

[Brackets indicate timeslots in 24h format.]

1.[10:00 – 11:00] Introduction and follow-up. The candidate is introduced to the people they would be working the closest with on a day-to-day basis. Rather than just chatting and getting to know one-another, this would be a good time for a follow-up chat on the Remote Test. Even a successful candidate will most likely have performed less-than-perfectly under pressure, so here’s a good opportunity to see how they respond to feedback from their peers and closest co-workers.

2.[11:00 – 12:00] Presentation and discussion of the project. Here I try to present to the candidate what kind of game they will be working on, the vision and challenges and where they are expected to contribute. I try to ask as many open questions as possible here to see how well-aligned we are – even when meeting with non-designers. I’m a big fan of everyone pulling in the same direction, so I’ll try to find out where the candidate would want to take the game if left to their own devices. Big discrepancies between their visions and ours are not necessarily a bad thing – there can be a lot to learn from such a situation. An important question is, however, how easily realigned the vision of the candidate is. This applies even when hiring a vision keeper. Being rigid and stubborn in the face of valid feedback is rarely a sign of maturity.

3.[12:00 – 13:00] Lunch! Try to compose as diverse a group as possible and just get to know each other on a personal level. If they are an overseas candidate, this is a good chance to spot cultural differences and get a feel for how big a challenge it’d be for them to move countries.

4.[13:00 – 15:00] Practical assignment. The candidate gets a task that is somehow relevant to their specific role as well as the project they’ll be working on. One example is for a systems designer to design a new feature, or redesign an existing one. Someone working in content design may be asked to reconfigure a segment in a game to flow better. A writer could be asked to rewrite the interactive dialogue of a cutscene while still maintaining the same number of branches. Use your imagination – it’s invariably going to be somewhat specific to your project and your studio. It’s important to remember that the exercise is just that – an exercise, not an attempt to get “free work” out of someone. Rather, it’s about assessing how well the candidate takes direction, produces results, and ultimately presents them to clients and peers.

5.[16:00 – 17:00] Presentation. This is where the candidates present their methodologies, decisions and results to a relevant group of people – ideally someone from each relevant/affected discipline. What you’re trying to test for here is presentation and communication skills, as well as how they respond to feedback – even blunt, critical feedback – in a situation that’s as close as possible to the day-to-day realities of working on your team.

This part scales both downwards and upwards. If you don’t have a full day available, then cut the whole thing by half. Hopefully this will yield results that are half as good, though I personally wouldn’t want to gamble on it.

I’ve read of companies that do week-length paid projects with prospective candidates. This may be not only impractical, but outright impossible. If the candidate is currently employed, their contract may prohibit them from doing something like that. That said, that kind of “simulation” would get you quite close to experiencing what actually working with the individual will be like.

Step 4: Offer

Finally, we’ve arrived at the offer stage – one that in my opinion doesn’t get nearly enough attention from companies. It’s tempting to simply leave this stuff with HR or whoever’s in charge of drafting employment contracts, but trust me, you’re not quite done yet.

Thing is, if you’ve decided that you want this candidate, it’s probably because he or she has proven to be competent throughout this gruelling process. Which makes it quite likely that they have other offers than yours on the table. Furthermore, there’s no reason to throw anyone a “standard” offer after you’ve collected this much information about them. You should know them well enough by now to be able to put together something a little more enticing than a figure and a starting date. Are they more likely to be motivated by an incentive (i.e. bonus) than a slightly higher base salary? Will they want to fly home to meet family more often than other candidates, and can you help with that? Some candidates will be more likely than others to put these kinds of requests into words. All of them will appreciate you suggesting it more than if they’d have to ask. It proves that you’ve been paying attention and it makes them feel important.

Another thing to consider is that just as you’ve been looking deeper into this candidate than most other companies probably would during their assessments, the candidate has seen more of you as well – that’s just how these things work (insert Nietzsche quote about abysses here). Getting a friendly follow-up call by the person who was playing “bad cop” throughout the on-site assessment will feel a whole lot better for the candidate than being formulaically approached by some HR person they’ve barely spoken to thus far.

Step 5: Coaching and On-boarding

Aaaaand we’re done! The candidate has accepted our offer, and all is good, yes? Well the most difficult and stressful part is over, that’s true. You now have one less person on your to-hire list. But that’s obviously not the end of the story, even after a hiring process as meticulous as this one.

Indeed, I have myself made the mistake of thinking that after putting all that time into getting the right candidate through the door, I wouldn’t have to coach them as intensely as otherwise. This is not true. The assessment, ultimately, is about figuring out the potential productivity, the potential cultural fit of a team member. But neither of these things are so much facts as they are processes – and they need to be continuously worked at. You forget this at your own peril – especially now that you’ve probably turned off “the tap” of new applicants, and have quite possibly turned away quite a few eligible candidates as well. It takes time to get the whole process rolling again, so it’s in your best interest to make sure this one works out – or at least to catch any mismatches as soon as possible.

Whatever your frequency of touching base with new staff is, consider doubling it for anyone who’s been with the company less than a month. Give them amnesty to talk to you about anything they want. Figure out how the reality of working in your team maps to what you and they expected. If they are from overseas, get a feel for whether they have experienced any culture shocks. If you find the time, put together a written-down “New Starter’s Guide” with a section especially for foreigners. Explain mundane stuff like insurances, bank accounts, the rental/housing market – all this other stuff that you take for granted. You might be surprised at just how much your staff retention is helped by your paying attention to “the little things” during those first few sensitive months.

And retention is crucial. Because let’s face it – a process this rigorous will take much more out of you and your team than just throwing a glance at a CV, doing a phone interview and then making an offer based on a gut feeling. Granted, you’ll definitely get better results by taking it more seriously, but that can still end up being a wasted effort if you then proceed to lose people because you didn’t handle the coaching and on-boarding well enough.

So take those things as seriously as the rest of them. Because ultimately, the best measure of any hiring process has to be how rarely one has to repeat it for the same role, and how much time and energy it frees up for what we really want to be doing: making games.(source:gamasutra)