Recruitment companies/headhunters

    Hi guys,

    I'm getting in touch with a recruitment company. There are experts in video game placement.

    I was wondering if someone had already been in touch with such recruiters and if you could share your experience.

    Here some questions I asked him:
    "- What is the process to work with you?

    The process is simple, we want to make you the best candidate possible, so you send in a CV and Portfolio link and arrange a call with a consultant. We then work with you to give advice to improve both the CV and Portfolio ready to send to potential employers


    We provide a list of current roles we have that are suitable and when you say yes, we help manage the application and interview process hopefully leading to employment.


    - What are the advantages to be in touch with your company?

    The advantages of working with a recruiter, is it is our job to make you employable and get you a job. We know what studios are looking for and also know which studios are looking for people like you . Studios often use recruiters to manage their recruitment as they don’t have time to handle the response so we have access to many vacancies that are only advertised with recruiters. Then there is the recruiters network, where they have worked with studios and have contacts with hiring managers, we can place you on the inbox of hiring managers at studios that don’t have vacancies, but when faced with a talented individual often open up positions.


    - How a recruiter gets paid when he places someone?

    Recruiters don’t charge the candidate and it doesn’t cost you anything. We charge the client a % of your yearly salary. So it is in our best interest to maximise your salary and we also know the market rate for candidates, so you will often earn more by going through a recruiter."


    Quote

    We charge the client a % of your yearly salary.

    Here's a question: it is for the first year or every year? 'cause that would make a lot of money.

    I got contacted by a lot of headhunter on linkedIn, but they often offered me to apply on US and EU-east companies which i'm not ready to join (and i may never be).

    This is more common for coders as they are way rarer than us poor artists and designers. They also are paid higher. I know a very liltle number of people having found a job throught recruitement companies.

    If I'm right, they get paid for a % of your yearly salary by the company hiring you (not on your own salary). As this is a simple service they provide to studios, they are paid once per contract.

    I don't think I need a recruiter because I don't plan to move outside France for now, but I think this is a must go if you are not yet in the company's country, as US typicaly.

    Title is misleading but anyway? Headhunters will come to you and you won't have to pay a dime since it's the company which will ne paying for him.

    We had a warning at our school though about these. Sometimes people will pass themselves off as headhunters on LinkedIn just to get to your network and benefit from that. But from the rare people I know who were headhunted it didn't happen and they both ended up with fabulous jobs :)

    I tend to only talk to first party recruiters. They don't take pay because they are paid by the hiring company. Third party recruiters are generally NOT incentivized to fight for a higher salary and benefits for you because it's easier for them to take a shotgun approach and go broad. I've heard the average is 20% of YOUR salary.

    Basically if they get 3 people jobs at a low salary with little effort that's more money than spending a lot of time negotiating for 1 person to get a higher salary.

    4 different headhunters contacted me for a job at Crytek UK a few years ago, all for the same position, a senior env artist, which I wasn't.

    After that shits happened to this studio :sad:

    • Headhunters from a specific company, cool
    • Headhunter companies, hmm nope
    • Solo headhunters, yeah maybe

    My linkedin is full of recruiters, I've only ever followed through with an interview with Ubisoft but that was through one of their recruiters. I don't think at this point in my career I'll ever need to use a recruiting company, but there are a few private people I know who seem to do well and have successful clients.I'd rather go through contacts I know (yes I know it's easier for me but that's what you get with experience)

    I'd imagine for contractors or people that intend to bounce around from job to job it might be useful myself, I like to commit to a job for the long term.

    I went through a few a long time ago for Climax and Bizarre Creations and some other studios. Same old rubbish, Junior position at Climax, I was the best candidate but they gave the job to someone with experience. 5 hours car drive for a 15 minute interview and shown the door. As for Bizarre creations, same story, plus they weren't terribly friendly or enjoyable to be around. And then they closed.

    My opinion, don't bother unless your recruiter chap is very good. Mine was, but the studios weren't.

    Interesting, I had a similar experience with Bizarre, got the job offer but I had to go there twice by train (good $150 per journey) which they never offered to refund :o Given what happened about a year later, things added up I guess.

    You mean the one that mass email every artist at the studio, copy paste your job title from LinkedIn and complements your portfolio that they just looked through (mine isn't online atm) or the other one that adds everyone on their private facebook account?

    Quote from 2d-chris

    Interesting, I had a similar experience with Bizarre, got the job offer but I had to go there twice by train (good $150 per journey) which they never offered to refund Given what happened about a year later, things added up I guess.

    Yeah Bizarre really didn't seem like a fun place to work. Some of the people who grilled me in the interview didn't come across as very friendly. One of them even told me off for asking questions. "We ask the questions here." Dick.

    I am also fairly reluctant about headhunters in general, mostly due to similar attitudes and stories as mentioned by others. The greatest ones are when you get a job offer for something that has nothing to do with your job except some words in the title, like being a "Building floor-plan designer for an architect firm building stuff in Dubai" or "High-level furniture designer" because you have "Level", "Layout" and "Design" on your linked in profile... Nice work search bots!

    Anyways, I suppose it depends on the case and it's probably better when you're the one looking for a decent recruiter rather than them pestering you to make money off your back. Bear in mind though that having to pay extra money on top of your salary for the recruiter may put off the potential employer a little bit, or play in the decision of what salary to offer you. I have no idea how much they take though, and if it makes such a big difference for successful studios.

    Quote from dux

    Yeah Bizarre really didn't seem like a fun place to work. Some of the people who grilled me in the interview didn't come across as very friendly. One of them even told me off for asking questions. "We ask the questions here." Dick.

    lol. Yeah that's basically an instant red flag and so is a company not willing to pay for your travel to an interview. I have had one company having already offered me the job only offer to pay for a visit (which given it was in a different country would have cost quite a bit to me) to the studio if I took the job at the end. No thanks.

    Real headhunters are more classy than that, they use their network to get infos about who is worth the trouble for an interesting job. But they only are used for high payed, and high responsability jobs!

    Personnally if I were you, I wouldn't even bother with that, you have successful experiences and eden loved you, so you should find a job pretty easily on your own I guess.

    Seeing at my brother experience, he almost got in such recruitment places, and now he is thankful he waited a bit longer because he got a better job than all his friend who went there.

    If you really are afraid not to find a job, you'd be better off in consulting places (if that exists in the gaming industry ).

    Because it will make you work for various companies, and you can make a good impression there, and see how it works there on order to better choose, and be more aware of where jobs are.

    Quote from Vilham

    lol. Yeah that's basically an instant red flag and so is a company not willing to pay for your travel to an interview. I have had one company having already offered me the job only offer to pay for a visit (which given it was in a different country would have cost quite a bit to me) to the studio if I took the job at the end. No thanks.

    Yeah it wasn't a great experience overall. I learnt a lot, but it wasn't good. Like Chris said, he paid a silly amount of money to attend these interviews and so did I. I live in/near Pembrokshire and Climax and Bizarre were in Portsmouth and Liverpool. Those were some long ass and expensive drives. All I got offered was a cup of tea. You should of read Bizarre's interview evaluation email they sent to my recruiter. So much sass.

    Man I hope I never run into that. Someone saying "We'll ask the questions here" would be an instant walk-out for me. No wonder they aren't in business anymore.

    Quote from dux

    Yeah Bizarre really didn't seem like a fun place to work. Some of the people who grilled me in the interview didn't come across as very friendly. One of them even told me off for asking questions. "We ask the questions here." Dick.

    Unless desperate, I think I'd get up and walk at that point. Although, the situation they must have been in at the time, they might have just tried to avoid people to fall in a trap?

    @2d-chris is it an option to share the good contacts? I mean with this situation (sounds like most of these people would throw you under a bus) wouldn't it be good to "reward" good agents by giving them work to do? Also if they are successful or just good at their job, it'd create a sort of trusted network.

    Consensus seems to be: Go for it if you've got a good touch with a recruiter who you respect, and you don't think you can get a decent job on your own. Otherwise, downsides and risks outweigh the benefits. Also flee the aggressive ones that track you down through LinkedIn

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login