Best Practices for World-class Recruitment | PocketGamer.biz RoundTable

this is the first of our dedicated recruitment panels so what I'm going to do to to introduce our experts and to get the conversation going is hand over to Ricky Kali who is the editor of Pocket Gamer got beers Rick how you doing I am doing good it is far too early but I am excited to talk about great look Island I'm gonna fade into the background and let you let you folks carry on we're waiting for a couple more panelists are hoping to have Oleg and Amon join us when they do I'll I'll bring them into the chat it's kind of a free-form conversation so you shouldn't be afraid to get started I can see the attendees are joining us in the in in the zoom for this conversation folks if you do have some questions for our our panelists and our roundtable conversationalist I know that they're happy to receive questions pop it in the the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen

please and then Rick can curate those and put them to our experts later so that with no further ado Rick do you wanna introduce your experts and have a great chat yes thank you very much Dave I won't reiterate what you said but thank you all for joining us today and this morning for the best practices for world-class recruitment roundtable as part of a game adopt biz roundtable sessions and also you see digital number two where we are also doing a careers week where as if you're part of the show there is a jobs listings available on the website we've got this that we're doing and there's a discord chat about recruitment everything obviously is difficult time for everyone we're hoping we can do something to help everybody find jobs and learn a bit more about the job getting process as said I am Rick Carelli the editor of Pocket Gamer da biz and I will now let my panelists introduce themselves Liz please hello hi I'm Liz Prince I'm the business manager of a specialist recruitment agency called amicus and we focus on the games

industry and only the games industry and have done for 20 years and I'm also the founder of an initiative called Joon's gaming very focused on diversity and the games industry especially initially on gender diversity really really tried to make sure that the pipeline of talent that comes through is a lot less male pail then we have relay that's a good phrase I'm Celine yes sorry selling puzzle I wanna see CEO there and we have a game called Hill Climb racing and that's a most well-known game so far happy to be here that's a happy and Alexei a Alexei here I'm the studio recruiter for Rovio before that 3 for 3 on Halo infinite so I've seen mobile and console world and before that I was a full-time theme park performer so I know what it takes to

break into the industry with no experience whatsoever we will hopefully be returning to that we should hopefully have some more panelists joining us in the future but we'll get started right now with a nice starter question anyone can jump in on this where are do you find the best places to find new talent when you're you're looking for you've got a job where do you go to find the people to fill that role I guess start so basically I don't think there's one best place to be honest I think for me as I said and representing seniors of all races as a CEO of course is that I speak openly about our culture and our values and I think like then having conversations with the people in different places I think that's always a kind of nice way nice way to do it so I think it's more like people find you when they kind of see the fit there also and they kind of

see that they can add some value to the company no that's all but of course they stay in place is rather than you can go and meet people hope that only for that reason step I think it's definitely for me dependent on on the role on the level of the individual that you're looking for as well there's obviously a company's websites is the first place that they want to advertise and make sure that they're visible and that Selene absolutely placed what you're saying about showcasing your culture but I mean gosh referrals from from your existing people making sure the one of the things I absolutely love that's happening at the moment a bit more is asking for referrals outside of your normal network so guessing your team to do some really great networking of them of their own so rather than potentially forgive me saying it like this but rather than just bringing in somebody who is identical to

you that you actually are incentivized to go and find somebody who is quite different to you to really boost the diversity within an organization so really rewarding employees to bring in referrals like that lots of great websites obviously and I can't go past a recruitment discussion without talking about LinkedIn surely that's a great place to talk to people and I never see any I never see anything as all about candidates it's all about people and we go and we talk to people about whether what their motivations are and whether they're interested in something to really improve their career and move on to the next step with their career I can't disagree with with either Selene or Liz but I will add I tend to advocate

kind of anti recruitment recruitment strategy so I think that there is a big there's a big reliance on thinking that we're gonna solve our problems externally I mean that's a Zen thing in general but also it also ties into hiring if you think about you know back in the day people would stay at a company for 20 years 30 years right that doesn't happen anymore people are hopping every two three years on average in our industry and I think is I'm throwing out the statistics right now but I think it was only like 20 28 percent of talent acquisition people in a survey on LinkedIn said that they would look at internal candidates as as a source so I'm all about that I think that the order in which you source your candidates should be look at who you have inside your company already it's a great morale booster to see people get promoted it's a great morale booster to

see that career map even unofficially so go for that first and then I come from an agency background where it's like headhunt headhunt find people find people but now that I'm internal I really see the value in in really taking the applicant seriously - and anyone who's worked in recruitment knows that the very few positions get filled from applicants most of the time you're out headhunting people you are engaging passive talent and especially if they're really senior senior people don't apply anyway they know that they can expect to be reached out - so that's still gonna happen for really senior talent that's gonna happen for leadership talent they're not going to apply if they're directly interested in your company they're gonna reach out to somebody they know or they're gonna reach out to the recruiter directly but I would love to push this narrative that we engage the people who are already interested we look at applicants we really take that seriously and I think that's up to the

internal HR and recruiting team to really take care of those people and then lastly if you can't fill it internally you can't fill it through the active people then reevaluate your job description because if you're trying to find put that Unicorn maybe that's a role for two different people maybe there's something that you could be more realistic about then and only then would I say engage the passive talent you know it could be LinkedIn it could be referrals I agree that referrals there is a there is a risk of being really homogeneous if you run if you rely on referrals only yeah that's my order of things yeah I have to add that I totally agree with that so we we actually open most of the positions first internally and I'm see like how maybe they see internally someone who would like to apply for it but I mean we have it basically the same process that when people put up like all the chart doesn't matter is it internally or externally but it has been really it has been

working for us also and it's it's a nice thing for the people that they actually understand how how the company works and how we actually are how you can move forward with your with your plans if you want this food to the charge or something that's that's very quite yeah it's definitely I would say fairly common practice for most clients of ours most studios to 100% look internally first and you're absolutely right why would you not want to bring your talent through it you know and retain that talent and I think for me going wider into the market is I know you mentioned headhunting it's about those people who are not just waiting to be had hunted but genuinely happy and successful in their role and they wouldn't even necessarily think about moving at the moment would they you know they're being

successful that they've got everything they want but that doesn't mean that what an organization has to offer isn't their absolute dream you know and even if that's the dream location as well as the dream role the dream team that they want to work beside we we hire very much on this is these are the people you'll be working with because in games in particular people want to work with great people great talent so I totally agree with everything you've said I think there is an absolute process but I think looking to the external market is enormous ly healthy for every ecosystem within Studios to just keep fresh and keep bringing in those new ideas as well agreeing with that one also because I think sometimes you have a persistence that you just you just need to have some fresh thinking and new ideas and it's actually held for the whole theme to get that what I think it's about it's a fine

balance it's a balanced absolute if I could just break him we do have Oleg joining the discussion now [Music] to fix all the technical issues from the fault see we're thrilled to have you like I'm gonna jump to you because you've just joined us so if you could just take some time to introduce yourself but also we're kind of discussing the best places to find new talent we've been talking about looking internally first and then moving out when you're hiring I think

maybe if you just brought your camera a little bit closer that might help with having a bit of trouble hearing you if you just bring you a closer if you can speak just a little bit louder we should be able to catch everything you're

saying cheers sir yeah that's better

so I think like cool um so there's a lot of interesting sort of topics to pick up here and there there's a question I have sort of planned next I think links onto something the Liz was saying earlier about LinkedIn and using that to communicate with with candidates and recruiters and it's sort of moving on from that is it important ahead of like applying for a role for potential candidates to build that relationship with the recruiting manager or recruitment agencies that should days like start talking to you about the role before they start applying and I don't think it's it's not like an exact science and in that way but if I think if if you're looking for somebody but thinking about what Lex was saying

earlier about leadership people if you want to build a relationship where someone will effectively be able to career manage with you so if you think about where you might want to be in five to ten years time and yeah but absolutely we've got relationships with people where we've probably been there career management vehicle for a lot of their games career you know as they wanted to look for different opportunities different different challenges etc but on a day to day basis if if you want to work at a studio and you can connect with lots of people there only or great recruiters at those at those studios of the CEO and in Celine's case absolutely what why would you not want to just networked with with as many people as possible and and talk about how how busy a stake you are about their products it may be that you they can't

offer you something there and hopefully you'll be in their network and they'll be thinking about you that the next time that comes to hire that's why I would think yeah anyone else thoughts on making that connection before applying for a job helps if you're if you're Selena you can go no no you you started you can go alright I think it helps if you're an applicant to just I don't mind getting the pings I mean remember there's a hundred a day but you know I'll get through you know I don't I don't find the pins because if you think if you are an applicant meaning that you are applying for the job you're throwing your resume into into the ethos and hoping something happens it doesn't hurt to ping you know look at look at keywords recruiter talent acquisition HR those sorts of things at the company that that you're looking at ping them I mean make it

really brief make it really easy for them to respond or it could be you know the the director the the lead the manager of your craft engineering art whatever you can just reach out say you're interested to say you applied it's just a nice reminder of hey I applied you're not asking much from them if it's before applying you know like I said make it really really easy I think one of the worst questions you can ask is do you have any advice for me do you have any tips for me I'm like well what is what am I gonna do with that you want to know how to make good nachos you know like like like a smooth claw I'd make some last minute it's hard to find peppers up here in Finland I'll tell you that but but like a specific question like I don't know make it make it make it super easy people I mean look we're all here for giving advice people love to give advice so just make make it easy and then I would

say I'm no longer you know working for firms like like Liz and Oleg are but I used to you know they those recruiters have a different value add for you they're not representing one company so they're representing a ton of companies so now we all know - there's a lot of like less-than-honorable recruiters out there so so you know make sure that make sure they're there they're right for you but they can show you like a wide array of opportunities and I think I think Lex work we're also probably more open to those sort of wider give me some tips type questions you know because we have a lot of links to send people and just help you know to mean it we have perhaps bandwidth for that that you in your role you're not going to you know a good

recruiter is gonna have a database so reach out if you reach out to them and they see something cool in your profile they might you know save it for later so definitely recommend it and I think also like like totally agreeing with you what you are saying and but my point of view is also like I think for the applicant it's super important that they actually learn about the company also I think because I only believe that you kind of have to understand what you are getting involved with and are you really like kind of believing in the direction and the values they have so I think that's always super important and I think it's something that you can actually understand that easily so you can need to spend time and I think in that sense networking is always available on actually things like just saying what you believe in and then actually hearing the answer what the people from works we work for the company kind of are sharing

[Music] he's an extrovert but you know introvert like this gonna jump into a different question and start kicking things off now that everyone seems to be back in

thank you again for joining us and so will this common mistakes that recruiters and reducing people like that make when writing job listings see about your job you're writing a listing what what are some things what are some errors mistakes that you've seen regularly i I don't like the number of years thing we agree on a lot it's it's so arbitrary it's so arbitrary there's no need for it I think like just I don't want to get too deep here but a lot of what we do just as human justice based on because we've seen other people do it and we think it's like some sort of tradition thing there's no need for it if you ask for a higher ask a hiring manager you know why it is right why does this need to be five years a set of four they won't be able to tell you right the only use that I can see it is if it's like in a big corporation I know at a big corporation I used to work at

we had to put the number of years just for like internal equity legal purposes to say like this is what it takes to be a you know whatever level but that that is that's one and then the other thing I would say is just like being being unrealistic with like all the different things remember that yeah this isn't you're not trying to list out the most perfect ideal person what you're trying to do is you're trying to get someone interested in applying so make it as basic as possible I'm sure Liz list you might well speak a little more to this but but I think it's like I heard some statistic that like in general men will apply if they feel like they fit seventy percent of the qualifications but in general women will apply if they feel like the right yeah

so keep your essentials - really essential and my phrase is drop the Desirables because it's like to the point of you know what is this unicorn you are seeking and yet the years experiences is an absolute but bear in mind because I always think that higher is thinking well when I had three years experience I could do this and you're like so I need you to have three years experience and I'm like okay tell me what it is that you're looking for a competency in and what do they have to have demonstrated - and to do this job you know so and then we start to sort of drill down on that instead of this arbitrary thing I do think sometimes hirers want to link that to pay grade as well kind of four years equals this much money you know so sometimes that that's a way and so yeah likes is absolutely

right on women will only typically apply if they think that they are a hundred percent fit the job so when you put lots and lots and lots of barriers in their way they they will just deselect and so again one of my most hated phrases is this best person for the job you know we we've got to just hire the best person for the job not a woman and not if there's not that way okay get them in your pipeline and you can choose the best person then but if you already have them deselecting themselves they're not even in your pipeline so how can you choose the best person yeah so don't put wait don't put women off and also don't use gendered language just you know we've got too many ninjas we've got too many we did start 2020 trying to

eradicate certain words which anyway many 20 has taken its own turn but so gendered language things that will again men won't be put off by any type of language in the job description but women will and I believe that will also apply to other underrepresented groups so if we're looking for a diverse workforce make the barriers to entry at the jobs back and means something you know exactly what you need competency in as opposed to three years experience in three ship games you know yeah well Alexei said also I think it's really like if you make a list like all the things you would like the person should have I don't think there will be anyone applying and you know really long so I think you should see it more like the advertisements kind of like to get the people to apply and kind of then get the

feeling what the job is absolutely and that kind of thing so I think yeah I don't believe in that one also sorry like we lost audio from you I'm afraid yeah nothing's coming through unfortunately now unfortunately we're still still not hearing anything from you um okay I'm gonna move on thanks for doing that likes because I wasn't sure if you'd all just Jason yeah yeah this is the new

this is like I was tight with my partner the other day we're like remember like backward phones you had to be like can you hear me like cell phones I mean that was a five 5g uni the only other thing I was gonna say on not necessarily mistakes on job site but I think it's really important to have a statement in there about your openness to candidates as well and not just a sort of legal thing about commitment to diversity but a real statement I think that's that's a brilliant place to start that process with with candidates and an applicants Oh like I think we can hear you now if you want to yep yes now your video isn't

seem to be working but we can hear you so that's the important thing now I'm sorry like struggling to hear you again if you bring your your device closer to you and again speak up just a little bit louder I think when you go a little bit quiet it's it's harder to hear you unfortunately you see here like this yes I might suggest maybe if just turn your video off and and put your phone up here because I think the mic is having trouble registering yeah because it's so if you

just talk like you're on the phone that might be I thank you to all the attendees for sticking with us by the way we all get nineteen oh one thing I want to say well we're on the job job description here you know yes yeah sorry again like it I think that it's important to boot like what like a little bit be more specific but also one thing back to the companies that I would say that you also miss out a lot of candidates to apply to you and I think it's important that you give them the feedback for time like as a recruiter spring since we always give the feedback them like at least five days but with the companies they think also the problem and I think it's not only job description but the whole like

experience is that you can send the application or they can send the application and then I never hear back I think that's like the mistake that many also do yeah and and yeah feedback is super important but I would say about the job description too is it's not just for applicants it's also we were talking about for really senior people and leadership people sometimes it asks you know do you have a job description so so in think about it as it's your it's a sales pitch that's what it is it's it's not about we need you to impress us it could be this is what you're going to do and this is what we're going to give you and if you can somehow wordsmith the requirements as this is what you get to do then it just looks a lot better for applicants and the people that you're and of course you

are looking people can fit the company and not just get through the the application process so I think like in the long term they have to get the right picture like will be the company release and that kind of things like ask as clear as you can be about those I think the better it is cool I'm gonna take a question from the audience just because there's been a couple sat here that I want to talk about and it's kind of leads into another question that I had so I'm afraid I'm not gonna make an attempt at this person's name because it's too early in the morning and I don't want to offend anybody but one of the the attendees asks is remote working in game development here to stay or will it be a temporary fix during the pandemic and also do you see more studios opening up to a hundred percent remote working for disciplines other than engineering and support so kind of a big question they're two different parts but yeah that's tricky

I'll go I'll go I'll go after I feel like I've been talking the first for a while of course I can think I can talk about how we do it and we were like we have been always supporting remote work lots anyways in our company so I think it's kind of quite be enough also already so so it was pretty it wasn't that big process for us anyways but I think definitely some like there's so many or penis-like some people hated some people loading it but I think like how you live and where you live and that kind of things but I think definitely I think people are a little bit more open you do it do it more even and also I think now as a company we are better at with with all the tools like all the meetings and parents really like because you have to leave so many months already so you kind of learn how to do it right away because I think it's so like when you do it sometime it's different but

when you actually keep you in four months it's of course you kind of learn a little bit few things but I I don't know is it more like like people who have the flu they kind of they think like I will really change my habits now and be on health and then paper next day I don't know maybe the same thing is happening here but at least I hear that many companies are talking that they will definitely add more remote work routines to their companies but I think like we will see what happens and of course the whole situation with the pandemic who knows if there's a second wave or something coming in and we kind of have to redo the whole thing or like there's so many open questions which we don't know yet so I think that that's really pertinence isn't it the I'm not quite sure whether we're at the point yet where it's the right time to make those big decisions you know we've we've absolutely been thrust into remote working because of

the pandemic I can tell you categorically a lot of our studio clients were not set up for remote working and indeed a lot would absolutely have hated the fact that we've gone into what we've gone into has that changed their opinions I would guess and from hearsay I would say yes because it's worked and do they absolutely want that for everybody for for all time I don't think so my honest opinion today would be that they would look for a blended solution going forward there are absolutely some people who if I think about London and I don't live in London I live in the northwest of the UK but I think those in London traveling on public transport squashed

doing maybe two-hour commute so that sort of thing and all of a sudden they're at home they're at the desk they're probably more productive even if they're home schooling and all of the things that you know the things that people have had to cope with over the last few months I would say that a lot of people would say to know what I'm gonna move further outside of London get a better house a best of living probably a garden and I'd rather do that and work at home than commute since London or live much more centrally every day so I I think that employees will probably start to make those those discussions will absolutely start happening but do I think we know today I think we know very little still today I think into next year those things will start to come to come out I think like what really has changed from

our side is the whole recruitment like I think for us it has been always important actually also so I think that has been really something that we have needing to read everything actually so that has been some learnings there but I totally agree and I think this also will be really interesting times one when we actually get back to office and what kind of consequences and things there it's coming then you know because different channels East End like actually recovering from the cold pandemic and all that so yeah yeah I think there's a this is all ideal this is all like ideal that we're having about remote work you know but but there's and I totally agree like actually before I came to Romeo I negotiated a full time remote contract at Microsoft because actually I work

better remote because of my work you know I have to have you a bunch of calls I have to have privacy I have to focus it works better for me and then I can travel and meet people in person well before I could do that I get it and especially in in California where I come from the the barrier of the cost barrier is absurd the commutes are absurd like Liz was saying about London and that's another reason why I moved here it's another one that sells I have four international candidates to come to Finland it's like you're not you always have a seat on the metro there's no you know right you're not to be rushed you're not gonna be rushed but now that we're seeing that remote a lot of people are more productive in a remote environment companies are thinking about that but here's the big but bu T is that there are a ton of legalities and tax issues and complexities when you're employing somebody who is not in the same country

as the jurisdiction of your company so if you say I think I saw Twitter said hey all of our employees can work remotely forever now greater your Twitter you have a huge HR and legal department and you have offices all over the world you could do that but if you're a smaller studio you know I'm internal in HR you know we have one person who works on relocation for the whole company you know and she and she can't do that for everybody so it's a yeah remote is cool but when it comes to legalities it's gonna be harder for some smaller studios I can hear from our sites I actually about ten years ago I lived in London and worked in sleaze in Nokia so one hour I think on the train that was quite an experience back and forth but that time it was not possible it was super easy corporate I worked for a corporation so like remote would have

been like excellent I tell you our story where a company were like we're about five people and we gave up the office so we were already thinking from the very beginning when we started with business we were thinking like automating a lot of processes inside of the company and using different as their solutions so for us it was actually easy and I tell you that me now as a team had a discussion actually at this Monday if we want to go back to the office and everyone including myself and before that I was totally against like I was the like totally like getting everybody to do office like discussions like that but now actually I actually learned so much also how we were ready so for us it was actually if I can good proof or punch of that as a company we actually work much better remotely that's it like we're a good example seem like a company with a

precision it's like that there are definitely so many layers aren't there to offering remote working you know technology being huge absolutely but I think also people have to have certain characteristics and potentially in recruitment certainly certain levels of experience as well to be able to making decisions without supervision is one of those it's a it's a skill set and and just thinking about what you were saying Selene about recruiting if you are going to recruit people who are also going to work remotely from their management scene potentially you not only need to check that they're the right people and they like you and they share your values but also that they have those extra characteristics to be able to be a remote worker as well as the you know the setup at home that protects their mental health from working in isolation etc etc so there's

so many more layers to it and that's why like site I saw the the Twitter thing as well and that's why I say I think it's too soon to make those big proclamations so if we're all doing their simulate Oh what have you thought about everybody you know I think the time will come and the blend will will come out of it this this also leads into something I wanted to ask as well sort of about remote working is given that so many companies are moving to remote working and thinking about in the future does prior remote working experience now factor into like hiring decisions like if a candidate comes to you and says I've been working remotely for three years is that now beneficial to them now that we've started doing this here's a general workplace and how good they've been for three years yeah I've seen it the opposite actually before before these uncertain times

it's I I have seen hiring managers that you know from a variety variety of companies that I've worked with be like oh they've worked only remote well then they don't know how to like bond with the team they don't know how to like I'm like they're humans like they can and I think I think I think you Liz you're right on I had never actually thought about that like being a remote worker as having a skill set that's a specific skill set and there's a level of emotional intelligence that needs I don't have the answer to it I think that's super interesting that that could be that could be an asset in the future I definitely think there are people who work brilliantly remotely and someone in the chat just said they were working at home for three years and obviously means that they may job well for three years that's but I think self motivation

organization discipline great communication and those decision-making processes the sharing of values with the organization it that that's the extra layer of of things I think you'd be looking for and I said honestly don't believe it's for everybody I've got one of my team who wants to write a blog on why I love the office you know and and there is absolutely argument for working together and learning from one another in an office environment which is why I don't think it's ever just gonna be one or the other yeah I thought I agree with you and I think there's like people life is both change he's like something you might get the children or you know something so you never know what happens so I think that changes a lot and it might change your lifestyle also and then I think also it depends of the about the whole team what are you're

working in because like if all the other people from the team are working from the office you might be left working remotely so I think I don't I thought I agree that I don't think there's one right answer for that and it because of your personality type also like like some people just like that and some don't and I repeat there's any like editing right or wrong for that because some people are more social than others and that was something you didn't say itself right or wrong and I'm like I think it's all personal decision that I would totally prepare myself that I would like to support it if it works for the but then like I would not say that again

so from whenever it's more like good for him it doesn't matter like he can put the our school I'm gonna move over to

audience questions now we're kind of coming up against time so I wanna get through these as possible I do have lots of other questions that I would love to talk about but obviously want to hear from the audience and we've got an anonymous attendee so that we're kind of more focused on like recruitment and best practices for but this is a person look a job seeker side so you know we do have another round table later in the day about that but in case this person's gonna miss it I will ask this is there any specific advice you can offer to job seekers at this challenging time with no chances to meet face to face events or job fairs how can people stand out and also make it easy for recruiters I the air quotes are in the question as well I didn't just add them myself yeah so then um the number one thing that you gotta you

gotta realize when you're job seeking is it's not it's not you yes or no it's you versus every other option under the Sun and that doesn't just mean all the other candidates who are interested but like the internal stuff that I was talking about or not having the role open at all it's very it's very very hard to hire and and companies are taking a risk to hire anybody so what you need to do to get a chance to be seen and be taken seriously is you need to be seen as little of a risk as possible so what I tell people who are or job seeking is make it easy for a recruiter to give you what you want make it easy for them to sell you to the hiring managers because inevitably they're just a gatekeeper they're curator you know they're not the final decision-maker and what I tell people is if you are interested in a

company or a project reach out to find whoever it is and you'll need to say two things say why you are specifically interested in it something that you saw in particular is to keep it about them and then just say one specific thing why you specifically would be an asset right try to predict what it is they're working on you know read articles about them show that yet you're correct if show that you've done your research because then it's like hey even though this person maybe doesn't have the three point seven years of experience that were after it's easy for me to sell you when I could say look they read they played all our games they read all these articles they made a prediction about what we're going they said that they have this skill set and even when I wasn't able to get someone a job if they were really proactive about that and they made it easy and they had a brief reach out to me then sometimes I'm able to at least arrange calls for people arrange

meetings and now you have a connection with somebody in a company that you really like someone that's in your craft so hopefully hopefully that could be helpful this definitely just more generalists while Facebook groups LinkedIn groups you know look for places where games people gather online because you're absolutely right obviously we can't we can't go meet at different conferences at the moment and probably not for a few months ahead so make sure that you are where they are at least online and join the conversation ask questions introduce yourself you know do things that kind of make you visible generally and then do some really specific things around the companies that you're interested in yeah can I also get from our site working like

dominate so we're so the companies can come and see this it's not only us as many other different very traditional and and practical advice also if you are just interested like you don't know we're like a company where several companies then you should because they usually have like like I might have an offering but if you're interested about the specific company and really want to get them so I would suggest you go to them directly like reach out to Facebook Likes in the field like application is a company that you

will get like faster just like you will get there if you want right if you really want but if you are just not sure and just do something else but you don't know what so then like a portfolio advice on the practical level cool I do have another question from the audience I'd like to get on to hopefully they're still here you can get this advice so somebody asks asking that there's somebody saying they're in a transitionary period of their career path and they want to sort of move into the games industry they're experienced UX and UI visual product designer and they don't have any background the background in programming is that gonna be critical in the recruitment side of

things well is that is that gonna work against them or is it just not really matter if it's their design sort of role I tell you we actually see people but many of us who think but they never engage and they want to see their results faster on the market so we have actually joining and those that are actually interested to you why do you do that career change right I'm actually go down a little bit here so we see this

trend line all the time and that's why what we I don't know here's and what's your like in the like creative industry because we also get like company PR a are like perspective because if you're a designer it's like something you would need to have a inspires but like if I answered it any of the thoughts and from my perspective the the programming pieces and isn't a missing link I think a loss of the work that we try to do with our

clients is is to look for opportunities to bring people in from outside of the industry where we can because that does absolutely help with diversity as well and I can think of one client who's looking for UX UI right now in the West Midlands of the UK who is a hundred percent said they don't need to be from the games industry and and yeah that there's there's definitely opportunities that they need to do the networking that we talked about getting in touch with recruiters or or companies directly who they'd like to talk to and and do what Lex said earlier which is highlight where the capabilities are and that they can bring and and it doesn't really matter then what what industry they were in previously as long as that experience translates into into the role that we're looking for if you want to drop me a

note by the way that person wants to drop me them yeah okay great I think that's gonna be everything from us I know we've sort of over ran to compensate for some technical issues so thank you all for sticking with us and thank you for the panelists for joining me this morning and Dave I'm sure has some more stuff to discuss about the rest of the days I'll pass back to Dave thanks Rick and thanks to all the panel thank you very much and oh that sounds good thank you

very much that sounds very interesting and people should watch out for that I'm sure we'll cover it on them poker game of got biz um well I should also say to those people who've found this roundtable useful we have another round table this afternoon on on recruitment as part of our careers week activities that takes place about four o'clock but between then and now we have a number of careers week activities running today I just want to let everyone know that today we have a careers recruiter job seeker chat session running on our discord group that'll be live between 12 o'clock and four o'clock BST put that in context if you're outside the UK that starts in an hour's time you'll need to

be registered with us here at Pocket Gamer connects digital as a job seeker or a recruiter to access that channel on discord but please do drop in there we're also going to have some experts from amicus drop in for a careers Q&A session in discord from one o'clock til three o'clock est that's in two hours of time and that's in the same channel on discord if you need to find that deep disco channel so you do need to be registered as a job seeker or a recruiter but the discord link is in metre match you can just jump into the community from there there's a button in your dashboard that will take you to discord so with that I just want to say thanks again to every thanks to Rick for hosting into your fantastic panel Celine Liz Alexei and Oleg sorry we didn't get to hear from Amon but we'll catch up with them another time I'm sure and and folks if you did want to catch to re-watch that could you join the light or you missed some of it because of the technical difficulties at half an hour ago we'll be making the recording of this available through our usual channels later so you can catch up but again thank you very much everyone see you the next time thank you very

much you