Top recruiter at InnoGames explains its strategy for snatching up talent

I specifically wanted to talk to you about International recruitment yes and we're here in your lovely uh new Offices here in a fantastic Hamburg it's a bit rainy today but that's okay um and um you know so you you shifted from you know your old location to your new location um first of all I guess the question is like how is your current team still uh you know is your current team still happy with the move that's that's something what's the sort of vibe at the moment and of course uh they are happy because we're going to love more space we always especially for the recruiting team have the problem uh that we for all the applicants we wanted to talk to we didn't have the meeting rooms and the old offers we hadn't just had enough meeting rooms and now situations completely different what you've seen a lot of meeting rooms now so this problem has faded away so that's basically very good for us and we last time especially

for the recruiting team we had two offices so we were separated now we're completing one room that's a lot of better for the communication of course and well all the benefits like our gaming area and our gym our fitness room uh things like that I think it's most people a lot of better and for external also for for our colleagues we are much nearer to the center of Hamburg so can we reach much better so I think that's of course for most people not for me because I come from a house of Hamburg so for me the way to work has become a bit longer so bad but I'll I'll come over the people that work with you so I suppose that's that's a good thing and and for applicants every candidate who had to come to Hamburg and to to Harbor where our late office was

uh the for them it was a bit problematic because always usually they come via Central Station and there was about 20 minutes or harder to fight and now it's uh near the center so it's much easier for most people it's brilliant and so let's talk about new applicants um you're expanding the company yeah definitely yes like gradually I think that's the that's the that's a good term for it there's not a big explosion um you know I think we took over 100 people with last year yeah um so how do you attract International talents yeah first of all I I have to say yes we're growing but we try to do make it sustainable so it's very important for us it's the history of the of the whole company was still a growth but not what you said like an explosion um because we we believe that it's important that everybody fits into the team and we will take everybody just because he has some technical skills it

has to has to be a personal fit too of course and um yes last year it was about 100 new hires this year will be roughly the same uh next year we will see um and yes we we found out that we cannot find them all in Germany so we have to go abroad and so we do it on different ways of course International Affairs events are a good possibility to to get in contact with people not directly hiring them but to gain certain public perception that inner games is an employer so we made the experience that many people know our games and sometimes play these games but didn't know that behind Forge of Empires or tribals for example was a company Indo games so we have to work on that that's very important um to to get a kind of employer brand so

if you say you want to work for Audi for example everybody knows Audi it doesn't matter if it's the A3 or A6 or whatever they know it's from Audi and not that we can be compared with Audi but you know what I mean um and uh yes so we go to fairs and events um we uh post our jobs International Job boards just to spread a little bit more of course we were working with International Headhunters a lot of from UK I don't know why a lot of uh Headhunters seem to be especially in UK especially for the gaming area I don't know why that is and um we also try to get our colleagues from which we already have from different countries to work with their networks we have programs which enable the social networks of the employees one is

required called recruiter dude and it just means some kind of a bonus if you bring in people you you already know it's for us a good possibility because we have a first indicator if this person has a personal fit to Inner games because they already knows someone who works here that couldn't match that's one important thing um we also try to use international social networks like LinkedIn for example it's getting more and more important we try to do our own kind of sourcing direct search so not only a Headhunter can do that we too can do that and yes we try to to get through our games to to people that could be interesting for us we are not doing classical advertising uh in the

games but there might be blocks for example where you can reach International folks who might be interested in working with so um you were saying that you couldn't fulfill uh the the roles that you have from people from within Germany why why do you feel that is is it specifically that there isn't enough there isn't enough talent in general or is it that people you can't find the people in Germany or um I think it's it's I I think we have to tell on the Germany for sure yes um because we have good education and um uh we are a high-tech um country of course so uh we have a lot of the qualifications we need um but the problem was we also have a lot of good companies who also are looking for these people and also

offering good jobs there's no secret there are a lot of good companies and um uh sometimes we make the experience that that it's harder for people harder to get people from Munich to Hamburg than for example from somewhere in Greece or in Spain get them here to Hamburg so if you're it's kind of your your social environment it's it's harder to live it within Germany often within your country or if you go abroad then maybe it's a kind of a harder cut and that sometimes it's easier and of course because a lot of areas in in Germany are very strong from a economical point of view the people don't want to live there the the the benefit is not not big enough but sometimes as you see of the

the economical crisis uh especially in Europe southern Europe uh but people are not employed although they are very uh um very highly special specialized and they cannot find a job in their own country so sometimes it's easier to get them here because we can offer them a great job a good environment so I I think that might be a reason too but we have those those people here but yeah is there a is there a problem there of a sort of perception of the brand perhaps that it's quite a simple game and therefore maybe it's a small company I say simple but yeah I I just mentioned it before that uh yes we have a problem of communicating um you know games as a company as an employer and uh as um developer of high quality games so and I

would just mentioned like like Tribal wars we've worked on that a lot but you mustn't forget it's about 10 years old now so when it has always developed a head has been developed further and further but still it's in basically in all the game so the titles now coming like Forge of Empires or would we just have announced today like Rising generals um go in another Direction kind of more more casual kind of more emotional for example and I think that will attract also again other people and also the the technology technical part of the thing like now or cross-platform gaming a single sign and things like that are not offered by so many companies so I think that will also be kind of give us a little boost maybe I I hope so

um and different characters because the games itself uh are high quality great yeah yeah so but sometimes they don't um bring that much emotion uh maybe and I think we are working on that and that sometimes makes it hard uh yes to to attract people for for immigrants because they don't know what info games is really doing and uh that we are a company like we can see with our others and the people and and the people they are there around um there are a lot of gaming companies who or that that show more emotion or just a bit louder and we often say okay not that loud maybe uh doing the work and doing good work and not crying everything out I think we can can work on that we shouldn't be that loud

as many other companies that's just not our style that's not the way we are working um but we also see that a lot of people if they finally find inner games really see what we're doing and and believe that's good what we are doing so but yeah kind of attracting people for inner games we can work on that there's a space for improvement okay and uh fun question I think for me I think uh probably the most useful thing I can do is ask you a very practical tip so I know a whole bunch of people doing the games industry in the UK and they are maybe potentially looking for work and they might want to come and work here for example what's what's uh what would you say is like the number one Improvement that a potential candidate could make to their resume or the way that they interview or something like that that gets the attention of something like an innovate um so important for us is to see if someone

is different from all the others that that might apply we have around 1 000 applications a month and and you have to figure out somehow and there are a lot of people who are technical technically good so um for us it's important to see if they are really interested in in the in the field of gaming for example if they have done something in private maybe develop their own game or have a special feeling for for graphics kind of kind of of that so that that shows us that they are really passionate about gaming for example so what we would like to have is people that are highly motivated not doing it for for living but doing it all for passion out of passion and that's I think what's the common thing that that um unites all the people working in games very different types very different characters um of course from from Department to

Department very different but what's what's common for all of them is that they really like what they are doing and that has to become clear out of the CV for example or out of the cover letter or somehow you have to see it and then if you say oh and she has yes yes has done that and that and and uh seems really to like what he's doing uh then it's not so important if he has this qualification or has done the study or whatever then it's worth to to invite them for an uh personal interview and then we can can see what the type oh and the person is in concrete of course he has to fit and he has to match our technical requirements of course but uh still to get the attraction um it's always good to see that the people are passionate about what they do okay and then one actually I know

there's one final question what is the what is it that you say is the number one thing that you offer to people who are looking to get into the games extraordinary part of it what is the thing that inner games brings that is so that you feel is attractive well there are so many things one thing that you would say this is the one thing we do over everybody else I think families it's it's a very uh very strong point for us and fairness of course is one single point but you can see the different fields so it's about not only about money but it's about chance it's about career it's about possibilities opportunities um uh personal development all these things but you can conform it in just one word

fairness and I think that's that's very important what we try to transport uh in our games to our place but it's also something we're looking for into the company so I think that's yeah fans I think it's a good word