Hi, Can anyone recommend a good game industry recruiter that they have worked with? Or even a good recruiter in the programming industry? On the other hand, does anyone know of any recruiters that I should avoid? Thanks, amrap

I heard about Melanie Cambron, she represents to some people a "Game Recruiting Goddess", as it's written in Ian Parberry's book "Introduction to Computer Game Programming with Directx8.0". This is her link .

But in another hand, i never worked with her, i don't know her and i can't even tell if should or not....look for her.

Hope it helps

[edited by - remi on May 1, 2002 7:37:36 AM]

The good thing about recruiters/agents is that they spend their time finding job vacancies so they may have more than one suitable vacancy on their books.

The bad thing(s) about recruiters/agents are as follows.....

1. They spam your CV/resume to anyone and everyone. They do this because if they send it out first (before any other agents) they get any commission should you end up at one of the employers they sent it to.

- The trouble is this can make you look a bit stupid when your CV/resume is put in for jobs that are not applicable.

2. It is not in their interest for you to know the company you are applying too, otherwise you could go direct and get a larger salary (because the company wouldn''t have to pay a commission).

- This means they keep you out of the loop. With no direct contact to the employer it is very hard to find out what is going on. It is also hard to find out the real reason why an application fails, in order to possibly alter your strategy for a later application.

- They may mislead you regarding the exact nature of the job/company because otherwise you may work out who the employers are. I know of a couple of programmers being misled and having CVs sent to developers they didn''t want their CV/resume going to. The same thing happened to me about 5 or 6 years ago. A recruiter contacted me and asked if I was interested in a dev manager job with a publisher. Based on the info he gave I worked out that it could only be one company so I said yes. The publisher turned out to be a developer I already knew and certainly didn''t want to work for.

What to do.
Recruiters are good, provided you prevent them from doing any of the above things that could be professionally damaging/embarrassing for you. Just telling them not to do this is not enough. A programmer friend tried that. He told the recruiter that they were not to send out his CV without permission. They verbally agreed and then two days later he got a call from someone who had received it - DOH!

1. Pick one recruiter not many. That way your CV only arrives on people’s desks from only one source.
2. Talk to that recruiter about what you want and then you both sign a short letter of agreement that protects you both. The terms should be something like this.

For them....
i. They represent you exclusively for a period of three months.
ii. If you work for any company they introduce you too within the next year they get the commission.

For you....
iii. In return for the above exclusivity they tell you the name of the company and the role BEFORE you apply.
iv. Application made only with your approval.
v. Once they have sent in your resume/CV (and thus secured their commission) you are allowed to contact the company directly to discuss the role. This gives you the chance to answer any questions the HR person might have, which if not answered by you might result in them rejecting an application.

For both....
vi. If you see a role (on another recruiters web site for instance). You tell them and if they know the company/position you apply through them. If they do not then you are free to apply through the other recruiter.

Optional....
vii. You might want to limit the agreement to one particular position so that they can only send your details out to that one company.

-----

The above will mean it is possible for the recruiter to be fully open with you about the application/company without losing their commission and it will allow you to keep control of your resume/CV. If an application fails you are more likely to know exactly why because you will have had some contact with the employer. If you have not you now know who they are and can call them to ask why. That may be very useful for your next application.


Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Recruitment agencies also tend to only have placement opportunities for experienced people, because it''s only for more experienced positions that a company can warrant spending the money (and it costs quite a bit of $$$) to locate a potential employee. Therefore, most recruiters have no interest in placing entry-level positions because they will not be able to collect a referral fee.

If you know who you''d like to work for, you''re probably better off trying to get in touch with someone at that company and arrange for a face to face meeting, or submit your CV and then follow up.

quote: Original post by Tacit
Therefore, most recruiters have no interest in placing entry-level positions because they will not be able to collect a referral fee.

There are recruiters who specialize in placing entry level people. They also tend to do a lot of business in temp positions, though. The fees are lower, but they make up for it in volume.

quote:
If you know who you''d like to work for, you''re probably better off trying to get in touch with someone at that company and arrange for a face to face meeting, or submit your CV and then follow up.

That''s only really true if you know who to meet with. You usually end up with the HR manager by default. Some recruiters have better relationships than that, and may be able to speak with the actual manager you''ll be working with, who usually has more weight in the hiring decision. If you already have some kind of contact or ''in'' at a company, it is better to go on your own, though.

I''ve gotten jobs both ways, and I have to say the end result was better and the process went smoother when I used a good recruiter. I''d be happy to recommend one, amrap, but you didn''t leave a location. The ones I''ve dealt with are mostly regional to New England.

There are some bad recruiters, though. I''ve been caught flat footed in a phone interview once or twice because I hadn''t been told that my resume was sent out. I''ve also been sent to (and gotten interviews for!) jobs I obviously didn''t belong at.

That''s good info, Cheesegrater.

I''ve been fortunate enough to have contacts in the industry who have landed me face time with producers and studio heads, so the direct route has worked best for me.

DAn's writeup provides some excellent advice and warnings. So read it again!

That said, I was able to get several interviews out of contacts made with the folks from InteractJobs (www.interactjobs.com), including quite a few top studios for PC and PS/PS2 and (this was back before I convinced my company to give me money to grow a new game studio from within).

Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

[edited by - grhodes_at_work on May 1, 2002 5:01:06 PM]

Thak you all for your replies. You have given me a lot of good advice to use in my search. I guess I need to interview a possible recruiter as thoroughly as they need to interview me!

- amrap

Well just a little follow up. I spoke to three recruiters over the last two weeks as a little test. One US and two UK.

The US one told me about a job at a developer - it turned out to be a publisher.

The first UK guy I called up and asked about a job being advertised on the web. I told him that was the only job I was interested in and no my details couldn''t go out to anyone else. Never heard from him again. I also called the developer he had said the job was with and there was no job.

Next one had a job advertised and said it was still open. Then when I talked to him again he just wanted to call people on spec and never mentioned the job I had actually called to ask about.

A rather small sample but al in all not a great result for the recruiters.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Thats my experience with recruiters in general. The last recruiter I tried to work with (business apps, not games) sent me chasing wild goose after wild goose. Said he had a position I would be perfect for, and he would set me up an interview in the next few days. Three weeks later he says he has this other position. "Oh, but what happened to that first one?" The company never called back. So he sets me up with this second one...or does he? I never heard anything...until he comes to me saying he has this new position as a PROJECT LEAD doing some InterDev work. "Oh, but I''ve never touched InterDev in my life". "Thats alright, you''re smart, you can learn it. So Im gonna set up an interview next week, so brush up on InterDev". Needless to say I never heard from him again (that was a year ago), and I never even though about bothering to give him a call.