there asking me to respond to their email without giving me anything ever seen one of thos CUTE russian girls on icq that happend to have registerd 5 seconds before they contacted you and just say HI al iam saying is never respond to them !
Heres my guess. They send this message to lots of game artists whose e-mails they get off sites like polycount here. They might even look at your site. They probably dont have a specific client lined up who wants to hire you right now (because if the client knew who you were, why wouldnt they just e-mail you themselves. gamerecruiters probably has a long list of places that are currently hiring that they'll use...), but if you hire them to look for a job for you, then they'll find you a job somewhere.
I've always found recruiters unneeded, distasteful, and a good way to screw yourself out of part of a sallary at a new job. I especially hate when they call me at work, or on my cell phone unsolicited. They also have a habbit of making contact once with a very generic message, then expecting you to get back in touch with them. If a recruiter is contacting you thinking they can place you, that's a good sign you'd have success applying yourself first hand to the companies out there hiring. I don't know of any company ever giving a position exclusively to a recruiter to offer out. Any job a recruiter is trying to get you into is most likely out there being advertised on the companies websites, gamasutra, or similar.
the mail seamed to me to have this distinct-minimal amount of personalization in order to TRY to sound legit. but not enaugh research was done for example i did not submitt any maps to the unreal contest (at least not succesfully) and if he would have actualy checked out my wbesite hed know that i am working as lead leveldeisgner at windwardmark interactive if this is uspposed to be a carrer step up it should be lead-gamedesigner or something ^^ so i dont know how this is in the rest of the world but in germany its concidert very foul practice to try to snatch an employee away from anohter company ... but not illegal of course
all in all i am a big enemy of the "middle man" concept so even if these peopel are legit i think they are trying to screw me over.
The idea of a recruiter is that they do the leg work for you in finding a new/better job. They however get a percentage, or a set fee, on top of the sallary they get you. This is where all of their income comes from. They don't actually produce any real work for the game. So their entire income comes being schmoozy. That's why I find them distasteful. The methods they use to make contacts are the exact methods we all have available to us, go to E3, parties, make friends with other game developers at studios, etc. This is why I find them unnecessary. They claim they can negotiate enough money from a developer to make their chunk not affect your sallary, because of superior negotiating skills I guess, but it's never really the case. If they get 70k and 10 of it goes to them, you could have gotten 10k more for your yearly sallary if you had done all the work yourself. That's why I say they take a chunk of your sallary. And, almost all raises work as a percentage of your yearly income, so even without them taking a 10k chunk the next year, you're getting a 10% raise on 60k instead of 70k so it propagates to get you less money over the duration of your stay at a studio.
Warby, I sent that email...first of all I think that is very unprofessional of you to post this email.
I have worked with many artists and level designers in the past and they are placed, it is legit. When I wrote this email, I knew about you back in the Make Something Unreal contest because I wanted you to join my, then Mod at the time, called Dissonance.
I saw your work and thought you were talented but after this whole situation you really showed your professionalism. I don't mind questioning a company in anything you do...whether it you talking with an Indie studio when they are promising you crazy "perks" or us at GameRecruiter.com, but to do in this way is really uncalled for.
If you don't deal with Recruiters, that is fine, ignore the email or respond professionally that you don't want to get contacted anymore, etc. Whatever bad rep recruiters have in the industry, don't think everyone is the same. We are not like some of our competitors that just flood your Resume around and hope to get lucky. In the same time they are screwing your value in the Marketplace since now companies won't hire you for a while since they have your Resume on file from a Recruiter. You should interview your Recruiter. Ask for references, see what type of credentials he/or she has. Ask them what is their favorite game and why. See if they are gamers or just a used car salesman.
At Poop: That is not true Ben about the exclusive searches. We do have many jobs that are on WebPages...true. It is just when we get a contract from a company we get all their jobs. But I can assure you that we get exclusive searches and have placed many VPs and have started many studios here. We are recruiting for a division of a studio right now exclusively. You can go on Monster or even their own site and you won't see this position. If they were announcing a job such as Sports Programmer for Bioware they would then in tern reveal they are getting into the Sports arena. Some studios want to keep what types of projects they are working on to a minimum. Not even employees at the studios know. Execs give recruiters a bad name to the artist and programmers sine they dont want anyone to see that they can get a Lead title and/or pay raise if they leave. We deal with many of the Execs and Hiring managers rather than HR, so we get usually a good 3-4 week advance before a job is even advertised. Does it stay exclusive at a company like us...no of course not. A company will lose many dollars if a project gets delayed all due to not advertising and dealing with a Recruiter that takes 6 months to fill a single job.
Like I said, you dont have to like Recruiters, but you should hear them out sometime. Notice I did not use template emails. I hate that more than anything, especially to artists. I have an Art Degree and love Art even though I was never a very good Game Artist. We also Interview the person to make sure they are qualified and fit the company culture we are recruiting for I wonder if other Recruiters do that...
We take to time to get to know the candidate to not just place them but to build a relationship. Most of our business is based on referrals. To end, just one word of advice when you get a recruiter contact you .interview them and make sure they interview you.
Poop, didn't see your newest Post. Yes we work on commission sometimes...We also have contained and retained searches. Where a studio will pay us for all jobs. And we work harder for them....it doesn't directly affect your salary. Even for commission only placements, yes if you can do all the smoozing and get your Resume at the top of the pile and have relationships with all the Sr, Execs, etc then yes you should go it alone. We give the candidate an opportunity to get seen and response in roughly 48 hours.
Another thing about hat example you used. Say there was a 70k salary and get 10k.....You would think that they will give you 80k instead if you did it alone. Not true. That means you will get 80 k plus say 85k the next year....that is 165k in 2 years. If they had only 70 k for the position then its 70 and 75k....145 k total....so for our 10k commission the company already saved 10 grand in the budget, They are going to just pay us to get that 70k and in the long run paying us a small fee will save them money. It is not coming out of the salary at all.
Hope that made sense .but trust me I had the same idea of Recruiters as you did, before I see all the work we do with getting travel arrangements for interviews, looking for schools for someones daughter that is part of the Swim team or is an Equestrian and needs to know where all the local stables were located, or research school systems, crime rates, etc for each one of our candidates that have any worries about moving. Especially for candidates that have families. It all pays off in the end when 2 years later they contact you and thank you for the tremendous job they are at now etc .sounds cheesy but it does make you feel like you affected someone in a positive way.
why didt you just say your form parasyticmoon than i would have known who iam talking to and hey theres nothing unprofessional about getting a second opinion from the people you know/love/and trust
Yes exactly..I didn't mind you questioning the legitimacy of the company but it is just posting that email, where it contains information that I would not like revealed.
Thank you for the edit post.
And I am not mad at you....just mad at George Bush...ahh so much easier taking everything out on him...feel better already...sorry, from now on I will recruit with the Parasytic Moon sig...heh
I make mention of all these things because many people don't know what a recruiter does. Some people are willing to let a recruiter have those things they could have, because they are too busy or don't want to exert the effort. For those people, that's fine, as long as they know what they are getting into. I just find most people only know about recruiters from what they are told by recruiters. I just happen to find middle men highly offensive to my personal outlook on life.
unless you have some experience, recruiters won't give you the time of day when you apply for a position. In my experience anyways. I constantly get emails from the same recruiter companies now that i'm working.
It's like "hey, you have experience now, i'll talk to you". I emailed 3 recruiter companies when looking for a game development position and they said i'd be updated on my status and not one kept me informed.
Just email the company directly, you stand more of a chance at HR or someone in the company reviewing your work than you will with a recruiter unless you have some experience.
Just email the company directly, you stand more of a chance at HR or someone in the company reviewing your work than you will with a recruiter unless you have some experience.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you have experience you still have a better chance with HR/etc. When I first started looking around at game dev jobs maybe 1/10 places would get back to me. Now that I've got a bit on my resume half of them at least write back and I managed a lot more positive interviews.
Poop: I agree Ben...but the same way you think you should not take what a recruiter says as fact...you shouldn't take what an artist that probably has experience with one bad recruiting firm. Talk to several people and get a general consensus from people who have experience working with a recruiter and how the process went. That is why you should interview your recruiter and make sure he is the right person to represent you.
The thing about middle men you stated ..isn't a Liquid Development, that you have worked with in the past, like a Middle Man for Art Outsourcing? Isn't that the same thing...they get contracts from a Developer/Publisher and then charge outside artists at a lower price and make profit. They bring a service since it is harder for an individual artist to get individual contracts from a studio since Producers usually want that 1 point of contact to deal with hence where a Liquid has a benefit. Companies that contact us want for instance a top Graphics Programmer, if they are not getting the Resumes for this job, and really need this position filled, then they come to us We will then call other companies and use a heavy referral system and see if any of the Graphics programmers are interested in a change. The companies we represent will not be doing that. We then heavily Interview them and really make sure they will fit the position and culture. That is what they pay for IT WILL NOT AFFECT YOUR FINAL PAY.
For an artist or anyone else we really walk the candidate throughout the whole process. Rewrite Resumes, fill people in on the company culture and bios of the people who will be interviewing them, taking care of living situations, deal with VISA issues, etc. For the client we really make sure that when we submit someone to them that we did all our due diligence on this person. So when we do send a final resume and matrix to a client they pay attention to it since they know all the steps we take to make sure this person matches at least 90% of what the company was asking for.
The thing is Recruiters are not for everyone. An example of people that need to use Recruiters are the very seasoned people for one (VPs, Leads, Directors, etc). These people can not just submit to a company since they want to remain confidential and do not want to deal with the He Said, She Said rumors that travel very fast in this incestuous industry. We usually deal with the Hiring Managers and usually they are the only ones who see the resume. So we are a great way to remain confidential so that your current employer doesnt know that you are currently looking for a new career.
Lee3Dee: Lee, unfortunately Companies that we represent are looking for the experienced talent. People with less than 2 years experience our clients can get themselves. When someone approaches us and doesnt have the experience at the time, like yourself, we will then offer to help you in other ways. I did offer lists of companies to contact and try and help your search at that time. I am not sure if any other Recruiter took the time to help you in that way. Some people just see $ from a candidate, I want to build relationships in this industry. I love it and have a great passion for it. You are an artist and I have a deep respect for artists and feel like One of You. I am really excited that you have a great position. I wish you the best of luck in your gig.
Lee3dee: It sucks that no one kept you informed. It is because of these companies that Recruiters get a bad name. Who were the companies you were dealing with by the way?
Malcolm: I, and I feel all recruiters appreciate that. We have a database of over 50,000 names and we keep track of who has been contacted and have notes. Every email is recorded from the late 90's on. If you mention you are not interested and are happy, we usually put a note and will not contact you for a while. Recruiters will also read past emails to see what was said in the past, for instance if someone said yes if something ever came up in Alaska then I would be interested kind of thing.
We don't just recruit for random jobs...we recruit for specific jobs.
Yes I agree since many people have the wrong impression of what we do. I notice that some "Recruiters" post on Art forums such as this one but only to post jobs....but when a topic such as this are discussed they do not comment and explain what they do. That is why you should deal with people hat either 1) come from the Industry 2) are Gamers or Involved in the Game Industry in one way or another.
Everyone of the people that work at GameRecruiter.com come from the Game Industry, either as an internal recruiter for a Game Company, HR department, Producer, Programmer, etc.
That is why I mentioned interviewing your Recruiter. I am still running an Indie Game Project and am the South Florida IGDA Chapter Coordinator. I help out the community and even flew Mr Rockstar here to Fort Lauderdale to give a 2 Day Zbrush Workshop.
So if anyone else has any questions please ask...I am happy this thread got started like Lee said since it will answer many questions that people have about us.
I have a question, do you guys get actual salary offers from companies or is it just job descriptions and once I am interested in the job then I move to the interview stage and discuss salary there? I'm pretty tied down to Vancouver and EA has treated me quite nice over the last seven years so more than anything I'd be interested to know what other developers are offering salary wise. Also, the last recruiter that called was in America and I was wondering about medical as we get it for free here. She didn't have a lot of info or exact numbers. The Canadian dollar is pretty high right now so an American company would have to offer a tonne of extra salary to compensate for the loss of medical and other benefits, do you have any thoughts on this?
We get a Salary range that the company is willing to spend on this person. We get descriptions on what they are looking for, sometimes we get names of companies or games they would like to see people come from. But to answer your question they do give us Salary Ranges.
Every company we deal with offer benefits, so that should not be a deterrent for moving to the states. We won't reveal the money range until we actually feel that the person is qualified after an interview process and see what the candidate is looking for in terms of projects, company culture, and things of that nature.
Killing: Thanks bud....so how are things going at Iron Lore? heh, just kidding
Sledgy: No problem, I just really wanted to explain what we actually do and how we go about doing it. Recruiters are synonomis with sharks or leeches or skumminess. I can assure you that not all Recruiters are the same. Any other questions you might have about GameRecruiter.com I would be happy to answer.
Replies
My .02
all in all i am a big enemy of the "middle man" concept so even if these peopel are legit i think they are trying to screw me over.
PARANOIA MODE is "SO" ON ^^
I have worked with many artists and level designers in the past and they are placed, it is legit. When I wrote this email, I knew about you back in the Make Something Unreal contest because I wanted you to join my, then Mod at the time, called Dissonance.
I saw your work and thought you were talented but after this whole situation you really showed your professionalism. I don't mind questioning a company in anything you do...whether it you talking with an Indie studio when they are promising you crazy "perks" or us at GameRecruiter.com, but to do in this way is really uncalled for.
If you don't deal with Recruiters, that is fine, ignore the email or respond professionally that you don't want to get contacted anymore, etc. Whatever bad rep recruiters have in the industry, don't think everyone is the same. We are not like some of our competitors that just flood your Resume around and hope to get lucky. In the same time they are screwing your value in the Marketplace since now companies won't hire you for a while since they have your Resume on file from a Recruiter. You should interview your Recruiter. Ask for references, see what type of credentials he/or she has. Ask them what is their favorite game and why. See if they are gamers or just a used car salesman.
At Poop: That is not true Ben about the exclusive searches. We do have many jobs that are on WebPages...true. It is just when we get a contract from a company we get all their jobs. But I can assure you that we get exclusive searches and have placed many VPs and have started many studios here. We are recruiting for a division of a studio right now exclusively. You can go on Monster or even their own site and you won't see this position. If they were announcing a job such as Sports Programmer for Bioware they would then in tern reveal they are getting into the Sports arena. Some studios want to keep what types of projects they are working on to a minimum. Not even employees at the studios know. Execs give recruiters a bad name to the artist and programmers sine they dont want anyone to see that they can get a Lead title and/or pay raise if they leave. We deal with many of the Execs and Hiring managers rather than HR, so we get usually a good 3-4 week advance before a job is even advertised. Does it stay exclusive at a company like us...no of course not. A company will lose many dollars if a project gets delayed all due to not advertising and dealing with a Recruiter that takes 6 months to fill a single job.
Like I said, you dont have to like Recruiters, but you should hear them out sometime. Notice I did not use template emails. I hate that more than anything, especially to artists. I have an Art Degree and love Art even though I was never a very good Game Artist. We also Interview the person to make sure they are qualified and fit the company culture we are recruiting for I wonder if other Recruiters do that...
We take to time to get to know the candidate to not just place them but to build a relationship. Most of our business is based on referrals. To end, just one word of advice when you get a recruiter contact you .interview them and make sure they interview you.
Another thing about hat example you used. Say there was a 70k salary and get 10k.....You would think that they will give you 80k instead if you did it alone. Not true. That means you will get 80 k plus say 85k the next year....that is 165k in 2 years. If they had only 70 k for the position then its 70 and 75k....145 k total....so for our 10k commission the company already saved 10 grand in the budget, They are going to just pay us to get that 70k and in the long run paying us a small fee will save them money. It is not coming out of the salary at all.
Hope that made sense .but trust me I had the same idea of Recruiters as you did, before I see all the work we do with getting travel arrangements for interviews, looking for schools for someones daughter that is part of the Swim team or is an Equestrian and needs to know where all the local stables were located, or research school systems, crime rates, etc for each one of our candidates that have any worries about moving. Especially for candidates that have families. It all pays off in the end when 2 years later they contact you and thank you for the tremendous job they are at now etc .sounds cheesy but it does make you feel like you affected someone in a positive way.
why didt you just say your form parasyticmoon than i would have known who iam talking to
Thank you for the edit post.
And I am not mad at you....just mad at George Bush...ahh so much easier taking everything out on him...feel better already...sorry, from now on I will recruit with the Parasytic Moon sig...heh
It's like "hey, you have experience now, i'll talk to you". I emailed 3 recruiter companies when looking for a game development position and they said i'd be updated on my status and not one kept me informed.
Just email the company directly, you stand more of a chance at HR or someone in the company reviewing your work than you will with a recruiter unless you have some experience.
Just email the company directly, you stand more of a chance at HR or someone in the company reviewing your work than you will with a recruiter unless you have some experience.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you have experience you still have a better chance with HR/etc. When I first started looking around at game dev jobs maybe 1/10 places would get back to me. Now that I've got a bit on my resume half of them at least write back and I managed a lot more positive interviews.
The thing about middle men you stated ..isn't a Liquid Development, that you have worked with in the past, like a Middle Man for Art Outsourcing? Isn't that the same thing...they get contracts from a Developer/Publisher and then charge outside artists at a lower price and make profit. They bring a service since it is harder for an individual artist to get individual contracts from a studio since Producers usually want that 1 point of contact to deal with hence where a Liquid has a benefit. Companies that contact us want for instance a top Graphics Programmer, if they are not getting the Resumes for this job, and really need this position filled, then they come to us We will then call other companies and use a heavy referral system and see if any of the Graphics programmers are interested in a change. The companies we represent will not be doing that. We then heavily Interview them and really make sure they will fit the position and culture. That is what they pay for IT WILL NOT AFFECT YOUR FINAL PAY.
For an artist or anyone else we really walk the candidate throughout the whole process. Rewrite Resumes, fill people in on the company culture and bios of the people who will be interviewing them, taking care of living situations, deal with VISA issues, etc. For the client we really make sure that when we submit someone to them that we did all our due diligence on this person. So when we do send a final resume and matrix to a client they pay attention to it since they know all the steps we take to make sure this person matches at least 90% of what the company was asking for.
The thing is Recruiters are not for everyone. An example of people that need to use Recruiters are the very seasoned people for one (VPs, Leads, Directors, etc). These people can not just submit to a company since they want to remain confidential and do not want to deal with the He Said, She Said rumors that travel very fast in this incestuous industry. We usually deal with the Hiring Managers and usually they are the only ones who see the resume. So we are a great way to remain confidential so that your current employer doesnt know that you are currently looking for a new career.
Lee3Dee: Lee, unfortunately Companies that we represent are looking for the experienced talent. People with less than 2 years experience our clients can get themselves. When someone approaches us and doesnt have the experience at the time, like yourself, we will then offer to help you in other ways. I did offer lists of companies to contact and try and help your search at that time. I am not sure if any other Recruiter took the time to help you in that way. Some people just see $ from a candidate, I want to build relationships in this industry. I love it and have a great passion for it. You are an artist and I have a deep respect for artists and feel like One of You. I am really excited that you have a great position. I wish you the best of luck in your gig.
Malcolm: I, and I feel all recruiters appreciate that. We have a database of over 50,000 names and we keep track of who has been contacted and have notes. Every email is recorded from the late 90's on. If you mention you are not interested and are happy, we usually put a note and will not contact you for a while. Recruiters will also read past emails to see what was said in the past, for instance if someone said yes if something ever came up in Alaska then I would be interested kind of thing.
We don't just recruit for random jobs...we recruit for specific jobs.
This is a good topic of discussion, for those who are interested in recruiters and headhunters.
Everyone of the people that work at GameRecruiter.com come from the Game Industry, either as an internal recruiter for a Game Company, HR department, Producer, Programmer, etc.
That is why I mentioned interviewing your Recruiter. I am still running an Indie Game Project and am the South Florida IGDA Chapter Coordinator. I help out the community and even flew Mr Rockstar here to Fort Lauderdale to give a 2 Day Zbrush Workshop.
So if anyone else has any questions please ask...I am happy this thread got started like Lee said since it will answer many questions that people have about us.
Every company we deal with offer benefits, so that should not be a deterrent for moving to the states. We won't reveal the money range until we actually feel that the person is qualified after an interview process and see what the candidate is looking for in terms of projects, company culture, and things of that nature.
Sledgy: No problem, I just really wanted to explain what we actually do and how we go about doing it. Recruiters are synonomis with sharks or leeches or skumminess. I can assure you that not all Recruiters are the same. Any other questions you might have about GameRecruiter.com I would be happy to answer.