What are recruiters like?

Yozora

I know, pretty broad question and probably doesn't apply to every recruitment agency, but I was wondering if recruiters try really hard to sell each individual applicant to companies or if its simply the case of "Hi we are xxx agency, we have a few people who seem to fit this role, here are their CVs, thanks"

Also do you tend to favour applications from a recruitment agency or direct applications from the applicant themselves? Or it doesn't matter at all, and all you want to see is their portfolio? (for an artist)

Pope Adam

I don't hire people or anything, but my gut feeling tells me that hiring agencies are kindof pointless unless you're a super badass artist, in that case, I think they would call that person an "agent".

From what I've heard, this idea is a thing of the past, seeing as how the market is getting kindof flooded with artists that are willing to work for less and less.

Focus time on improving your craft, only you can make yourself more marketable, not a recruiting agency.

just my opinion sir :P

Gav

In my opinion, I'd rather deal with companies on my own. Some companies, like the one i work for, has an internal recruiting staff (I believe blizzard and many other companies do as well) which is amazing. I think it's a totally different situation as the people's job here is to promote and hire the best person they can where as recruiting agencies are trying to fill gaps and as long as that gap is filled satisfactory...they get paid.

I'd rather deal with my own business on my own as I can't trust someone to speak for me to people that could very well be my employer / co-workers. I've heard horror stories of agencies blanketing the industry with resumes and would hate to be the victim of that.

That being said, I know a few external recruiters who are cool and if you have absolutely no leads or are in an area where it's difficult to get noticed, maybe it's not a bad idea.

I've never hired people from a recruiter...I'm no longer responsible for interviewing either. When I did though, at my last job, we were only looking at people who applied in person or through their school.

Gav

stimpack

Always seemed to me that the more personal you make your application for that company, the beter your chance. Most want to know you want the job, and they arnt number 20 on your mass email list. try picking out your top ten studios that you feel you have an actual chance at and tailoring a cv for each one. Then from there mass email out?

East

It seems to vary quite a bit from recruiter to recruiter, and company to company. It seems to me that if you are new to the industry, looking for that first job, it might be useful to employ a recruiter unless you have really done your networking homework.

At our company it doesn't seem to matter at all if you apply yourself, or via a recruiter, as long as your portfolio can speak for itself, and probably more importantly, really fit in with the rest of us. There's also places where, I believe, you can't get an interview unless you go via their specific recruiter.

Flynny

Yea that is the sad fact, i think quite a few good studios in southwest england use recruiters only. I can understand why but its such a pain when your trying to knock on specific doors

benclark

I was contacted by 4 agencies last year saying they could find me work. They all took my details, sent me paperwork, had long boring phone calls with me promising the world, and then I never heard from them again. One company literally entered me for every job they could - even coding and animation jobs that I had no experience in. When I asked them to stop spamming my portfolio around they just carried on doing it

there must be a few good ones but on the whole in my experience they have been pretty useless. Nobody I know personally has got a job in the industry through an agency, its always been from posting work online or applying direct

Rick Stirling

It differs from recruiter to recruiter. I've recruiters contact me and say "Hey Rick, we know you are not currently looking, but we have this opportunity that we think you may be interested in."

Conversely I've had another company that I had registered with years ago call me out of the blue, get my name a little wrong and offer me a car outsourcing job at £10k less that I make.

Farfarer

Ugh, I get about 5 or 6 calls a year from agencies/recruiters who I've never even contacted before and a few more via LinkedIn. I can't say that any one of them has managed to find me a job - I think that so far, only about 3 of them have actually been for game related jobs, let alone game art jobs.

Even the ones who say "I've just found your portfolio through your LinkedIn profile, would you be interested in doing physics programming for a major games studio in Newcastle?"

As it stands, I think you'll get a much better response and your application will carry a lot more weight if you contact studios yourself.

FAT_CAP

Just to chime in and agree with Flynny here- at least a few major games companies I have seen seem to only hire through recruiters. So no matter how evil you think they are - it's an evil you will have to deal with in some circumstances.

Kevin Johnstone

I've had very mixed experiences with recruiters.

I can't help but feel that in general they are a pretty tactless bunch and I can't help but
resent that every time I'm in crunch on Gears or UT I tend to get cold called by a series
of recruiters who are circling like vultures in the hope that I'm burned out enough by
crunch that I will listen to them and jump ship.

This happens every year. Likewise, the merest suggestion that I'm content to have them
as a contact through Linked in has led to them proceeeding directly to my work email
looking to set up an interview with the AD at company A or B at my soonest conveniance
which really puts me in an awkward light at work if they monitor email activity!

On the positive side, theres a couple of recruiters that 'touch base' with me via my home
account once or twice a year to see if I'm still happy where I am and thats fine.

My experiences seem to fit with what most have had and I think that makes a lot of companies
view the use as recruiters as problematic to a certain extent and its worth bearing that
in mind when considering using them to find a job.

Knowing how you are being sold as a faceless asset amoungst many other assets is
an important notion to consider.