5on5: Playdom Recruits for Game Programmers
We are on our third week of the 5on5 Expert Blog Series hearing from recruiters. This weeks expert is Jennifer Farris, Recruiting Manager at Playdom. Beginning her career in HR/Staffing at Google, she was able to develop a strong emphasis on sourcing passive candidates through a variety of networking skills, research, complex Internet searches, cold calling, and developing strong interpersonal relationships with prospective candidates. Presently, she recruits for game developers and producers at Playdom.
“…I always look at who recommended who on LinkedIn and who they are connected to.” – Jennifer Farris
How long have you been a recruiter and what jobs do you recruit for?
I’ve been in HR and recruiting since about 2006. I’ve recruited for pretty much all types of roles from technical engineers to accountants, artists, and executives. Now that I’m in the gaming industry producers, game designers, etc. I was trained as a technical recruiter but I’ve done a variety of recruiting since. At my current position I have recruited for game designers for Mobsters/Mobsters 2, Sorority Life, Wild Ones and Tiki Farm to name a few.
How do you go about searching to find potential applicants on LinkedIn?
I know that LinkedIn currently has a new specific recruiting tool. I haven’t used that one yet. It’s very expensive tool and one that I heard is useful but I actually think that LinkedIn for an average user would say it’s helpful in and of itself. I use the advance search options and then manipulate the fields from there. So for instance, if I were looking for a Flash developer I might type in the keywords box action script because that would be a criteria for a Flash Developer. See what results came up and then if there were 2000 results I would further limit the search from there by location or industry. I tried to target any search to parse down to about 200-300 results. I don’t believe in necessarily huge Boolean type searches on LinkedIn. I think that limits you too much in the types of candidates you might look for. I think it’s possible for a great Flash developer to be on LinkedIn but not have the words Flash or action script in their profile. So I would start off with a keyword search see what that provided and then I would actually just search by industry or another type of criteria as opposed to just using a keyword box because that way you can really capture those people who may not have written down the relevant details in their profile. And then after doing advanced searches I often find it to be more helpful doing a basic search and then reviewing each individual’s personal recommendations and the people they’re linked to. I think those searches sometimes provide some of the best candidates not only are people who give recommendations on LinkedIn either that person’s manager or colleague, but they themselves have a solid understanding of the industry if they are able to comment on someone else’s performance. So I always look at who recommended who on LinkedIn and who they are connected to.
Any advice to who a person should be getting a recommendation from?
I usually like to see a recommendation from someone who you’ve managed and your manager. So getting that 360 perspective if at all possible would be great. Outside of that anyone who can speak to your work ethic and your technical skills I think our ideal. I noticed a lot of people will have recommendations from maybe someone in their HR department and they’re an engineer. I’m not really sure how valuable those are, it’s always great to have more people recommend you, but try and keep it within the people you work most directly with.
As a recruiter what do you look for on someone’s profile to see if they would be a good match?
Basically, whenever I look at someone’s profile I first just do a quite scan looking for specific keywords again going back to an Engineer and maybe action script or Java. Do a quick glance to see if this person is even interested in this type of technical work. Then if they are interested in a job I look at their general career path and what role they are in now, are they a Senior Engineer, Engineering Manager or are they an Architect. How long have they been at their current job? How long were they in their previous job? This gives me a sense of their career path. The types of roles they tend to look for, their dedication to a company, etc. Then I look at their education when they graduated, what school they attended and what their major was. Then it quickly compiles in my head this person has had essentially five years of solid work experience and they seem to move up the latter quickly or maybe are stagnate in a particular role somewhere. If all those scans of their profile prove fruitful I’ll then delve deeper into the details of their profiles and make sure they’re the right fit. Again going back to checking to see that they prefer to work on a Linux platform not on .net or Microsoft. And just seeing if this person would be happy at this type of company. And if any of these elements are missing I scan their profile again to see if they could fit another role I may be looking for. So maybe their not a solid enough developer that maybe they’d be a great quality assurance engineer. And see if there might be another role for them. If that doesn’t pan out then I would probably pass on them at that time. I do take several pieces of criteria when scanning someone’s profile. I have a pro account so once I narrow down my search I start reaching out to potential candidates through InMail.
Where do you post jobs on LinkedIn and how often?
I do post jobs on LinkedIn. Ideally I post about twice a month. So my high priority jobs for instance my current company we’re hiring somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 people this year. So we’re going to have a plethora of job openings. I would post once every two weeks to make sure those jobs stay at the top of the list. I post on the LinkedIn job boards. I also post in groups, but it depends on the role. I’ll post on the Silicon Valley IGDA group, it’s their game developers association. If there is a specific niche skill set I’m looking for I’ll post in a group, but for the most part I’ll post generically because a lot of times we’re looking for kind of a catch all and we want to try and get as many people seeing the job if possible.
I want to thank Jennifer Farris for giving me some of her time and expertise. Next week Aaron Tankenson, Senor Recruting Manager at Sony Pictures Imageworks, how he recruits for digital artists in the movie industry. Go to our resources page to subscribe for our FREE white paper of the extended questions I asked of these experts. Please share your thoughts and tips.
