RECRUITER HOT SEAT We kick off a brand new regular studio recruitment slot by quizzing Mind Candy’s Richard Chipchase
What does your company offer that other studios don’t? Think of everything that you wish a studio could offer. It’s all pretty much here. It’s a second home to all our staff. Somewhere they can hang out after work if they want to, chill out in the break out zones on giant glumps or play fuss-ball or swing-ball in the games area. We regularly get a chef in who cooks up a storm for the entire company, we have film night supported by sushi and pizza, free breakfast and food supplied in the bespoke kitchen area that is fully taken advantage of and of course, we have a tree house. You heard we had a tree house, right?
What are the other perks? Our environment is visually stimulating, creatively inspiring and brimming full of passionate like minded staff. All our staff have shares in the company so they feel vested in Mind Candy’s success. We believe in a genuine work/life balance and we don’t crunch. Yes you read that correctly.
What’s the best answer you’ve ever been given in an interview? And did you hire them? I can remember several CV cover letters that really made an impact. We take cover letters really seriously. Generic, ‘cut and paste’, [insert company name here] doesn’t work for us. We want to be able to see and sense someone’s personality. Here’s excerpts from one that made an impact and yes, we hired him: Wow!
This is right up my street! GET THAT JOB
We ask recruiters how you can score that promotion or move to a new role
THIS MONTH: LEAD ARTIST
“Experience as a senior (or previous lead) is a must along with: knowledge of management, planning, work distribution, sign off/approval and a very good understanding of pipelines. “You don’t necessarily have to be in the games industry, but that would really help. “Also, being prepared and having the skills to lead by
example, regardless of which side of art they want to lead. Artists they will manage really do need to be confident that they know what they are talking about. Technical and paperwork abilities can be learnt, but art skills come from a little talent and a lot of hard work. “They also need to be comfortable with
communication, the job often means giving creative people feedback, how that feedback is presented can make all the difference.” Francesco Genovese, Recruitment Manager, Jagex
48 | NOVEMBER 2011
SIX-SECOND STUDIO SPOTLIGHT Founded 2008
Specialises in family oriented games involving motion tracking
The studio’s most successful game is Get Fit with Mel B selling 400,000 units worldwide
The team is currently developing sport training game MiCoach with Adidas
MiCoach includes 15 sports ‘stars’ and can be used with the mobile app, Pacer and miCoach website
The team is looking at taking its expertise in AR and motion tracking onto mobile platforms
www.lightningfishgames.com MIND POWER BIO
Name: Richard Chipchase Title: Head of Recruitment
www.mindcandy.com/recruitment
How many people is Mind Candy planning to hire? Our hiring numbers are ever changing. At the beginning of the year we were 45 strong, now we’re closer to 100. I estimate we’ll double in size again over the forthcoming year. At any one time we have between 15 and 25 live roles.
What fields are you recruiting from? We aren’t hung up on hiring staff from within the games industry. Whilst this is an area we are happy to see applications from, we’re open to meeting people from most industry backgrounds as long as they fit the culture and possess technical genius.
It’s been a big year for Mind Candy and Moshi Monsters. Does that make it easier or harder to recruit for the company? The volume of applications is definitely up. Quality is also pretty good too. With more applications comes more interview activity so this has meant we’ve had to expand our recruitment team to maintain decent levels of activity. We haven’t really advertised externally for that many roles this year and we’ve managed to keep a 92 per cent direct hire model throughout. It’s never easy but the more right people you meet allows you to identify the ones who are more suited to other companies much quicker. The short answer: yes and no.
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