Report reveals glaring holes in gaming companies' hiring processes

by Adam Fitch · Updated

Hitmarker has released a report that dispels myths and provides insight into job-hunting preferences in the games industry.

The study: Conducted by Sara Machado, Hitmarker's Head of Recruitment, the research took people of all backgrounds into account.

632 people with vastly different experiences took part in the survey, 80.1% of which were seeking for a job.
Of the 632 people, a combined 89.1% were aged between 18-34. 0.3% of the people were over 55 years of age.
70.1% identify as male and 24.4% as female. The remainder identify as non-binary, other, or preferred not to say.

Job-hunting preferences: Some of these findings may surprise you.

Only 30.5% of candidates said that they write a new cover letter for each job.
67.9% of candidates rated location as very important, compared to 72.4% of those with disabilities.
Over 70% of all candidates indicated that progression information is at least important to them, with 34.5% finding it very important.
56.7% of all cisgender men said that salary information was very important to them, compared to 66.7% of cisgender women and 68.1% of transgender people.
42% of candidates felt comfortable doing two interviews at the most, with 40.3% answering that three was their upper limit. Only 6.2% of candidates were comfortable doing four interview rounds, which dropped to just 3.6% for those comfortable doing five.
Only 14.4% of all candidates found information on diversity & inclusion initiatives very important. 41.2% of BIPOC candidates and 30.8% of candidates with disabilities ranked this area as very important. Among all groups, excluding cisgender men, the result came to 48%.

Main takeaways: As well as considering the above findings, there are some lessons to be learned for companies looking to hire.

If you can’t define a job’s exact salary, aim to at least provide a range and be clear about what criteria would place a candidate at the top and bottom of this range.
Consider trialing job-specific questions in some of your recruitment processes. More than 80% of candidates responded favorably to these over a traditional cover letter.
Think about how you can streamline your application process for candidates. In today’s market, a bloated application process is only going to lead to candidate fatigue and cause you to lose out on talent.

Read the full report for much more data on hiring in gaming.