The state of recruitment in 2023

gamesindustry.biz:

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The state of hiring in the games industry has seen many changes in recent years with more calls for inclusivity and efforts to address the talent pipeline gap between junior and senior roles. Recruitment has become even more vital as mass layoffs have hit the tech and gaming business sectors.

In January, Microsoft laid off 10,000 staffers. In March, Meta announced it reduce its workforce by 10,000 employees before the year's end. Last month, Embracer announced that it was restructuring with studio closures expected. Pokemon Go maker Niantic, closed its LA studio weeks ago. And those are just a few examples.

The process for both job seekers and headhunters can be lengthy and somewhat exhausting. For the games industry, recruiting agencies' roles have become much more crucial during economic uncertainty.

GamesIndustry.biz spoke with a cohort of job recruiters about their roles and how they are adapting to the latest challenges.

Following waves of layoffs, there has been an influx of job candidates; job recruiters are now sorting through a large talent pool. However, video games recruitment agency Values Values founder Tanja Loktionova says its workload has not increased dramatically after these redundancies.

Loktionova explains, "Our sourcing department can feel the consequences of cuts in companies because now it needs much [more] time to create lists of all the candidates that could have been laid off; to check their LinkedIn statuses and updates and see if they match our current pipelines. We didn't notice a significant increase if we're discussing the number of applications gained for top positions."

Alan Dixon, principal consultant of Amiqus, says