EP108: abstraction - How to Balance Between Speed and Quality

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.
‍

‍

‍

Lydia: Welcome to the All-In Recruitment podcast by Manatal, where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for our weekly episodes.

I'm your host, Lydia, and with us this week is Christopher Redmond from abstraction. Welcome, Christopher. It’s great to have you with us this week.

Chris: Thank you so much, Lydia. I’m very happy to be here and excited to talk to you today.

It’s a Roller Coaster Ride

Lydia: So Chris, tell us about your background. What has really kept you in this space, and what has your experience been like all these years?

Chris: I've been in recruitment for over 12 years and worked in three different countries. At this point, I've worked in an agency in the US, which I built from the ground up and it was super exciting. Then I moved into more in-house roles.

I got an opportunity to work at Facebook, where I got to see what the giant machine of Facebook looked like from the inside which was an incredible experience. I worked with some phenomenal recruiters there and tried to soak up as much information as I possibly could.

I really wanted to challenge myself and move into a smaller company to see if I could help it grow. I was very thankful I got the opportunity to do so. I moved over to Amsterdam four and a half years ago to be a part of Dott, which is an e-scooter company based here in Europe. Within two and a half years, we grew the organization from 100 to 400 employees. It was a crazy and exciting ride. During that period, I also moved into a manager position, which gave me an opportunity to learn a lot more about data and what it's like to manage a team.

I wanted to progress further, and I got an amazing opportunity at abstraction, where I'm currently working. abstraction is a co-development studio where we essentially work with other studios to help them build their games. We're definitely in the background and trying to work on our own game at the moment as well. Here, I'm managing all recruitment efforts, which presents very different challenges from being an operational recruiter. The team is amazing and currently, I have two recruiters. It's still a major shift from what I was previously doing, but I really love trying to help and grow others. That's definitely been one of the main reasons I've stuck with management and continued to progress down this road. So, that's just a little bit about me.

Lydia: And for many recruiters, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget about the real impact, or really not just forget about it, but there's no real time to stop and pause to think about that impact that you just spoke about, right? So, what does your day-to-day look like, typically?

Chris: It's quite a roller coaster in general. I would say, as a manager of a team, it's very different from the day-to-day operations of an operational recruiter. I read a book not too long ago that focused mainly on creating a routine that gets you into a rhythm and a flow by removing decisions from yourself.

So, having an environment where you don't even need to think about what you're going to do next—it's already there. I think that has played a huge part in how I structure my day. I always start my day by looking at the tasks that need to be done this week and then outlining what I want to accomplish. I always have time blocked off for focus—focus time for an hour or two before lunch and an hour or two after lunch. Then, working around that, I'll have meetings with stakeholders and meetings with my team, whether it be one-on-one or projects they're working on, to try and provide any support from that side as well. So, it can vary slightly, but usually, I have a quite structured day throughout.

Balancing Employer Branding, Candidate Experience, and Pipeline Management

Lydia: But in all this, you also have to prioritize the big picture, right? So, you've been with abstraction for a little over a year. I understand a year and a half, right?

Chris: Yes, correct.

Lydia: So, there must be a few key areas that you prioritized since taking up the role as Head of Recruitment at abstraction. What are some key areas that you prioritized here?

Chris: I suppose one of the biggest aspects is definitely the recruitment strategy, and working with our C-level to really understand what they want as a business and how they want to approach the market or grow our presence. Then, to be able to create projects or outline the type of talent we want to bring in and create a strategy based on that.

So, things like focusing on employer branding, candidate experience, and, of course, candidate pipelines for certain roles we need to fill right now. Whatever we feel is the biggest priority for the business within, let's say, each quarter, is how I would really look at that as well. Our business is very different; we're a co-development studio, so things shift and change drastically.

Lydia: It means you work on projects for clients?

Chris: Correct. We will work with other clients to help them build their games. We are also slowly but surely in the process of building our own but in the meantime, this is what we specialize in. We have mainly a tech team, but also an art team, a production team, design, and QA as well.

So, a lot of bigger studios will hire us to come in and work on a specific aspect of their game. Let's say, we're in negotiations with a client, and the project has not been signed. We're on edge. We don't know whether we're going to actually sign that or not, and it can be quite difficult to manage.

I suppose that situation, it's quite a balancing act. Once we get it signed, it'll be all hands on deck. Let's try to hire as many people as we need. On the other side of the coin, we can't start hiring properly until we actually have the project.

Lydia: That's interesting. I had a question earlier, but let's just bring this forward. Going back to that, that balancing act that you were talking about, of getting the right talent quickly, as soon as you sign on to the project, and making sure you've got the skills in place first.

So, how do you balance that need or that conflict that sometimes comes about when it comes to hiring quickly versus hiring the right fit? Which one takes priority over the other?

Chris: It's a great question and one we face on a regular basis, to be honest. We have developed a bit of a strategy and a bit of a rhythm right now within my team. We have pipelines and candidates that we know. We've scatter the market. We have different pipelines on LinkedIn, and we've reached out to a lot of these candidates just as touchpoints, nothing more than that.

Once we do get the go-ahead, we will jump on as quickly as possible and try and get them through the process. The way that we try and speed things up is by initially having a conversation. Our recruiter will have a conversation with the candidate first to see whether this is definitely worth moving forward with this candidate if a role does come up. In that case, we'll have removed one step of the process, and we can push them straight into the hiring manager phase of the actual interview process.

So, that's one way that I've seen us actually improve the efficiency and the time frame of getting candidates at that stage as well.

Improving Candidate Experience and Metrics in the Gaming Industry

Lydia: Are there any other unique challenges that you feel the gaming industry is facing when it comes to Talent Acquisition today?

Chris: It would be poor of me not to mention the difficulty right now with the layoffs and the market. Job security is one of the biggest concerns, I think, for a lot of people in the industry right now. We had over 10,000 people laid off in 2023, and we've already gone over that number in 2024. Things don't look like they're going to change massively over the next few months. The industry needs to survive, and I think that's one of the hardest things because when it does come back, there's going to be a major war for talent, as a lot of people will have left by that point as well. So, that's definitely one of the biggest concerns, I think, for the industry and one of the biggest challenges we face in Talent Acquisition.

Another one I would talk about is that I've come from a background of working in tech, and I only moved into gaming a year and a half ago. I would say education is another really visible challenge for Talent Acquisition, specifically. So, if we're talking about people understanding the importance of candidate experience, it's no fault of anybody within the industry. I think they just start a little bit behind on some of these things. I think understanding metrics and data, for example, knowing how to make sure we're improving as a company, what areas we can actually focus on, and what bottlenecks we can remove—all of those things are really important. The industry itself is not that advanced in those areas, so that would be one of the other challenges.

Lastly, I'd say the perception of the industry is another issue. There's a big perception of the gaming industry as having a very crunch culture. This culture is essentially a mindset of, "You just need to get this done," and it doesn't matter how long it takes or how many hours you work—just get it done. The reality is that everyone in the industry does not want that to be the case. As a studio, we're very strict about how many hours our teams work, and we try to make sure that doesn't happen.

However, we're in an industry with deadlines and priorities that are vital, and sometimes you might have to work a little overtime. But from being in it, I don't see it as a massive problem. The perception outside the industry, though, might hinder others from moving into the industry. So, from a TA perspective, those would be some of the key things I would mention.

Lydia: So, I presume this would then translate to how you position the company in terms of your employer brand, and how you deliver that proposition to someone who's coming in those initial conversations that you have with candidates and them having that perception.

How do you position the company as a place where they can really flex their skills but also grow? Is this something that you've already found as a solution for?

Chris: Yes, I think it's one thing for me to tell a candidate that we don't have a crunch culture in the company. It's not something that we push. It's another thing getting, let's say, another engineer to speak to this person.

So, let's say we're hiring a programmer and they're concerned about one of the things that we would do. One of the things that seem quite logical is to get them on a call with the programmer who currently has been here for two or three years, and they can ask them open questions about these things. It's not something that I can tell them that they're definitely not going to be doing this because I don't know and that's the bottom line.

I suppose, from my side, getting a programmer on the phone with them and actually being able to tell them the realistic situation of what it's like to work here. We're very confident that it'll be a very positive experience for them. That would be the best way. I would say to really try and get them to understand the industry and the culture a little bit better.

Adapting Recruitment Strategy in a High-Flux Industry

Lydia: Going back to the industry, all the constant state of flux, and there are plenty of challenges, obviously, as you've mentioned, is there a particular approach that you've found to be useful when you look at recruitment strategy for a company like abstraction? Is there such a thing as a recruitment strategy?

Chris: One of the biggest differences, for sure, again, coming into the industry, having not worked in a co-development studio in the past, I struggled at the start to really adjust myself to how things work, and I think having a long term strategy is just not the right approach for a studio like us. It's really just to look at the next six months.

We have a business development team that is able to feed us with information about how close we are to potentially signing projects and in that case, I would have a recruitment plan where I'd be working with our CTO and our CEO on what is potentially going to be coming up, what are roles that we need to pipeline and get ready for? At that point, once we get the sign on the dotted line, we would just go all hands on deck to start reaching out.

But it is really about having that pipeline ready and being efficient about once you do get the go-ahead you jump on it as soon as possible. I think from my side, that's been the best approach to a company like this. Looking long-term is just not realistic, to be honest.

Lydia: Yes, the pipeline then becomes key. It's definitely the talent pool that you've been constantly in contact with. I suppose that will be the backbone of any kind of strategy change that you would see.

Chris: Yes, for sure. We talk about the pipeline, but ultimately, it comes down to the relationships that we have with these people.

If you've built a relationship with a lot of people out in the market, and then you reach out to them saying, “Okay, we've got something,” they're much more likely to respond to you first of all, and also, listen to what you have to say. So, a lot of the in-between of whether we have a project or not—it is about relationship building.

It's about where we are, the type of people that we want to bring in, and just making sure that we have contacts and relationships built there for when the opportunity comes up.

Lydia: So, how do you collaborate with hiring managers or team leaders when it comes to understanding their needs or priorities? I mean, what are some steps that you take, or what are some fundamentals that you think as it's a must-have when it comes to a system in which you try to understand what is needed in their hiring?

Chris: Yes, we recently rolled out a new kind of recruitment process.

So, whenever we get a new role, a hiring manager will come to us and say, "Right, we've got something. We want to start opening this up." We have an alignment document or a kickoff document, shall we say, where we ask them to fill that out before we have an actual meeting with them. This document includes questions specifically about what we're looking for and why we're looking for it. It also has the job description and the interview plan as well. This is kind of our Bible for this position.

It allows all the interviewers to see what's going on. It also is transparent so that everybody can understand the type of position that we're looking for. Then we will actually engage with them.

Of course, all managers are going to want to hire tomorrow, and that's one of the biggest challenges we face as well. But the next step in the process would be to have a meeting with them, set realistic expectations with them, and remind them that most people are going to have at least a one-month notice period. In other countries, such as France or Germany, it could be three months if we're hiring there. Then we work back from that. So if we say, "Okay, at least one month's notice," then how long is it going to take us to actually interview people? If it's a four-step process, it's going to take us three to four weeks. Prior to that, how long is it going to take us to source candidates? That's probably going to take us at least two to three weeks to get candidates into the process—interview them, and have a decent enough pipeline. So, accumulate all of that together you're looking at least two to three months.

It also depends on the job. If you're looking for somebody very senior, that can require a much longer timeframe. If you're looking for someone quite junior, we can definitely shorten the interview process and try to get people in a little bit quicker, for sure. But it's about setting those expectations, and I would always say, “Always leave at least a week or two for something to go wrong.” So, if you've calculated it and think, "Okay, I think it's going to take this much time," give yourself an extra week or two because there are so many uncontrollable factors, so many things happening in recruitment that are outside of your control, that will end up creating delays and bottlenecks for you. So yes, setting expectations.

Maximizing Recruitment Efficiency with AI and Data-Driven Insights

Lydia: There is the use of technology, obviously, to speed up the process and to make sure everyone is on the same page and they know what to expect. Of course, that expectation setting can be made much smoother.

So, how do you think the use of technology, or even, the data points that come out of that? How do you think that has helped change or transform talent acquisition in the role that you're in, or even in general?

Chris: Yes, I'd say within the role that I'm in, to be honest with you, AI has really only been around for me personally since I've been at abstraction. When I talk about AI specifically, the biggest things, it's really helped with are automating a lot of the admin tasks such as creating email templates, looking at interview questions for our interviewers, and also looking at potential answers to interview questions.

It's also been helpful for researching the market. I was completely new to the gaming industry when I first came in, so I used ChatGPT to help me understand who the biggest players in Europe are within the market. It divided the information between all of the different countries, and now I understand exactly what the biggest market is in Europe and where the best tech talent is within Europe. You can get all of this information within seconds because it's able to provide so much data. I would always say to double-check what it actually provides because it's never 100% correct. We know that. It might end up getting there, but, yes, that's been definitely one of the biggest changes from our side.

We also implemented a tool called Meta View, which is an AI interviewing tool. It essentially recorded the interview and then sent an email five minutes later, providing us with a breakdown of the whole interview, and all of the key points that were mentioned. It was a game-changer for our recruiters, for sure, but honestly, the biggest game-changing aspect was with our hiring managers. They were so happy that they didn't have to organize all their notes and put them into our system. That was huge, and the change that it made was, I think, from a timing perspective, huge, but also for efficiency as well. It allowed us to see all of the notes that came in quite quickly.

Adapting to the Gaming Industry

Lydia: Moving into the gaming industry, I mean, you said earlier that you were from tech, but not specifically from gaming, and moving into that would have been a steep learning curve for you.

So, how did you catch up and at the same time also lead a team and make sure your recruitment strategy is solid? How long did it take to adapt to that?

Chris: I would say yes. First of all, it was a big shift and a big change from what I'm used to. It took me probably about six months before I was really confident in what I was talking about because, again, the roles are very different. You speak in different terms. I’m used to following engineers, but in gaming, we call them programmers. It's a little shift, but it's because they do different things as well. But working in art positions and working on production like a project manager within the gaming industry—are areas where I've had to spend a huge amount of time to learn. I spent a lot of time with different teams and managers to understand what they do. I've gotten breakdowns and summaries of everything they've done.

Also, by going out to the market where I've attended multiple events. Last year, I was at Gamescom. We have one here in the Netherlands called Indigo, which we've been sponsoring for the last two years. Then there's Brighton Develop, which happened last year and is happening very soon again. At these events, you just need to be curious and explore as much as possible. I think if there was one thing I would tell my younger self, it would be to be much more curious about everything. I learned that a little bit later in my career, but thankfully, I've been able to use that a little bit more where I currently am right now.

Lydia: And those slight shifts that you talk about, the different titles, from engineer to programmer, that could mean all the difference when you're talking to someone and you're addressing it because they're going to process it differently and they're like, “No, this is not me,” right?

Chris: Yes, and they can tell if you know what you're talking about or not, especially if you call them an engineer but they've been in the gaming industry for 12 years. They know it's not the case. So yes, you need to know what to say and how to address them in the right way.

Lydia: Going back to what you said earlier, what's kept you in this space, Chris, and what really drives you? I know you mentioned the rewarding factor that comes into play when you find out that you've done really good work, and it's impacted someone's life. So, what is your favorite or most memorable recruitment story, Chris?

Chris: There are a few that pop into my mind. I would say one of the most memorable ones for me personally is an opportunity I had very early in my career. I had the opportunity to move over to America for 12 months, and I managed to get into a recruitment agency called, funny enough, Shamrock Recruiting. It was really just myself and the owner. We didn't have any clients, no candidates—nothing. We were working in a kind of shack above a Hawaiian restaurant, two or three blocks from the beach, and we were starting to build a business. We were building a recruitment agency from scratch. I was focusing on tech, and he was focusing on accounting and finance.

Just going through all of the struggles and difficulties in agency work—constantly being rejected, going out to meetings that weren't really leading anywhere—and also being in a new country, experiencing a lot of new adventures and things as well, I think this is something that had a huge impact on my career. I ended up getting sponsored to stay for three years, and over that period of time, we ended up getting the company off the ground. By the end of my last year, I was billing over $150K, and there are a lot of those moments where you pinch yourself and say, "Did I actually do that?" From my perspective, that was a huge moment for me to grow. I learned a huge amount about myself and recruitment in general, of course, as well. But that would be a standout, for sure.

And then, as I mentioned in the past, just having someone come up to you at lunchtime in the canteen at work and say, "You realize you've just changed my life," is, again, a very rewarding thing to hear from somebody as well. So, I would say those are the things that have really stuck with me throughout my career.

Lydia: Yes, absolutely. I think the two types of rewards that you're talking about, just looking at the results of what you're doing, you're not even anticipating these things coming to you, and when it does, it's just a lovely surprise. Also knowing that you've grown in your role despite the challenges, and looking at how much you've seen not just a company grow, but just your own skills and your ability to build a business I think that's a great story, Chris. Thank you so much for sharing, and thank you very much for all these insights and a look into how you're navigating the different challenges and also the needs and the potential in abstraction.

For those who are listening in if they want to connect with you, what would be the best way? Is it LinkedIn?

Chris: Yes, absolutely. The best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. Because I'm in the gaming industry, I have a little avatar on my profile picture, so you should be able to notice me. It's a little bit different, of course, to most people, but I try my best to share as much knowledge as I can on LinkedIn.

Hopefully, some of it sticks with some people, and it can be valuable for those who are not in the industry as well. So yes, by all means, follow and connect with me.

Lydia: Great. Thank you very much, Chris. We have been in conversation with Christopher Redmond from abstraction.

Thank you for joining us, and remember to subscribe and stay tuned for more weekly episodes from All-In Recruitment.