Building Your Team - Recruiting the Right People for Your Project

Recruiting for any company, or project for that matter, is a difficult demon to master. Now I’m not trying to say I’m a master, but GravTech Games has drastically evolved in the way we recruit our team. When Brandon and I first started GravTech we were fresh out of college and didn’t know what we were about to get ourselves into; the endless days, the countless meetings, and the repetition of explaining your vision to people over and over again. It can be a grueling process to build up your team at a start-up indie studio, but as we learned early on, "vision without execution is hallucination."

When we started GravTech we were working on a very large project, too large for our resources. We soon realized that there was no chance of finishing the project, in a timely fashion, so we switched gears to a “smaller” project. I remember the original pitch for NORA… and how far it’s evolved since then. What was supposed to be a “small project” quickly became another large project and we soon realized it was time to bulk up and find the people we needed to get this done.

It was a slow process at first, granted we had our focus on other priorities early on, but we started to get the hang of it as time went on. Along the way we’ve picked up some tips I think any start-up could appreciate.

• Don’t hire your friends!

This is one of the first rules they teach you in business school, but I never took too much stake in it until we built the original team. When we started the project we reached out to those around whom we got along with and who had enough skill to get it done. While at first everything is great, you’ll quickly learn that seldom do friends and business go hand in hand. While some can conquer it, a lot of people are unable to separate their personal lives from a work setting when dealing with friends. To be fair, this isn’t always the case (i.e. we have multiple team members we share a friendship with), but you should proceed with caution.

• Stick to the Script

This one didn’t click with me until recently. I have a background in marketing and sales and one would think scripts are my one of my key tools. Fun fact: I hate them. But to the same extent, I need them. Scripts minimize deviations and allow you to navigate and lead through the conversation. Once you start doing 3-4 30-minute interviews a day next to the million other things on your to-do list you’ll be grateful you’re following a page.

• High Versatility = High Priority

This is a pretty simple one. When you’re just starting out you learn quickly that specialization is not the best thing to look for. We seek out people with high versatility, the more hats they can wear the better. Yes, people who specialize tend to have high quality work in their area of expertise, but they tend to be limited in these roles on an indie team. We’ve learned early on that it’s better to have a jack-of-all-trades that can pick up any remaining slack.

• Don’t Judge an Applicant by Their Resume Alone

We recently conducted an interview with a prospective artist for our team. We reviewed their portfolio and after a few minutes of looking it over we didn’t have high hopes for them. We still decided to conduct the interview and within 5-10 minutes in we realized that we were simply misled. This person had been working on projects that are still in development and they couldn’t showcase any of the artwork on their portfolio. There of course is a balance and standards that we look for (e.g. we don’t interview 8-Bit Artists for a 3D game), but remember, until you talk to someone, you really don’t know what you’re dealing with.

• You Can’t Take Them All!

I personally believe that anyone, regardless of skill/experience, can be of great value to a project or team with proper coaching and leadership. One of the hardest things to deal with when recruiting is to make a proper decision on which applicants to select. Sometimes it’s more obvious, then not, but a lot of times you have to sit back and think over everything. While personally, I have seen potential in everyone that we’ve talked to, I also understand that we need the right people for the team and company. It’s a juggling act, because you end up doing off-the-wall things like choosing a lesser skilled person because you know that team coercion is just as important as experience. You have to find the balance your team needs.

Side note: Be polite and send the people you’re rejecting an email saying you’re not moving forward with them. Especially those you may consider in the future.

To summarize, recruiting is a long process. It takes a while to find the right people for your project and for good reason. You should look for qualified, versatile people and only recruit to the needs of the project. It took us a while to get the hang of it, but now we, well at least I, enjoy the process.

By Kevin Gray
CEO of GravTech Games