Prospective gaming industry employees have become increasingly bored with online methods of candidate attraction and more are responding to face-to-face approaches, according to Peter Lovell, talent acquisition manager at gaming company Jagex Games Studio.

Lovell told Recruiter: “It has almost gone the other way. The best people get so many approaches through LinkedIn and email that they almost blank it out. They have got bored with it.”

With so many recruiters adopting a ‘me too’ approach to recruiting “you have got to swim the other way”, said Lovell.

He said that while Jagex still used tools such as LinkedIn, direct face-to-face contact with potential employees at international gaming industry events had led to seven hires this year.  

“The best recruitment is almost that 1960s cocktail party-style recruitment. There is something at that basic human level about interfacing with human beings rather than just through email. I think it is invaluable,” said Lovell.  

Lovell added that costs of attending industry events compared favourably with a typical agency fee of £7.5k. He said that that he and a colleague could fly to Germany for a gaming industry event, for example, and stay for around £400 between them. It was not unusual to recruit four or five people at some of the bigger events.