3.1 Games Recruiter Insights - Simon Hope from Aardvark Swift

I wanted to try something a bit different with this episode: this is the first of a short series of interviews with recruitment professionals in the games industry. Our goal is to find out what recruiters seek out in potential game producers from associate to EP and beyond, from product manager to project manager. We also want to know what’s changed during coronavirus and how they see recruitment changing moving forwards. 

Simon Hope from Aardvark Swift joins us in this episode. Aardvark is one of a handful of rock solid game recruitment companies in the UK and were the first that I know of to start a game-production-specific newsletter with jobs, advice and relevant news, along with a recent podcast. I was really pleased with the topics we managed to cover in this session, as well as the generous insights from Simon. Please enjoy.

You can visit Aardvark Swift here:
https://aswift.com/

Topics include:
00:00 Intro
08:10 Advice for people who are trying to become producers for the first time
10:40 Can an Associate Producer come straight out of University?
13:50 Advice for those stepping up to Producer
15:20 Role differences between pc/console & mobile
19:00 The most difficult production roles to place
21:20 The traits of a successful producer
24:50 Senior levels
28:00 Support for producers moving up
31:10 How the industry is shifting
34:00 The impact of covid-19 and remote working
38:00 Care & Health and a producer's responsibilities
43:00 Handling different needs and standardising time in/out
45:20 Why would anyone want to be a producer?
48:50 Long-term relationships
50:20 Studios returning to work: how will they handle health and dynamic teams?
58:00 What is next for Aardvark Swift and Simon?
61:00 Farewells

Thanks again to Simon and the team at Aardvark Swift!
https://aswift.com/

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