Leaders S4: E04 - Jake Kimber brings us inside the gaming industry and its growth of tech talent

david_bloxham (00:01.16)
hello there jake good afternoon how are you

jake (00:02.88)
hello i'm great and really excited to be here thanks for having me

david_bloxham (00:08.28)
you know it it's great to have you here and you know you've been speaking with betty on our connect connect team so it's good to kind of get you involved but but yeah so we've got as i said we've got jake with us today from united someone from the gaming industry so i'm quite excited to kind of find out more about that he's director of tan operations thirteen years in the industry direct charan operations for that organization and i think for myself jake really grea

to have someone from this industry that is so you know it's very well known is obviously very profitable we're probably all that engaged with it but i think it's it's quite a closed shop in some ways isn't it you know it's kind of your ther in it or you're not so it's good to get a bit of an insight i think for the techs and the leaders that listen to this to understand the world of gaming and how it's similar but also maybe how it's different to other technic

the industry but i think before we start that it's great to understand a little about your role on what you do within the organization for those that don't know picks are united tell us a bit about the company

jake (01:17.82)
yeah certainly well no thank you for the introduction so basically it picks united were more like a publisher were a collection of games studios so we consist of three main brands product madness plarium and big fish and they're all individual developers of mobile games and actually they they also do self publish as well all within mobile gaming so we're in mobile games publisher largest title is called raid shadow legends which is a top grocer mobile gameglobally you may have seen that put in front of you anyone

david_bloxham (01:28.1)
she

david_bloxham (01:47.38)
lo

jake (01:47.72)
any sort of gaming it's quite prevalent online so that's our biggest title and basically we are looking to build those games in the future to work with developers that to make a game it's very expensive so even if me and you sat down right now and we made the best game in the world if we didn't have the money behind it it wouldn't be successful well you never know you never know but

david_bloxham (02:05.32)
very very unlikely jeutfrom my ide i could find the people that could do it i guess that's that's that was why that would be my import

jake (02:13.94)
well that's just as well i mean to show out of people so so that's what we do we find these amazing ideas and we helped to fund those as well that's another part of our business but we're looking to kind of the future of gaming were one of the largest gaming providers globally and certainly in the u k so in terms of that close shop thing definitely good to come back to that because i do find that that is a bit of a theme in gaming i've been in studios where it's if you're not from gaming you can forget it there's also quite a limited way to get in we talk a lot about diversity and gaming

david_bloxham (02:38.54)
yeah

jake (02:43.68)
some ways i think the industry is really ahead of others in other ways we're not and we demand pretty much every one has a degree that comes in now that's not every studio i'm sure they be studios out there saying we don't do that but on the whole that has been traditionally what we ask and it's from particular game university particular courses no matter what the role is whether it's quality assurance whether it's no development the only kind of roles really the business type roles like me i wouldn't have got in i couldn't be a developer or designer in a game studio because i don't have the backing

david_bloxham (02:46.5)
m

david_bloxham (02:54.34)
yeah

david_bloxham (03:11.9)
yeah

jake (03:13.72)
and i think that's something that that's a challenge for gaming as it goes forward it has the same challenges of the everyone's scrabbling over this they say now hyper type labor market kind of seems to add an extra word to it every time but we're in that same boat but then we're closing the door even more when we're only looking at people from gaming i think that's something that i really like about pica united you know we've hired people a lot of people from other industries and i think that's that's part of what we're looking to do to create that diversity in thought but definitely that's a big challenge

david_bloxham (03:24.18)
yeah

david_bloxham (03:29.96)
m

david_bloxham (03:37.5)
m

jake (03:43.7)
so it's quite a close shop sometimes you know i think in other technologies if somebody is a really for example strong programme you'd be interested to talk to them no matter what they've worked on whether they've been making commerce or whether it's a banking system whatever with gaming it's not quite like that and it can even be clearly down to the type of games but that's another level yeah yeah like oh you've only done mobile you couldn't do console or you've only done v you couldn't do there's a lot of that as well

david_bloxham (03:57.1)
yeah

david_bloxham (04:00.48)
yeah there's quite a lot of

really like strategy games or sporting games or whatever you know

right okay well yea so i mean i always think kind of the technology industry in terms of talent is quite fractured so when i i mean let's be honest from a recruitment consultants point of view that's quite good because it creates niches it creates specializations it creates demand creates you know supply and demand you know problems for the user but obviously that's the way you kind of come into business because there's kind of high demand but

jake (04:13.74)
yeah

david_bloxham (04:42.42)
that's what makes it obviously interesting isn't it because you see these technologies changing and moving and you know even though like you and me we don't really understand what they do but it's quite interesting to see those moves and as clever how they do this you know that is that what kind of brought you into the to the talent world because i know you ovioslyekind work as a recruiter i think you worked for a software company before but you know for you for you to see that move and change in those industries and is that that's what

jake (04:56.76)
yeah

david_bloxham (05:11.4)
and it interested me initial same for yourself

jake (05:14.68)
yes so i think with the talent industry sadly like i'm more of as so many people say i fell into it you know with that kind of promise of gold and riches back back when i started but then what did draw me into wanting to come in house and be part of that talent space was when i was talking to these other people hiring managers in house recruiters people and they were talking about what they were doing with their talent and the teams they were trying to build and the task they had in the problems they had to solve and that really interested me and that's why i pretty quickly knew that i wanted to

david_bloxham (05:22.74)
yeah yeah yeah

jake (05:44.5)
stay in that space to move in that way and then what moved me into the gaming industry was not very uncommon childhood love of gaming which i think a lot of us have and that that drew me naturally into that space but yeah in terms of the talent initially it wasn't something i've thought of and to come in for that sort of traditional fell in rout but but then from there i really got to see actually that it supported a lot of things that i found interesting i think it's fascinating looking at how businesses grow the talent how

david_bloxham (05:54.08)
sure

jake (06:14.58)
you know we always use these buzz words like work for planning and resource planning but actually when you really break down what do you need what's the future of the business what's the market what's the talent even coming through what do they want these challenges are really interestin and that's what really kind of brought me in and moved me more towards i suppose at more of a kind of talent talent role is opposed to sort pure attraction

david_bloxham (06:24.4)
m yeah

david_bloxham (06:35.52)
what kind of key challenges we talk a lot in the leader series about being leaders you know and we've had many fantastic talent people on the podcast what are the key challenges when you come into a company when you're running your kind of budgets what the key challenges that you encounter

jake (06:53.54)
yeah i think encounter many of the challenges that we all do you know there's not enough talent we can't hire them fast enough we're not paying enough for all of these things but actually i think and this is another one that does come up quite a lot it's about that bit of a clear she phrase seat at the table but i think it's getting buying from business more importantly that's always the biggest challenge i find when you're banging your head against a brick wall you're being asked to do something usually it's a number right we need to hire x amount of people and we need to do it in this amount of time and when you go back with a forecast

david_bloxham (07:01.06)
m

david_bloxham (07:12.12)
yeah

jake (07:23.34)
it's not that but explaining other ways to get to that target that can be a challenge you know when maybe the challenges i've faced for example i would say well there isn't enough senior talent that is that that we can attract but we could look for the future and look at some future talent maybe we could look at an academy maybe we could look at apprentirships there are other ways to go about this and then in twelve months time eighteen months time you will be set up a business doesn't always work like that sometimes you have to be sorry to use this word more agile ve got to move a little bit more quickly but

david_bloxham (07:25.26)
m

david_bloxham (07:29.76)
m

david_bloxham (07:42.7)
m

david_bloxham (07:51.06)
m

jake (07:53.32)
i think a lot of the time it's getting businesses to to kind of really trust t a i still think there is that issue with a lot of businesses where there isn't that trust where we feel that you know everyone is an expert in recruitment right you'll get silly things even down to a minute show of hiring manager saying if you posted the job on read and you're like oh never thought of that thank you so i think everyone is an expert in t a right everyone like i wouldn't be able to tell the best architect the best framework for system they're making even in just saying that you can tell i know nothing about what i'm talking about that

david_bloxham (07:59.76)
m

david_bloxham (08:13.08)
yeah

david_bloxham (08:19.26)
m

david_bloxham (08:22.72)
yeah

jake (08:24.38)
but everyone is an expert in t a and i think that's it's trying to get that buy and end to get people behind kind of what you're what you're looking to do and i suppose the major way i'm sorry

david_bloxham (08:30.94)
and ye just to kind of ye just kind of kind of chip in there i think obviously in my career i worked for two years as a service delivery manager as i was on side with a company obviously well known its systems integrate cool cap and i and that really showed me a lot of the difference tween extern and internal and i think what you're talking about there is you know the trust is also the reliance on t

jake (08:44.28)
yeah

jake (08:50.04)
yeah

david_bloxham (09:00.7)
because what i found was quite interesting for me is as an external recruiter lead recruiting business is if i'm not going to work that position i decide not to work that position whereas a t a or like i was ivery person is responsible for bringing the people into the company that the key challenges you can't walk away from that can you that's one thing you can't like we need this person to do the job and then a lot of your role is solutions which obviously makes it quite interesting also quite challenging

jake (09:12.6)
yep

jake (09:15.82)
hm

jake (09:19.9)
yeah

david_bloxham (09:31.08)
is that what you found beaus that's i mean left it so i wasn't very good at finally coming up wi the challenges and solutions but is that what you know i guess you spend a lot of your time thinking about that how will we do this yeah

jake (09:43.18)
definitely because i find especially in the market we have at the moment a lot of providers and agencies recruitment support partners can turn around and say we're not working that because they just you know that it's not possible you're geting asked to find something that isn't going to happen and it's a waste of your time and i wouldn't even be about the bush about saying waste of time and i like actually that a lot of agencies do come out now and go no you're giving me the roles you're giving me are the ones that are other are possible so i think in terms of finding those solutions that is kind of the real

david_bloxham (09:48.96)
m

david_bloxham (09:55.26)
m

m

david_bloxham (10:02.96)
m

david_bloxham (10:09.54)
yeah

jake (10:13.12)
allen of being in housen i think a lot of it is to do with data and you've really got to back up what you say so you're going to go into a room where you're with the business leaders i always make sure as prepared as i can be with all the data at hand to really prove the point you have whether that's industry research or whether that's historic data you know we were demanding we wanted to hire a certain number of senior developers one of the businesses i was working for and we showed that our current tradicture

david_bloxham (10:17.86)
m

david_bloxham (10:33.46)
m

david_bloxham (10:40.undefined)
hm

jake (10:43.2)
actually can't say that word you know we'd interviewed a hundred developers and hired one and then on the next slide we had here a load of the people that rejected all our direct competitors so hey i don't think they were that bad they're hiring them these people are good maybe we need to look at the bar a little bit but it's really hard if i just went to a room and said we need to lower the bar and hiring they go well no we have a high standard of quality it's for you to find the right people when sometimes there are different solutions and i think that's that's the challenge that do we really need a super senior person does

david_bloxham (10:45.04)
yeah

david_bloxham (10:49.26)
wow

david_bloxham (10:56.02)
yeah yeah yeah

david_bloxham (11:04.96)
m

yeah yeah

jake (11:13.12)
this person have to have x experience how many times do we look at a job speck and say well if i found you someone that had x y but didn't have aid would you take them and hiring manager a business leader says well of course that would be great yet you're working to a brief that's way too specific and that's again at quite a minute detail that can be a much broader scale for example in gaming demanding people that come from a specific type of game or specific area i'm not planning for the future so yeah that solutions piece is definitely like a really that's the kind of exciting challenge i think of being in house

david_bloxham (11:24.84)
yeah

david_bloxham (11:35.06)
m

david_bloxham (11:42.52)
and then the other thing that i always found and find is obviously the process as well you know because because one of the things you find as well as when you're working in talent or in recruitment is that people are too busy to hire probably because they haven't got enough people are too busy to hire so when you look at the process and you know making sure if you find that one and a hundred persons that you're going to give them the best possible candidate experience what is your what is your to go to kind of methodology

for making sure that you can go to get people through as quickly as possible get people interested

jake (12:17.44)
so a lot of that comes through again the buying at the start of the process with the managers almost down to an s and i've gone that far in some companies and not in others so i haven't needed to some i've been lucky where the current organization i've worked in with product madness which is one of our business units you know i had a business leader that would sit in the room with the senior leadership and say hiring is all of your priority and if you don't hit the target i'm not coming to shout at me i'm going to come to all of you and then suddenly guess what those hiring

david_bloxham (12:22.76)
m

david_bloxham (12:28.84)
yeah

david_bloxham (12:45.24)
yeah yeah yeah

jake (12:47.02)
teams are driven there motivated hey get buying from the businss if it really is a crucial crucial goal for the business to hire these people then it's got to come from everyone you can't just you blame a t a team they're a part of that obviously a big part of that but they're not everything usually a process is moving too slowly because of other things you know unless you're looking and there is no candidate in that front of that funnel there are no profiles coming in there's no one interested then that's you know that sits with t a or all the requirement so

david_bloxham (12:48.2)
m

david_bloxham (12:54.26)
yeah yeah

david_bloxham (13:00.76)
m

david_bloxham (13:14.8)
yeah

jake (13:17.1)
so that would be one thing first i actually trying go right to the top and get the whole ethos in the business that hiring is important and the hire managers realize they can't just go into me and i haven't had any c v because they know i'm going to pull up a report one of my recruits is going o ull up a report that shows that's not true and that's kind of what happened in a dev situation you know we had to report well you've had a hundred people here and the hither suddenly the you know the senior leaders thinking right hang on why are my team hiring just number one and the number two you can go down to a minute level of actually having an agreed s l so it's

david_bloxham (13:30.18)
yeah

david_bloxham (13:41.86)
m

jake (13:47.08)
tally we send you a c v in this amount of time you give us feed back in this amount of time and that can actually be driven by an a t s that has those check points and drives that i prefer not to have to go that far because i think you shouldn't have to do that i prefer to go that first fruit of actually having the whole business by and at the start to do it yeah

david_bloxham (13:47.26)
m

david_bloxham (14:04.undefined)
it's heart and mind isn't it you it's hearts and minds that's that's the key thing i think for me that if you've got people that believe and agree with you then you can move that forward i guess sometimes as well you have certain managers that are moving with the process and therefore getting like the best candidates and you can probably use that bit of data well you know sarah responds quickly and funnily enough sarah's team is the best recruited for you know yeah

jake (14:11.06)
m

jake (14:25.94)
exactly

yep

yeah exactly that's a great example is well showing the teams that are doing that and you know it's funny isn't it the ones that are really engaged are the ones that hire the best people and hire the quickest way and build their teams and find you find his best people

david_bloxham (14:42.5)
yeah

so when you kind of you know think about those solutions that you come up with now because you know when it comes to the industries and the companies everyone's dealing with the same talking a little bout the game of industry but every company like you said is hyper hyper restricted kind of talent universe every company is struggling to find the right people and i find that's even more now that you think in this industry where the's lots of lay offs than basicall

jake (14:55.18)
hm

jake (14:59.06)
m

david_bloxham (15:14.76)
it's gonna be even easier but what we find is obviously people will get a lot more nervous to move than you have to tempt them out more so what do you think you know what do you think of the most important solutions to show how how will you move the dial you know with these types of other than just obviously speaking to gcodsoeveryh

jake (15:21.38)
yes

jake (15:35.86)
yeah

jake (15:40.28)
well i think you're right with this challenge and i think firstly as well obviously a lot of the big tech companies are laying off tens of thousands of people but the shortage is millions there is a shortage and talent that there's more millions so when you have a home manager saying twitter let ten thousand people go yeah great that doesn't at hasn't moved the dale hasn't changed the market yeah exactly it wasn't all yeah exactly that so i think there is a little bit of an illusion at the moment that like there's a big panic there's

david_bloxham (15:51.82)
yeah

david_bloxham (15:56.74)
yeah some of those are customer service and some of those are operational and some of those are in the easier you know

m

jake (16:10.14)
shortage and rightfully it's making people nervous you know about moving i totally understand that i think a lot of that is firstly is knowing what you're offering so we're lucky that we have a full compensation team here that look and every quarter release new data for the market and we're lucky that we're looking to pay in the sort in a higher per cent or bracket on pay that sounds like quite straight forward thing while you're going straight to pay it's more than that but that's a really important thing

david_bloxham (16:13.66)
m

david_bloxham (16:27.56)
m

david_bloxham (16:33.46)
okay eh

jake (16:40.16)
i found that we stay fresh with the market nd it's the business philosophy to do that so that's number one but not all companies can do that so i think it's also important to think about the offering but now that comes down to a lot of it's not good enough any more just to have when we've got a foodsball table and we open some beers on a friday and there's a lunch day that's not enough anymore because people have had a taste of that flexibility and i think that's really that's something that's really important for people so i think as companies become the more restricted they become

david_bloxham (16:40.8)
m

david_bloxham (16:59.9)
yeah

david_bloxham (17:04.56)
m

jake (17:10.66)
you know you might have x company paying one amount x company paying twenty per cent more but the first company offers full flexibility and a second one demands people come in a certain time you probably find more people leaning towards that flexibility so i think that's one thing is to think about why you know why your set up is the way it is and do you need really need that how can you help with that so i think that's that's the first piece and then secondly for me with the talent shortages i'm working at

david_bloxham (17:10.88)
yep

david_bloxham (17:18.4)
m

jake (17:40.2)
moment on a program to sell us for the future i don't want to keep smashing our heads on the brick wall going we need senior talent we can't find them we need senior talent we can't find them and just doing that over and over and over again i want to be able to sell us in a way so that we're going say that for the next eighteen months two years but in eighteen months two years suddenly we've got a lot of really strong talent that we've bought through an academy from an apprenticeship through graduate whatever joint early career scheme we come up with and then we're set for

david_bloxham (17:43.74)
hm

david_bloxham (17:52.16)
m

david_bloxham (18:04.14)
yeah

jake (18:10.24)
future and i think that's how we would address that talent for that's how i would look at doing that right now because the paul is short and no matter what you do you're still some companies might be able to grow as quickly as they want

david_bloxham (18:22.24)
that's right before we move into that beaus i think it's a really interesting point you know obviously talk there about the market for technology right you could have been working for any type of software company or probably any company looking for t people how do you think it does change what does change within the gaming industry do you think that sets it apart

jake (18:25.1)
m m

hm

jake (18:33.3)
yep

m

jake (18:43.68)
i think again it's that slightly sometimes i don't want to stereotype but narrow a view on where we're going to look it's a smaller paul it's a more trodden paul you know a lot of companies will say well hey especially with console games you know they're working on the latest lets technology re tracing whatever everything you know all bells and whistles we're making a triple title and some programmers will only know that you know those graphical so the capability to make those sort of graphical things you can tell i'm not technicals is terrible

david_bloxham (18:50.4)
yeah

david_bloxham (19:00.7)
m

david_bloxham (19:03.76)
yeah

david_bloxham (19:13.54)
yeah a stuff you know

jake (19:13.7)
a i programming whatever you know and they will say so there are only you know i've worked when when i had my own agency i'd have companies saying these ten companies are the only ten that we really value and think people can work from i know other techorgs do that but i don't think to the same extent where it's just so specific where you're coming to short lists of like well here's the fifty people that can do this job in the world i've approached them all this is how many i've got back i don't know what to do now what do you want me to do and i think that can be a slight difference in game

david_bloxham (19:21.4)
m

david_bloxham (19:26.16)
m

david_bloxham (19:30.5)
m

david_bloxham (19:35.32)
yeah

david_bloxham (19:40.86)
m

jake (19:43.88)
i think another difference in gaming as well for example when i worked in learning or email marketing it was more down to day offer oh you offering more more money great you know email marketing email marketing software don't really care where i work but i do care about my pay and everything in gaming the actual games you make have a big difference so some people will you now play of call of duty their whole lives growing up and that's the game they want to work on so it doesn't matter what other studios offer they don't want to play those games they want to work in college

david_bloxham (19:49.3)
m

david_bloxham (19:54.16)
m

david_bloxham (19:58.92)
yeah

david_bloxham (20:09.88)
yeah

david_bloxham (20:13.56)
m

jake (20:13.66)
so there really is a brand loyalty that can be quite different to being in tech i know other techfrmsknw people will you know the google s for life he twitters like yeah you know whatever but in gaming that can be a huge thing where it doesn't even matter what's being offered they want to work on a particular game and that's a big challenge as well

david_bloxham (20:16.56)
m

david_bloxham (20:21.58)
the only one to with apple or a

david_bloxham (20:33.42)
and i guess it in some ways you know because it is a creative industry as well right you know and you actually read like this this guy developed this this game or person developed this game and you could actually the people actually become like rock stars they're the band right so you know hey become famous and it's not often you can be like a famous computer program really is you know but when you they're known like i did this game or this team did this game you know there's a real

jake (20:38.46)
m

jake (20:43.96)
hm

jake (20:50.04)
yes yes h

jake (20:57.7)
no

david_bloxham (21:04.2)
there's a real kind of celebrity cases sometimes isn't it

jake (21:07.08)
it's amazing we had a program where we brought into another studio previously who made a series of games for the ego drive kind of late eighties early nineties and people were coming up to i can't believe i'm meeting you in person you're like one of my heroes you know this is someone that was coming to work as a dead but had in the past worked on amazing games that you know we a lot of us had played growing up so it is amazing like you said some of likelikerock stars know some of these names which is its amazing it's really great to kind of be in that that space you know

david_bloxham (21:18.18)
yeah

david_bloxham (21:24.76)
m

david_bloxham (21:33.16)
well i guess it's quite good for head hunting because you can go through the games credits and that one that one that one is you know

jake (21:38.08)
yeah i mean it's terrible when when you're in the space you play a game hen you finish it you're looking and then suddenly soon as it comes up the programming team you know right down there no one's safe

david_bloxham (21:45.18)
take screen shot it's harder to do that corporate second so i think you know therefore i'm assuming that v p itself emproyavaua position is such an important thing for you and i guess that links into the game but also into the culture so how how do you get that out there how do you how do you set yourself apart

jake (22:04.26)
m

jake (22:11.56)
so that's a real challenge for us because with a traditional game i'm going to take i won't name a game actually but let's say you now a big title the consumer brand on the employer brandon the same you know any marketing they do for that game also draws the people that would want o work on that game too and that works really well so their branding team it's almost and again branding an employe it's all one thing i get thar entwined but really with gaming that can be the case if you're working in a triple studio

david_bloxham (22:28.24)
yeah

david_bloxham (22:33.7)
m

jake (22:41.56)
games for example grand eft aught rock star a lot of their branding they do for that game people will think i want to work for that game i want to work on rock star some of the challenges we have with some of our titles that the games are our employer brandon consumer brand a different so the people that player games wouldn't want to work on games is a lot more casual games for example again slightly stereotyping is just what we find from sort of data in the branding or the games themselves

david_bloxham (22:44.08)
yeah

david_bloxham (22:48.86)
m

jake (23:12.04)
aren't really tied to us we've not a good done a good job at time to our studio our name so they're actually like people go i know this game i know lightning link the game i know you know i know this game but i don't know the studio so then that's a different brand but then we have to come and almost sort of re introduce ourselves as a new entity i think what makes it slightly different for us as well though is that we do hire people from outside gaming especially at pick or united we're actually mainly corporate function so we have mainly people fro outside of gaming it's only really myself

david_bloxham (23:16.12)
okay yeah

david_bloxham (23:20.08)
yeah

david_bloxham (23:24.6)
m right okay

david_bloxham (23:36.6)
yeah

jake (23:41.38)
a couple of others that have worked in that space so then again the branding we're going through at the moment the challenge we're having we're working with a partner is to say you know actually we're not going down the route that you would for a normal gaming company we almost want to have wherever you're from come here do you want to work in gaming and this is why gaming is interesting this is why it's an exciting factor to work in so i think it depends on how you're linked for a standard game studio it's amazing branding i mean you've got all of the characters you could use when i used to work at media tonic is here he's your

david_bloxham (23:44.86)
m

david_bloxham (23:58.9)
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

david_bloxham (24:07.06)
m

yeah

jake (24:11.32)
brandon guide lines are like wow there's really cool characters the colours are amazing can be really creative you really you're not held back as obviously corporate usual you have to be a little bit more careful so as a round about way but i think branding in the games industry can be really exciting beaus you're working with amazing content which is really cool

david_bloxham (24:14.04)
yeah

david_bloxham (24:22.12)
yeah yeah

david_bloxham (24:28.52)
yeah so you kind of think about those games and in how much they linked to those studios and how you can use that i think but i think what what's important to gino take there is when we talk about talent when we talk about you know we talked here about how to find solution how to run the process to make it good and now we're talking about v p this is the sort of thing that every talent solutions person should be thinking about every everyone that's thinking about talent

jake (24:32.42)
yeah

david_bloxham (24:58.78)
should be thinking about these things right it should be front and center in your mind like how do i make my company stand out from the rest of the companies

jake (25:08.6)
definitely it's so challenging because there's such a noisy space you're operating and especially if you're working i mean working on other industry as i've been and it was so challenging it was so difficult and you really had to focus on what was it that made a special what was it that made us unique challenge

david_bloxham (25:10.68)
so

yeah

david_bloxham (25:18.42)
yeah

david_bloxham (25:23.1)
yeah i think as well you get something on the kind of social media side as well as the social media and that sort of thing the reason why we're doing this podcast obviously to kind of you know you help people understand g c s and help people understand big as well

when you talk about noisy and i know for myself you see all the time you know other companies doing other things right so then you're looking to follow or do you follow because that's you know you know do you have a kind of a social kind of strategy yourself do you think about that is that something that's part of your remit

jake (25:53.08)
yeah

jake (26:00.4)
so i think a good one of our business units product madness so i worked there before i came into this sort of parent parent company i would definitely recommend looking at their social channels beause they've done an amazing job with that i think not just biased because because i was there but there the marketing team they have now there now if you go into any of their channels you'll really get a field for who product madness are and what they do it's a very authentic way of doing it a lot of it's taken live from employes that are there parties they have the socials but also just a normal day

david_bloxham (26:06.06)
yeah yeah

david_bloxham (26:11.68)
sure

david_bloxham (26:22.2)
m

jake (26:30.26)
the life and i think that that really works well and through linked in it will be may be a bit more professional but still have that real fun and an energy that they have and then maybe more towards careers but if you look on instagram you'll get a feel like you feel like you're in the office they've even start looking at tiktok now i'm a bit of a grandad with these things i'm always like tiktok why is anyone using that because personally i don't like it but for a lot of gaming brands it's essential it's a really important and a really good way a good tool to use but yeah i think

david_bloxham (26:48.14)
yeah

david_bloxham (26:51.54)
m

david_bloxham (26:57.46)
yeah

jake (27:01.06)
it's really important to have that plan so we're forming ours it picks up at the moment we're quite pic united at the moment the part of that process if you look at our social media content you'll really start to now get a feel for who we are but we're going to start that journey that's till a lot more to do and actually that's what building at the moment is that calendar for the rest of the year what events have we got coming up that we can share and how do we really show who we are because you going on a website people know you're going to put your best foot forward right on the webs like no one is going to put her come in you'll have a pretty good

david_bloxham (27:07.74)
yeah

david_bloxham (27:14.16)
m

david_bloxham (27:22.86)
m

david_bloxham (27:27.66)
m

jake (27:30.28)
and we're all right and you probably be quite happy like you know you're goin you're gonna put you know and i think people are aware of this as well yes yeah potentially right in a lot of places but i really feel we have a lot of really unique things to shout about but just putting it on a site and saying where this and the other proof is kind of in the pudding but having those sort of social channels to show what you're doing you can almost be like in the room with those people that that's quite powerful i think that that works really well

david_bloxham (27:31.06)
yeats all right like the truth basically

david_bloxham (27:47.86)
m

david_bloxham (27:56.76)
yeah and then i think another thing is obviously the interesting ways that people that look at the website people that kind of interact your social media and then for us it's like okay so that person is engaged now but they might not have done anything so now how am i going to reach out to this person has just had a look at my company and and then try to engage him because i think you know one of the things that when we talk about solutions people is the pro active nature of how pro active you have to

jake (28:11.7)
yep

jake (28:16.7)
yeah

david_bloxham (28:26.58)
about this i mean i think you've been a recruit men before this is one of the things that people discover to their chagrin about recruitment is that you actually have to go looking for it a lot nobody just calls you in with the job no candidate really applies you've got to go searching and i think that's one of the interesting things about social medes how do you turn that you like or view into engagement into a potential interview

jake (28:39.24)
yes

jake (28:55.06)
yeah it can it can also work really well for people that have kind of engaged or are about to be in process you've approached the first thing they often do go well look at our link let's have look at your webisotelet's have look at your social media so it can be that kind of good hook but yeah i like in what you're saying a lot of it is hooking its attraction right but through that attraction it's physically going out and speaking it's the outreach first to attract those people so actually attraction is not right

david_bloxham (29:07.46)
yeah yeah

david_bloxham (29:15.2)
yeah

jake (29:24.98)
an outreach almost but remember when i first set my first boss in recruitment when he interviewed me and he said you what do you think recruitment is and i was like oh it's you know people phone for a job and you're goin find one and he went no we have jobs you find the people for these jobs that's the recruitment cycle and i think that's that is the way it works a yeah i ah he was really good definitely kind of open ze to how how the space works but i think you'd be nicer to move to the car where we are attracting people when you have got

david_bloxham (29:36.4)
yeah

david_bloxham (29:42.48)
he sounds quite aggressive

jake (29:55.06)
that kind of natural draw that's where we all want to get to but that's that is the challenge

david_bloxham (29:58.74)
yeah and that's that's the goal as it were i'm just one of the things i was setting all to this is obviously picks the brands that works with the international do you see different countries different locations different cultures having different ways of advertising finding bringing in talent

jake (30:20.8)
yeah definitely every country is different and i think the way to understand the markets to speak to the people that work there so when we've built our teams in these regions you know we listen to them recruiters know the best way to find people because they want to it you want do it the quickest and easiest way you want to fill those roles so it's really important to listen to the people on the ground and to not just expect that there's one system there's one way and that's how we work you now we have an t s we use global we use workday and we have a

pretty set process that works globally which is great but there are nuances in different countries for example in crane like a football on day one you come into the office you've given your contract and you sign it on day one you know you don't see it before then and you sign that so when we were trying to have a process where the contract has to be signed before an employe can come in and be set up that didn't work and we had to flex because that's not how that that country works and that's important i think it's to be having a global process is great and it's good it means to you

david_bloxham (31:19.4)
m

jake (31:20.6)
and you know really look at where you're growing where your challenges are the data works but you've got to have flecx as well and that's what we've found you for example in poland where we're growing we're looking to grow permanent talent but in pont a lot of people don't want to be they want to have the sort of contract agreements so we had to flex in a way that we have these people on contract agreements but still are in permanent you know they hae full access they have all the benefits so that's i think from ourecritement is listening to the people on the ground and even sometimes some of these things can sound

far fetched that's trusting those people in trusting that's how that region works i think is having that sort of local knowledge is the most important thing and often actually reaching out to a company you know such as yourself that that's in that region and saying how asking those questions going to work really well as well but yeah it to speak to experts not think you can just google it even going to a kind of consultancy i think you're better off speak to recruitment professionals on the ground

david_bloxham (32:04.undefined)
yeah

david_bloxham (32:11.76)
m

david_bloxham (32:17.72)
yeah and i think you know guess that links into in some ways you know having the people internally or dealing with consultancies who mentioned workday you know there obviously do you have people running a workday for you or do you have an a or something like that you is that a conversation you're involved with or and if you are involved with it how do you make those tide type of decisions it's better to use a company to do this than have our own start

jake (32:37.44)
yeah

jake (32:43.5)
yes i suppose you with part of my role is looking at how we utilize worked there in the processes of that global as well but when we're looking at a new region i've been lucky to be a part of that process as well lucky to work in a business that trusts us to kind of find these locations and to trust that data also worked with an amazing strategy team that they've come up with data and insights that i've never seen before know usually before i've worked with great tools like

david_bloxham (32:58.64)
yeah

david_bloxham (33:02.9)
yeah it's good

jake (33:13.22)
linked in insight and linked in which is a fantastic toul for looking at like talent pals it really is it's great a lot of people like to be quite negative but i think it's a good tour but the insights this team have come up with a been incredible they really helped us make inform decisions about where we should go next what countries are right for us we want to grow globally so how do we do that where should we go next why should we go there nd it's more than just a talent pools and the costs you know some region you look and you go wow cheat talent big pool this

david_bloxham (33:14.58)
m yeah

david_bloxham (33:19.06)
m

jake (33:43.26)
looks amazing and then it's like it's actually really hard to do business there or there you know the communication skills are there for whatever reason or just that yeah you can't do business that you can't hire that you can't there's lots of so many things to think about and vice versa yo know there's some regions that look expensive but yet there are really big incentives to go and work there so that's kind of really helped us to have that more sort of data driven approach i suppose

david_bloxham (34:08.undefined)
yeah it's one thing i remember at poland was always made me laugh is we do quite a lot work in poland through our crack office and it seems to me to be and many companies is they must have a gym card this is something that they they really care about it as i really like to know you have to offer them a gym card of the polish people gym card because they won't take the job otherwise why yeah

jake (34:17.06)
m

david_bloxham (34:37.88)
come ave done and if we work with parosolutions provided you got to put the gym cut on there okay well make sure healthy nation if you know what i mean but that's i mean that's a silly example of the things that every single country does it differently and that's as mad when you think about it s like nobody and like we go to the states that every single state does it differently that nobody has the same idea about how to employ

jake (34:44.32)
was it

yes

jake (34:56.139)
yeah

david_bloxham (35:08.24)
permanent staff have to employ temporary staff how to work with workers it's all different isn't it

jake (35:16.22)
yeah exactly that i think sometimes to light linked in can give us this sort of false sense of kind of it's just the same i'll s my same process but you're right everything everywhere is different and it's really important to kind of listen and learn that way through the people that know it ll be there and they you know they work work in that market

david_bloxham (35:30.26)
yeah

david_bloxham (35:36.02)
yeah so you know looking forward to the kind of the year ahead was always going to be a big one for pickle united sounds like you got some interesting projects going on what are your key priorities

jake (35:49.88)
viostly it's the looking at the v p you know you mentioned that and the first example i gave you is through one of the business units so we need i want us to get together i want to be next you know we're talking again next year or you know whatever that i can really give a bit more of a concise answer around what what our employer brand is and what we're doing were through that we're working through that project now it's really exciting really interesting and actually we're learning a lot about ourselves and you know what are our values what is it that makes us unite

david_bloxham (36:09.32)
yeah

jake (36:19.78)
what is it that's that you know why we think people should work in why we enjoy working here and what's great you know we've we've done a lot of interviews with employees and taken feed back from them and it's that feed but that we're using to power the brand we wanted to be authentic you know it's all very well as coming up with this will sound good but it has to be authentic and that's something that we've really really pushed on so i'm really excited for that for me after that it's really looking at how we worked together as a global organization i want

to look more at the future talent piece as well i wanted to be a gaming studio that goes beyond just demanding the same sort of requirements everyone has to go to excise university through these same channels i want to broaden what we do i think that's really important as we grow so this future talent piece is important for me i've been looking at building an academy pico united academy and i hope that's something that we get to to kind of put into place in a really near future and i think that could that could really set us apart

from our competitors

david_bloxham (37:21.1)
that goes with the kind of a football kind of team name in the academy you know that because i can see some good some good branding coming out at you know vesticalemies and do you think that will feed into diversity question that we talked about the top of the conversation

jake (37:24.88)
exactly right you're starting the academy exactly

jake (37:39.12)
yes definitely because if we're if s an industry we're demanding certain things and we're only fishing in the same pauls the paul is not diverse so uk are an organization in the ukthere games body the fantastic organization that brings the games industry together and they ran a survey in the industry and the outcomes are quite alarming really one of those being the diversity make up of the games industry only two percent of people are black in the games industry so as though we're in

david_bloxham (37:41.14)
yes

david_bloxham (37:50.46)
m

david_bloxham (37:57.66)
m

jake (38:09.28)
like to scream and not scream ache but we like to be quite vocal but you know's a really die firs place to work that's just not true and we're diverse in certain ways but not in others and that's not etough so we can keep fishing in these same pauls and demanding these same things and then we'll get the same results finely enough yeah sure we can put quotes on to our hiring but the paul isn't there so we won't hire a skew our hiring that and i don't believe that's the way to do it i think we need to be more brave than that i think we need to work harder than that

david_bloxham (38:14.12)
yeah

david_bloxham (38:25.74)
yeah

jake (38:38.92)
look at future talent bring people in from other spaces other industries other ways of thought do we have to have everyone coming in with a degree i think again a good example be with our quality insurance team we had in one of the companies i was at we had a director that said i only want people with degrees that work here but then had a cousin who needed a job who didn't have a degree actually you know worked in like a theme park came in and is probably one of the best people they had at that business they came in and apt

david_bloxham (38:43.96)
m

david_bloxham (39:02.6)
m

david_bloxham (39:08.undefined)
it's amazing

jake (39:08.92)
so lutely smashed out of the part worked really really hard and then then finally i could sit with them and say right we're going to get rid of that degree by now let's let's do things differently and i think we can do that i think we could be more brave than people think with the space that we have so for me that's that is the way that we should move forward to actually try and solve the problem we have with diversity because it is a problem and just sort of talking about it writing job specks in a slightly different way and doing the odd prevent

david_bloxham (39:12.16)
m

david_bloxham (39:16.5)
oh

jake (39:39.04)
and here and there isn't going to do it so that's where i want to push us i want to actually make a difference and actually make a change

david_bloxham (39:40.86)
yeah

david_bloxham (39:44.6)
and again going back to p that's the sort of thing that reflects well that shows you different type of organization so it has a kind of wider context and i guess when we're talking about the gaming industry by diversifying the people within it that also diversifies types of games different types of ideas coming in you know and that can only be good for the game industry right because you know what

jake (39:50.98)
yeah

jake (40:03.8)
exactly

totally yeah i mean it's you know you don't have to go very far back where every main character in every game looks the same and every sort you know you don't have to go very far back ere getting better but you're right the more diverse the space we work in the more diversity

david_bloxham (40:14.86)
m

yeah

david_bloxham (40:21.02)
street fighter street fight was quite diverse there's quite a lot of different people in street well because they all came from different countries didn't they you know

jake (40:24.82)
that was early early early nineties you know that i think a lot of yeah a lot of games still so they were for that's why they gone with the map idea that was the problem but i think yeah that's that's really and we'll get there that's that's that's why i think it's so important

david_bloxham (40:43.56)
yeah and i think you know for myself you know you can see it happening in other creative industries can't you you know when you look at the gaming like it's like the film industry it's like the music industry and obvious you've seen so much with things like the grammes and the brats and you know so much kind of you know trying to make these things more diverse i guess because the people in it are less visible straight away you don't see that you see those games you don't really know who those people are but i think you

jake (40:49.94)
yep

yep

jake (41:05.66)
yeah

david_bloxham (41:13.38)
got to look at it in the same way who's producing this content that we enjoy you know and is it is it a diverse reflection of our society so yeah i guess you've got to as well as kind of hire and you build your business you've also got a kind of social duty haven't you jake

jake (41:30.82)
i think so yeah in gaming we should definitely see it as that

david_bloxham (41:34.22)
yeah stuff so it's been great to speak to you today been really enjoyable conversation now and definitely it sounds like you've got a really important year coming up you know lots of solutions to come up with but thank you very much and it's been a great conversation

jake (41:53.72)
no thank you i really appreciate the time it was a really great speaking with you