“Our collaboration with Kamu began back in 2015. Kamu’s challenge was to find software developers that specialized in gaming technologies and hacking. Besides having exceptional tech skills, future colleagues were expected to share the team’s love for video games. We at aTalent were assigned to reach and recruit these top gamer-coder talents in the market”, tells Niklas Huotari, CEO of aTalent.

With aTalent’s help, Kamu grew from a five-employee team into a global market leader of 28 employees providing services to the biggest game development companies globally. Thanks to the rapid growth, Kamu was acquired by a globally renowned gaming company in 2018.

With their solid experience, aTalent shared the 7 steps to master tech recruiting: 

1. Recruit early enough

Recruitment is a common bottleneck for startups’ growth, and hence recruiting early enough is a way to ensure the capability to live up to the growth potential.

2. Be flexible on requirements

Re-consider your requirements for the candidate: demanding a 5-year experience from a certain stack can be unreasonably narrowing – a candidate with less experience or experience from a similar stack could be as potential when accompanied with a capability to learn fast.

Instead, consider the entirety of skill-sets: how has the applicant demonstrated their capability to jump into new and learn, can the applicant bring new ideas from the previous tech stack they’ve used? Could a more senior employee mentor the newcomer for the first months?

3. Maintain a first-class candidate experience

How you treat your potential employees tells a message of how you treat your employees. In the fuzz of the process, it’s easy to forget the candidates’ perspective: Complex recruitment processes, unclear communication, and delays in decision-making are common ways to drive the most potential talents away – especially in a job market with plenty of choice.

A company that proactively asks for candidate’s preferences, values and opinions gives a positive impression, as well as a well-articulated job announcement and a fast-paced and convenient recruitment process.

4. Junior can beat senior

It’s easy to make the conclusion that an experienced senior employee jumps into productive work right away with less time and resources needed for the comprehensive onboarding. However, consider how much resources can be wasted in the long recruiting process for that senior tech talent – eventually often declining the offer because of salary and other expectations not meeting with the offer.

“A junior tech employee can make a committed, long-term hire who adopts from the beginning the culture and tools of the company, and brings new fresh ideas into the table”, says Niklas Huotari, CEO at aTalent.

5. Expand your language requirements

“It’s too much effort to change the operating language for one person”

Think again. With a more and more globally moving workforce, growing possibilities for remote work, and many non-Finnish speaking talents in Finland, it’s worth reconsidering your language requirements. “Especially in IT and tech, the substance and documentation of the work is often in English, so speaking Finnish is seldom critical”, points Huotari. 

6. Raise awareness with employer branding

“During our long-standing partnership, we at aTalent helped Kamu jazz up their employer brand in a number of ways. We set out to raise awareness about Kamu within their desired target audience, to create meaningful interactions with potential candidates, and to empower their recruitment campaigns”, says Niklas Huotari. 

This included participation in hackathons to get to know potential candidates through short-term projects. aTalent supported Kamu for instance with participation in the largest hackathon event in Europe -Junction – by helping to evaluate and scout the best candidates during the event.

7. Focus on growing the company  – consider a recruiting partner!

Creating a recruiting strategy, handling the recruitment process, and maintaining a first-class candidate experience requires a lot of time and effort. aTalent’s Search & Hire services were the best solution to founders of Kamu who wanted to focus their energy and resources on the daily tasks of managing and growing their company.

In Search & Hire, the recruitment process is clear and efficient, and it outsources the majority of the tasks to aTalent. The candidate is hired to the company payroll, which makes the talent’s integration into the team and the job at hand as smooth as possible.

“Openness and honesty became the backbone of our partnership right from the get-go. Kamu trusted our ability to recognize the ideal qualities, skill sets and levels in candidates that would help them succeed in their roles at the company. During our collaboration, aTalent found 16 new talents for Kamu”, tells Huotari. 

aTalent helped Kamu find the best talents for the following roles:

  • Sales Manager
  • C++ Anti-Cheat & Support Tools Engineer
  • Game Integration Engineer
  • Backend Developer
  • Java Developer
  • Junior Game Security Engineer
  • Software Engineer
  • Project Manager
  • Web UI Developer
  • Cheat Analyst Trainee

More information: 

Niklas Huotari
CEO, aTalent
niklas.huotari@atalent.fi
+358 40 531 0254

Tuuli Saukkonen
Communications Strategist, FiBAN
tuuli.saukkonen@fiban.org