Six Hiring Mistakes Most Companies Make
You get more done with three people who fit together than with a fourth who doesn’t belong.
Patrick Lencioni, The Ideal Team Player
The gaming industry is going through a period of massive change. Layoffs are sweeping across companies of all sizes, budgets are tightening, and hiring managers are under more pressure than ever to get things right.
With fewer open roles and more talent on the market, you’d think hiring would be easier. It’s not. The high stakes mean that hiring mistakes have never been costlier.
When I first became a hiring manager, I focused purely on technical ability. I hired a person if they could do the job better than other candidates. It took me years—and some painful lessons—to realize that skill alone isn’t enough.
Here are the six biggest hiring mistakes I’ve been guilty of myself - continue to see other companies make.
1. Hiring Friends
Most studios in the world start the hiring process by going through the network of their team. There’s a danger in that.
I was once leading a studio that parted ways with six out of the last eight hires. That’s not a stat any of us was proud of. So we dug deep into what was going wrong and how we could correct it.
The reason? We didn’t follow our hiring process.
We hired friends of our existing employees, assuming they’d be a seamless fit. Unfortunately in our case, that meant we didn’t conduct proper interviews, didn’t test the candidates, and didn’t even align internally on the job description. After all, we were bringing in "known commodities."
Hiring friends works—but only when they go through the exact same process as everyone else. Don’t skip the hiring process. In my experience, you’ll be only setting up your recruits for failure.
2. Not Testing for Cultural Fit
After we got back to following a structured hiring process, our issues eased—but not entirely. Turns out, we were over-indexing on resumes and technical tests. We focused on what candidates could deliver, not how they preferred to work as a part of a team. A bit of an over-correction, you might say.
That’s when we introduced a structured approach to assessing cultural fit. We defined the traits we wanted in team members and tested them during interviews.
As an example, one of the traits we screened for was “hunger”. We asked questions like:
"What do you like to do when you’re not working?"
"What’s the hardest you’ve ever worked for something in your life?"
"What kind of hours do you like to work?"
We looked for answers that demonstrated self-motivation and a willingness to go above and beyond when necessary. In practice, we looked for artists who loved to draw outside office hours and programmers who had a history of self-taught and demo scenes.
At the same time, we watched for red flags—people who bulldozed over others or lacked self-awareness.
While cultural tests are by no means fail-proof, they do help the team to align on what they expect from each other and their co-workers. These questions also made the interview process much more interesting for the candidates.
3. Rushing Through the Hiring Process
In an ideal world, hiring follows a carefully planned roadmap. In reality, hiring usually happens when a team is already struggling with missing talent.;
When you’re desperate to fill a role, it’s tempting to cut corners. However, hiring the wrong person costs more than leaving a position open a little longer.
If you’re in a hiring crunch, don’t compromise the process—streamline it.
The best ways to speed up the hiring process are to prioritize hiring activities for all hiring managers, fast-track interview scheduling, and ensure tests are evaluated promptly. Don’t do what I did. Expedite, instead of cutting corners.
4. Crawling Through the Hiring Process
At larger studios, the opposite problem often arises: hiring takes forever.
Big teams mean lots of meetings, and nearly all meetings require hiring managers' attention. Scheduling interviews, debriefs, and test evaluations becomes a logistical nightmare. As a result, candidates drop out—or get snatched up by faster-moving competitors.
The best way to prevent this? Work closely with recruiters who truly understand the kind of candidates you need and who are not afraid to pester hiring managers when needed. A great recruiter keeps candidates engaged, moves things forward, and ensures the process doesn’t grind to a halt.
Good recruiters also push things internally by getting the hiring managers excited about the candidates - and reminding them to complete the next step of the hiring process.
5. Overlooking References
Reference checks usually happen at the final stage, just before the offer goes out. By then, hiring managers have already made up their minds.
Sometimes, references don’t quite match the story a candidate told. They might describe a different reason for leaving prior workplaces or hint at a problematic working style.
Most of us have bad experiences with certain workplaces. Different working cultures mean that some people excel at one company and can disappoint at another one. But if a reference check raises concerns, don’t dismiss them outright by citing different cultures. Discuss your concerns openly with the candidate and mitigate the potential risks.
I’ve ignored red flags in reference checks before, and every time, it turned out to be a mistake.
6. Misalignment Among Leadership
Not being aligned on what kind of people you want—or even on basic reporting structures—is a disaster waiting to happen.
Surprisingly, I’ve seen this happen even in well-established and well-led companies. But it’s especially a risk when the leadership team is relatively new, very senior, and full of strong personalities who all have their way of doing things.
It’s the job of the head of the studio or CEO to iron out these misalignments before hiring begins. Otherwise, you risk creating bigger problems down the road—problems that go far beyond just retention issues.
Get the Right People on the Bus
Hiring is the single most important thing a leader does. Get it right, and your team thrives. Get it wrong, and you’ll spend more time fixing problems than building great products.
The current job market is brutal, but that doesn’t mean hiring should be. Stick to your process. Align internally. Move quickly, but don’t rush. Most importantly, remember that hiring isn’t just about finding the most qualified person—it’s about finding the right person for your team.
Because at the end of the day, a small, aligned team will always outperform a larger, dysfunctional one.
To learn more about recruitment, and to get a different perspective from a true master of the craft, check our podcast The Art of Hiring and Getting Hired with Jordan Mazer, Talent Partner of A16Z Games and former Talent Leader at Riot and Scopley.
Special thanks to Joe Burridge, Play Ventures’ Talent Partner for providing feedback on this write-up. Check out his excellent podcast, The Talent Game.
