23 rare design roles in 2 months
Art Directors, 2D/3D artists and UX/UI designers for four fully remote design teams, hired during the holiday season.
23roles
Rare design roles across four fully remote teams.
2months
From kick-off to four complete, onboarded teams, over the holiday season.
Client
A gaming studio that needed to build four design teams from the ground up.
The challenge
The roles were among the hardest to fill in games: Art Directors, 2D/3D artists and UX/UI designers, where strong candidates are rarely on the market. All 23 hires had to land within two months, over the holiday season, and every team was fully remote, so each hire had to work well without an office around them. And each team needed people who complemented each other, not 23 separate hires.
What we did
- Designed each team before searching.With the client, we defined how roles in each of the four teams fit together, then wrote a candidate profile per role.
- Had a designer review every portfolio.Recruiters can't judge an Art Director's work, so our in-house design specialist reviewed every portfolio before it reached the client. The client only saw candidates whose craft had already been checked by a practitioner.
- Scored values on real behaviour.Ownership, communication and learning were assessed on how each candidate acted in real situations, not on what they said about themselves. For fully remote teams, this mattered as much as craft.
- Ran a fixed weekly rhythm with the client.Fast shortlists and feedback kept all four teams moving in parallel.
Two checks before the client saw anyone
For fully remote teams, how a person works mattered as much as the craft.
The result
- 23 rare design roles filled, with an average of 16 days to hire.
- Four complete remote design teams hired and onboarded within 2 months, despite the holiday season.
Need to build a specialized team fast?
Book a 30-minute team design session