recruitment

Hutch Recruitment FAQs

Posted on 14 June 2021

The Covid-19 situation has had a huge effect on how we work at Hutch, but fortunately it hasn’t affected our growth! We’re currently hiring for more roles than ever before. So, for those applying or considering a role at Hutch, here’s everything you need to know…

What should I expect from the recruitment process?

We try to make the process at Hutch as lean as possible, whilst still allowing you to meet as many people as you can. We’re really conscious that in normal circumstances you would visit the studio, have a coffee and a chat, so we try and replicate these moments as well as we can remotely.

During an interview, we want to find out if you’re a good fit for the role, but we also want to help you discover if the job, company and people are right for you. To help with that you’ll get to meet a whole bunch of people from across the studio, and find out all about our work culture and the team you’d be working with.

Once we’ve received your application, if we think you’d potentially be a good fit for the role, the next steps in the process will be:

• Initial call with someone from the recruitment team – We’ll tell you more about Hutch and the role, and gather more information about your skills and experience. We can also cover working practices, benefits and anything you’d like to know!

• First interview - This is a call with the hiring manager – usually this person will also be your prospective manager, so it’s a great chance to get to know them a little better. This interview will be a deeper dive into your background and the role.

• Second interview – This usually involves 2-3 people and is the most in-depth interview. If you’re a programmer, it might include technical questions, or if you’re an artist, you might be discussing your Unity knowledge, for example. Even though it’s more in-depth in terms of your expertise, it’s also a really good opportunity to get an insight into Hutch and meet some of your potential peers. You can find out the technical details of how we work and see if this aligns with your values and expectations.

• Final interview – This is a more informal interview with a few people in the studio. It gives you the chance to chat to some other team members or people you might be working with.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected working practices? Will I be working from home?

At Hutch we’ve always had a hybrid work from home and office split. We previously worked from home for 2 days per week. We made this decision to provide our employees with a level of flexibility. Work / life balance and mental health is incredibly important to us and we felt offering flexibility around physical location and some flexibility around core hours would really help people who wanted some time at home each week.

This meant that we were easily able to switch to working from home full-time when the pandemic hit. At the time of writing the majority of Hutch staff are still doing this. Going forwards, we will definitely always offer 2 days working from home and it’s likely that we’ll be offering even more flexibility. This is something we can update on you during the recruitment process.  

Our main aim is to make sure people are happy and healthy. But when it’s safe to do so, we’ll be returning to our amazing offices in Shoreditch, Mahone Bay and Dundee. Take a tour of the London office in the video below to get a feel for our working spaces!

What are some of the benefits at Hutch?

Ensuring that Hutch is an amazing place to work is really important to us. And we were super proud to receive a Best Place to Work award from gamesindustry.biz in 2020, which took into account our working practices and benefits.

Our current benefits include:

Mental Health coaching – We offer bi-weekly coaching sessions to ensure the team have support if and when they need it.

Private medical insurance – We offer medical insurance, plus access to remote GPs.

Enhanced Maternity/Paternity – We want to support people if they wish to have a family, therefore we offer an enhanced package (more than the minimum government allowance), so you can enjoy more time off with your family.

Performance Bonus – Everyone at Hutch is eligible for an annual bonus based on the company’s performance. We want our employees to share in our success. This is trending upwards year on year and offers a great annual payment.

Game Jams and Personal Project Days – We have regular studio game jams (one of our current games came from a game jam) and Personal Project Days, where every 2 weeks you can spend the day working on a personal project, to enhance your skills and develop in an area that’s important to you.

How do people stay connected working from home?

There’s no doubt that working from home for a year has been tough for some of us (while others have loved the change!). But whether it’s during the pandemic or when we’re doing our usual 2 days a week working from home, there’s lots of things we do to make sure we all stay connected.

We’re a company that truly believes in transparency, so we have a weekly all-hands company meeting, where we discuss anything and everything. This includes the leadership team answering anonymous questions from staff.

We have weekly team meetings that everyone can attend such as the numbers weekly and the marketing weekly. We also have game demos from all of our games and leadership coffee mornings. Everything we do is transparent so you know exactly what is happening across the studio and can learn more about the rest of the business.

We also host social events online. In the past we’ve had murder mysteries, quizzes, escape rooms, life drawing, photography classes and cooking classes.

That’s all for now! Good luck if you’ve applied for a job here at Hutch. We look forward to working with some of you in the future.

Check out our current vacancies here: https://www.hutch.io/careers/