The Most Undercelebrated Hiring Practices in 2026

There is a lot of conversation in the industry about what studios are doing wrong when it comes to hiring. The processes that drag on too long, the tests that ask too much, the silence that follows a promising interview. That conversation is worth having and we have contributed to it ourselves. But there is another side to it that does not get nearly enough attention, which is what the studios doing it well are actually doing differently. The gap between a frustrating hiring experience and a genuinely good one is rarely about resources or budget. It is almost always about intention and organisation.

As agency recruiters working across a wide range of studios and disciplines, we get a clear view of what separates the processes that produce great outcomes from the ones that stall, frustrate and ultimately lose good people. The practices below are not complicated.

They do not require significant investment or a complete overhaul of how a studio hires. They are the quiet, consistent habits that the best hiring teams have built into how they operate, and they make a difference that candidates notice and remember.

The Update Thread

This one sounds almost too simple to be worth mentioning, and that is exactly why it so rarely happens. Keeping candidates updated throughout a hiring process, even when there is nothing significant to report, is one of the most effective things a studio can do for its reputation and for the quality of its outcomes. Far too often candidates find themselves sitting in limbo for weeks, sometimes months, with no feedback, no timeline and no sense of where they stand. That silence is not neutral. It erodes confidence, reduces engagement and in many cases leads to a strong candidate accepting something else simply because another studio made them feel like a priority.

The update does not need to be detailed or time consuming. A short, direct email letting someone know the process is still moving, that a decision is still being made, or that there has been an internal delay takes five minutes and makes an enormous difference to how a candidate feels about the studio.

Nine times out of ten the simple act of making that effort is enough. It signals that the candidate is valued, that the process is being managed thoughtfully, and that the studio is worth waiting for. The studios that do this consistently are the ones candidates speak positively about regardless of outcome, and in an industry as connected as games, that reputation travels further than most people realise.

Realistic Test Times and Instructions

Tests have become an increasingly standard part of hiring processes, particularly across marketing and art focused roles, and for the most part that makes sense. A well designed test gives the studio a genuine look at how a candidate thinks and works, and gives the candidate a chance to demonstrate something that a CV alone cannot show. The problem is not the tests themselves. It is how they are often structured and communicated.

A test should be completable in a candidate's own time without requiring them to put the rest of their life on hold. If completing a task properly requires a full week of evenings on top of an already demanding working week, the ask has gone too far, and the candidates most likely to walk away from it are often the ones with the most options. Alongside the time issue, unclear briefs consistently produce weaker results.

When a studio is specific about what it wants to see, what skills it is assessing and what a strong submission looks like, candidates are far better positioned to showcase their actual ability. Vague instructions produce vague responses. Clear instructions produce work that genuinely reflects what someone can do, which is the whole point of the test in the first place.

Pre-Organised Interview Funnels

This one is particularly noticeable with larger studios, where the size and complexity of the organisation can make internal alignment harder to achieve. What we see regularly is hiring managers who are unclear about who their candidates will be speaking to at each stage, what those conversations are designed to assess, and how the overall process is structured from start to finish. That lack of clarity creates delays, inconsistency and a candidate experience that feels disjointed even when the individual people involved are excellent.

The solution is to have the process agreed and confirmed before the job advertisement ever goes live. Who is involved at each stage, what each conversation is there to assess, and what the realistic timeline looks like from application to offer. When we work with a studio that has this mapped out in advance, the difference in how the process runs is immediate and consistent.

Candidates move through more quickly, feedback is clearer, decisions are made faster, and the overall impression left is one of a studio that knows what it is doing. It is one of the simplest structural changes a hiring team can make and one of the highest impact ones.

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The common thread across all three of these practices is respect. Respect for a candidate's time, their effort and their experience of the process. That might sound like a soft consideration alongside the practical business of finding the right hire, but it is anything but.

The studios that treat their hiring process as an extension of their culture, and as a two way exchange rather than a one sided assessment, are the ones that consistently attract stronger candidates, move faster and make better hires. None of the above requires a revolution. It just requires a little more thought before the process begins.