Major League Gaming’s Providence Tournament marks the end of a phenomenal 2011 season, and they’re doing it in style. With a $120,000 prize pool, 16 top Koreans flying over to compete, nobody can deny that eSports is happening now. It’s unbelievable how much Starcraft 2 has grown over the last year.

And it’s happening here at Storm8. We’re huge fans of eSports and even our engineering manager, Justin Ng, couldn’t hold back his enthusiasm when being interviewed in an article [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904070604576516462736084234.html] in the Wall Street Journal published earlier this year about eSports being watched in bars across the country.

We asked him and a couple of our employees for their predictions:

Arnaud Dazin: “Although I’d love to see a Terran take MLG, this is a tough time for Terran players. Protoss players have been really strong lately, and with the lopsided patches that favor Protoss in the matchup (both the decreased upgrade cost to Protoss and the Ghost EMP decrease) they’re pretty much unbeatable right now. Zergs are having a tough time and I don’t think that’s going to be any different for MLG. Based off of the incredible performance put up in the Global Finals, I’d pick Naniwa as the winner of MLG because of his skill and the general advantage Protoss has this time around.”

Steven Johnson: “EG.HuK is going to take the whole thing - he’s the best foreign player and the defending champ of MLG Orlando. His control is sick and as the second seed he won’t have to go through the ringer that some of the top-tier players in the open bracket have to look forward to. Also, I play Protoss so I’m a bit of a fanboy.”

Justin Ng: “BOXER!!!!!!!”

Will EGIdra make foreigners proud or GG early? Will Slayers`Boxer retake his throne or continue his slump? Will IMNestea and IMMVP continue to dominate the tournament scene or will an up-and-comer like FXOOz or Puzzle show their potential? Will fan favorite MarineKingPrime make second place yet again, continuing the kong line?

We’re going to be there, glued all weekend to the most exciting event of the year!

Shucks…we’re all grownz up!

Our second “pimp your desk” competition is now over, alas I did not win. The lucky winner and new iPad2 owner belongs to our new UI designer, Susan Jeng - the mastermind behind the Totoro desk. In retrospect I wish I had constructed a large scale model of the Golden Gate Bridge from one side of my desk to the other. C’est la vie.

Things are heating up as we draw closer towards the end of the year. It’s amazing to see how much growth has taken place in the last 3 months. We’ve gone from ~40 people when I started to over 70+ to date. We’re looking to close out the year in triple figures. We are hiring across the board from artist, engineers, producers, and more. Check out our openings at www.storm8.com/jobs, or check out our company blog at http://blog.storm8.com/

Happy Halloween!

Last Friday was the engineering offsite at D&B. Alcohol and video games are a wonderful combination. :)

We started off the festivities with a team scavenger hunt which our team finished first, yet we somehow lost the overall competition because someone decided that a democracy was in order and we couldn’t get the votes of our colleagues. I’m typically not one for conspiracy theories but I truly believe it was because our “ticket flower” pictured above was deemed the best “ticket flower” ever constructed in the history of all D&B scavenger hunts according to our 5 year veteran D&B event hostess. Props to our newest employee Anna for creating such a wonderful masterpiece!

I also got to channel my inner “Fast and the Furious” in the Daytona Racing game taking three consecutive 1st place ranking against some of my colleagues. To be fair I’ve had years of practice with my Honda Civic so clearly I had the advantage. ;)

Once again another excellent Storm8 event overall. Good food, good drinks, good games, and most importantly good company. Big thanks to J & L for organizing the event!

ABC = Always Be Closing Company-conscience

Recruiting is often compared to sales and for good reason. We drive revenue through talent acquisition, develop and execute recruitment strategies based on hiring needs, build strong personal relationships with our hiring managers, peers, prospects and leads, and most importantly we find, manage, and close deals. Employment deals to be exact.

One thing I was told early on in my in-house recruiting career was to “Always Be Closing”, better known as the “ABC” of sales (see video above but be warned that explicit language is used). After all, if a recruiter can’t close then they aren’t doing their job finding and acquiring top talent for their organization. While closing candidates is imperative to recruiting, being company-conscience is just as important, even if it means not closing.

The truth is that not everyone is going to be a great fit for Storm8 and we have to be okay with that, even if it means letting a strong technical candidate go. While our requirements for our engineers are high, we cannot compromise our standards for passion and drive which are equally important. As an in-house tech recruiter in silicon valley where there is currently a war for talent, it is always difficult to let a strong technical candidate go, but if they don’t believe in the company, have only selfish ambition, lack passion, or motivation then you have to do what’s best for the organization and cut the cord. After all, the last thing you want is a Debbie Downer or a nay sayer infecting the organization with bad juju. Storm8 is a place where every individual makes a significant impact on the organization. We are working cohesively to take this company to the next level. We want people who want to help us achieve our unified goal of global dominance in the mobile social gaming market. Personal ambition is a great thing to have, but doing what’s best for the company before doing what’s best for yourself is more important.

On the flip side Storm8 isn’t always going to be a great fit for every candidate, and again we have to be okay with that. We are a start up company where things move very quickly, the level of ownership and expectation runs higher for each employee, and people are expected to hit the ground running with minimal hand holding. Not to mention we have a very flat organization without titles, our culture is very open and collaborative, and we get a lot of company wide emails showing off adorable pictures of employee dogs. This may not be the type of work environment for everyone, particularly if you dislike emails with adorable pictures of employee dogs, and once again we have to do what’s best for the organization and cut the chord. Similarly if a candidate isn’t comfortable with the culture, environment, or isn’t interested in the type of work they’d actually be doing at your company then you shouldn’t spend a great amount of time trying to convince them otherwise. Granted, some people need that extra push, but you should use your own discernment when to pull back. Here at Storm8 we are changing the way the world plays games on mobile devices, and we are completely disrupting the video game industry as we know it. It’s a fun and exciting field to be in, but it may not be for everyone. We are not selling a product afterall. We are selling an opportunity that could potentially change their lives, or at the very least impact it for several years.

Yes, recruiting is very similar to sales but it is not the same. In sales you do whatever it takes to close the deal. In recruiting (in-house) you should do whatever is best for the company, and sometimes that means you shouldn’t Always Be Closing.

Another Storm8 sighting…

storm8:

Why, what’s that logo behind Mark Zuckerberg at the F8 2011 keynote? ;)

Storm8 used to be a safe place to work….

We live in a world obsessed with data. If you run a search on the word “data” on Techcrunch you will find the following articles written in the last 13 days alone:

“Sprint to offer unlimited DATA for iPhone, but will it last…”
“Google now lets your export google voice DATA…”
“Local business DATA provider Locu raises seed round…”
“Linkedin takes a deep DATA dive on startup founder profiles…”
“Microsoft sued for collecting WP7 Location DATA without consent…”
“A deeper look at Blackbox’s DATA on startup failure and its top…”

Every legitimate technology company out there is driven by data, but what does that look like from a recruiting perspective? One of the most popular recruitment tools out there is Linkedin Recruiter, and what I like most about this product is the reporting capabilities. Here are some very interesting numbers we pulled from Linkedin during my first 3 weeks at Storm8:

profiles viewed: 1336
inmails sent: 404
inmails accepted: 19
inmails declined 6
response rate: 5%

There are a couple of things that these numbers reveal. 1) My search is too broad. If I’m looking at 1336 profiles but I’m only contacting 404 people that means my search accuracy is running at about 30%. I need to refine my search so that I’m not looking at as many profiles that aren’t a match. 2) My inmail acceptance rate is low, which means I need to tweak my message to have a better return rate of interest from candidates. Selling the company is easy because I believe whole heartedly that Storm8 is a rocket ship waiting to take off, and that there is a tremendous opportunity for growth and impact in this organization. On the other hand capturing the interest of a passive candidate within a condensed paragraph via inmail is pretty tough. Tough, but not impossible. 3) We probably need to hire an additional technical recruiter (or highly skilled sourcer) if we want to triple in size within 6 months. :)

We are collecting this type of data from our ATS as well, which will hopefully reveal which sources have the best ROI, where the bottlenecks are forming, and provide other insights to the overall flow of our pipeline. If you are serious about recruiting and you’re not collecting data on your candidate pipeline then you are wasting some valuable information! Like the picture says, Data is AWESOME!

My pimped out desk. :)