Recruiter Hotseat – Silja Bernecker, Team Lead for Talent Acquisition Management at InnoGames

Silja Bernecker, Team Lead for Talent Acquisition Management at InnoGames, talks about the benefits of open information sharing, and how it is an essential part of what they do.

What differentiates your studio from other developers?

Unsurprisingly, it’s a combination of factors that makes us different. Firstly, we foster open information sharing. We have shared our salary bands both internally and externally, and our employees can look up at any time how our company and our games are performing. Secondly, we are fully focused on developing F2P games for mobile and browser that captivate players for decades. Thirdly, we are a very values-driven company. Our values are anchored in all our processes. Our management regularly challenges them, and our employees are encouraged to question decisions within the framework they provide. 

What should aspiring devs do with their CV to get an interview?

Nothing special, really. We are happy with CVs that are concise, well-structured, and list the skills, experiences and achievements that are relevant to the desired role. As a data-driven company, we particularly appreciate it when those achievements are measurable. Throughout the application  process, our focus is on evaluating the cultural and team fit and passion of the applicant. That’s because, in our experience, hard skills can almost always be learned on the job. If there is something that makes him or her unique somehow, we’d love to read about that, too, of course.

What advice would you give for a successful interview at your studios?

Our recruiting motto is ‘come as you are’. We don’t want to change you. We want to get to know you, learn about what drives you, your passions, and what you want to achieve in your professional  life – ideally together with us. Hence, the best advice we can give is to be open and honest throughout the interview process. If you pretend to be someone you are not, we can’t trust you to join our team. That said, interviews at InnoGames are not one-way streets. We want to meet on an equal footing and give you an honest-to-goodness opportunity to get to know us as well.

What perks are available to working at your studios?

Aside from some of the highest salaries in the German gaming industry, we offer flexible working hours and a hybrid working model, which means that – within limits – our employees can choose to work from our modern offices in central Hamburg or from home. We have decided against going fully remote because we feel that we’d lose too much of our team spirit. We are firm believers in lifelong learning, and have created our in-house training platform – the “InnoVersity”. In the first half of 2023 alone, it offered 27 courses aimed at levelling up skills and know-how across various levels and disciplines. They are free of charge and participation is considered work. We also  offer various other perks, such as a fully paid-for 2-months sabbatical after five years and full assistance in the relocation process. To ensure that German language skills won’t be a dealbreaker, we introduced English as our company language years ago.

What is the culture like at your studio?

It’s characterised by openness, fairness and transparency. It is an essential source of creativity and innovation for InnoGames. With over 350 employees from over 40 nations, we never run out of fresh impulses. Meanwhile, fairness and transparency are among the first things potential applicants will encounter upon familiarising themselves with InnoGames given that our job vacancies carry reliable salary information, provided a salary band exists for the position in question. All in all, our company is full of passionate and knowledgeable people who are open minded, supportive, always interested in exchanging ideas or knowledge, and who enjoy celebrating together.