HitmarkerJobs is the leading job platform in the esports space, featuring jobs from all parts of esports. On the HitmarkerJobs website, you can find job postings ranging from small esports organizations to some of the biggest companies, such as Riot Games and Epic Games. Recently we got the opportunity to interview Cam Brierley, Content Lead at Hitmarker, about the behind-the-scenes of this fast-growing company.



Daily Esports: Could you introduce yourself and explain what exactly you do for Hitmarker?

Cam Brierley, Hitmarker: Sure! My name’s Cam Brierley, and I’m the Content Lead at Hitmarker. What that means is that I run our social media channels, the maintenance of the website (so, the jobs we post and the additional content we have on the site) as well as working on the growth and marketing of the website.

We’re a small team, so we all work on a variety of things. I also communicate with the companies posting on our platform, work on outreach to improve how we monetize the website, and give advice to anyone reaching out to us over emails or social media on how to enter esports. So it’s busy, but we have such a great team that we always see progress coming from somewhere, and everyone goes above and beyond to help the site grow!

Applying for a job on HitmarkerJobs

What is the most common mistake you see from users when they apply for a job on the platform?

We provide application audits to people who reach out to us if they need one, so we definitely have some things to say here. I’ll just write some of the key points down.

1) Not tailoring an application to a specific job. When you see enough cover letters, it becomes blatantly obvious if someone has just copy-and-pasted the cover letter they sent to the last job and just changed the company name to make it seem unique. If a hiring manager is facing 100+ applications for a job, which is not uncommon, they can afford to be as picky as they like with applications. A cover letter full of vague “I’m a hardworking, enthusiastic…” references aren’t going to be nearly as enticing to read as one that brings up points relevant to the company you’re applying with.

Here’s an example. If you’re applying for Cloud9, a reference to their company culture based on something you’ve seen from their socials, or from a story you’ve read about them online, will boost you above a vast majority of candidates. … We know that it’s a pain to have to write a custom cover letter to each job you apply for, but in our eyes, it’s better to apply for two jobs where you really take the time to stand out from the crowd, than five which are a lot less unique.

2) I’ve touched on cover letters, so next has to be the resumes. This is esports, but we still see so many people applying to jobs with a bog-standard resume format, using black text on a white background. Let’s get inventive! [In] creative industries especially, the design of your resume is important. If you’re applying for jobs in marketing but don’t take any unique steps to market yourself on your resume, then you’re already missing a trick. If you’re in design, then the resume is the perfect place to showcase your skills by producing a beautiful document that can highlight the different work experiences and education you’ve held, while also showing your practical experience by how the resume is designed.

We hired for a weekend cover position ourselves recently and were surprised at how many resumes we received that were essentially … black text on a white background. In jobs that are asking people to be creative in what they do — social media, marketing, design, content creation, video editing, etc — your resume should be the first place you showcase that creativity.

You mentioned some jobs get a lot of applicants. Which sector sees the most applications?

Over the last three months, design was the most popular sector. This features jobs in graphic design, motion design, and UI/UX design. Video editing was the second most popular, with writing taking third.

Volunteering

The next question I had is regarding the volunteer positions on HitmarkerJobs. When I first found the website, it was filled with volunteer positions from (very) small organizations. Over the past year or so the quality of the volunteer positions has improved a lot, and the number of these jobs has seemingly declined. Are these volunteer positions something the team wants to keep on the website, or do you plan on reducing them further as the site grows?

Over the past year, we’ve evaluated our stance on volunteer roles multiple times. We’re still of the opinion that there is a benefit to having volunteer roles on our platform. A lot of the people we speak with who ask for help in the scene will often ask us to recommend volunteer roles to them, as they’ve been unable to find any jobs with their current experience. I think this is an angle that some people miss about volunteer roles — the people who rely on them to take their very first step into the esports scene. It’s not something we like to see larger companies doing (unless it’s an internship), but the number of people we see who use them to springboard themselves into paid positions at other companies means we still see the benefits to volunteer roles.

The reason you see fewer on Hitmarker as you may have this time last year is because we’ve become a lot more strict with them. We don’t allow copied job descriptions or jobs that are too short or seem to be asking of unfair commitments from candidates. We don’t allow volunteer roles that parade around acting as freelance roles and have taken other measures to make the volunteer roles we have up to offer value to candidates who commit their time to them.

Because of this, I think some of the organizations that were contributing to the volunteering jobs that may not have been beneficial to candidates no longer post on Hitmarker. As they know we’ll call them out and reject the role if there’s something unfair or unjust about the position. And the process isn’t done. We still debate volunteer positions in the office frequently. Separating them from our platform is something we’ve also toyed with, but for now, we think their position on the site is justified due to the number of people we speak to who’d be unable to gain experience from anywhere else. It’s on us now to make sure any volunteer positions that come onto our site reward the people with the experience they’re looking for. We’re doing everything we can to make sure they’re legit, decent roles.

What is next

Over the past two years, Hitmarker has established itself as the leading job platform in esports. What is next for Hitmarkerjobs?

From here, we continue the work we’re doing to provide as much value as possible to people looking to work in esports, and for those looking to hire staff in the industry. We plan to continue to build on the momentum we’ve gathered so far, which is all possible due to the people who supported us in our infancy!

For more about Hitmarker, take a look at their website or follow them on their social media platforms, Twitter and Linkedin. Hitmarker posts new esports jobs every day and provides help in improving your resume or cover letters upon request. To that end, we want to thank Cam Brierley and the rest of the Hitmarker team for their time and for what they do to improve the esports scene.