The Aardvark Swift story begins in 1989 when the specialist recruitment agency began servicing what are now the founding companies of the UK games development industry, working closely with studios like Gremlin Graphics, Codemasters, and DMA Design.
As the UK games industry grew so has Aardvark Swift. Over the years we’ve adapted our working practices and evolved alongside the industry we serve, creating a solid base from which we can continue to thrive in the future.
We took the opportunity during the “lockdown Summer of 2020” to plan the future of the business and decide what type of company we wanted to create for ourselves and for our people, this is The Aardvark Swift Mission.
Core values
The first step was determining our core values. We looked back to Aardvark’s history to discover the key attributes that helped the company succeed. This gave us five core values which are now positioned at the front and centre of the business and drive our decisions.
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We now hire, promote and develop the team at Aardvark Swift in line with our core values, and they’ve been woven into how we work with studios, developers and with each other.
To embed the values further into our culture we created the Aardvark Value Rewards; where our team nominate and reward their peers whenever they see them embodying any one of our five core values.
Find out more about our core values here.
Following the buyout we had a young team of Directors and staff. We had a lot of hard work ahead, running our own recruitment desks while developing trainees.
Our core value came to the fore here. Years of consistent hard graft was required to create a firm foundation for the business. Working smart was important, but sometimes there’s no replacement for good old fashioned hard work.
Ian Goodall, MD
We're on a mission
We’ve already made a number of big changes here at Aardvark, all centred around our team. Here’s what we’ve accomplished so far on the Aardvark Mission.
| Hybrid WorkingOur team now have the option to work from home should they wish. | |  | |
| Improved Working EnvironmentWe’ve invested in office improvements, taking on the adjoining office to create a collaborative work space. Including a break out and gaming area complete with a shiny new next gen console, gym equipment, showers, and a kitchen diner. | |  | |
| Dedicated Learning & DevelopmentTo make sure we’re supporting the team as much as possible we’ve recruited a full time L&D Manager to keep us moving forward and developing the team at Aardvark. | |  | |
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| Recruitment Team Leads | Career Development Pathways | Working Smarter | |
| We’ve introduced and trained Team Leads to better support our recruiters and foster an even greater collaborative spirit. This new position also forms part of the new career options for our recruiters. | Whether our sales team want to be a Recruiter, Senior Recruiter, Team Leader or Principal Recruiter we’ve created clear pathways for our team to go on their own Aardvark Journey. | We’ve invested in cutting edge data analytics and recruitment software to ensure we can keep on providing a great service to clients and candidates. | |
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| Aardvark Value Rewards | | Anonymous Feedback | |
| Whenever our team see their colleagues living our core values they can nominate them in our peer to peer recognition scheme. Prizes are awarded quarterly to those with the most nominations. | | Dotted around the offices are “Thoughts & Ideas” boxes allowing anyone to put forward ideas and thoughts to the business. Submissions are reviewed weekly. | |
And we won’t be resting on our laurels and patting ourselves on the back just yet, we’ll keep listening and improving to make sure we don’t stand still.
Aardvark Mission - Aims & Aspirations
There are some key mission goals that we’re aspiring to meet in the coming years.
We’ve already committed ourselves to providing more local employment opportunities, initially via the Kickstarter programme, providing valuable work experience, training and the chance to undertake an Apprenticeship at the end of the Kickstarter.
We’re also working towards improving the diversity of the Aardvark team, this is one of the mission goals for our internal recruitment team as we continue to grow.
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| Great Place To Work | 22 Specialist Games Recruiters | Remote & International Recruiters | |
| We’re aiming to be recognised as a “great place to work” by the people who’s opinion matters the most to us, the Aardvark team themselves! | By July 2023 we’re aiming to have 22 games recruiters focused on the core game development disciplines. Allowing us to better service client studios and the individual game developers looking for a new challenge in their career. | As well as increasing the number of recruiters we’re also wanting a team to be based remotely and internationally, allowing us to open up new markets and also work closer with our existing international clients and candidates. | |
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| 350+ Permanent Placements | | 75% Senior Positions Filled From Within | |
| For 2023/24 we’ve set ourselves the target of making over 350 permanent placements. | | By the time we get round to 2023/24 we want 75% of all senior positions here at Aardvark to have been filled by internal promotions. | |
| 'Best Place To Work' | | World's Largest Games Recruiter | |
| Following on from being recognised by our own team as a great place to work we’ll be seeking the input of an external body to become recognised as a “best place to work” or “top 100 employer”. | | We like to aim big here at Aardvark, so why not set ourselves the goal of becoming the world’s largest specialist games recruiter during 2023/24. | |