I staffed an entire team back in January just using HN (Who's Hiring) and a very high-touch email strategy. I made a video introducing myself and my company, and I screened on comp in the first series of exchanges (based on the budget we could afford). I've been running with this team for 7 months now, and the folks I hand picked out of ~200 applicants have been truly fantastic. I know this is about finding a job and not hiring, but on the other side of it, I'll say that with so many applicants, if I didn't find something impressive in the portfolio, I didn't bother going any further. You really have to make yourself stand out, and proof of work is a great way to do that (personal websites showing work, etc).
>You really have to make yourself stand out, and proof of work is a great way to do that (personal websites showing work, etc).
Sounds like you work in Web? Pretty much impossible to do that in games while looking for a senior role. They all want shipped professional games, but shipped games by their nature are NDA'd (and larger studios don't care about generalists who can ship their own indie). Sometimes you can't even talk about specific parts of a game you worked in.
In my junior years personal projects were invaluable, though. Nothing better to show you can code your way out of a paper bag than making a few game jam games.
