IGN Hiring Coders Without Looking at Resumes

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IGN Entertainment, the world's leading video games media company, has kicked off the Code-Foo Challenge – a 'no resumes allowed' recruitment program aimed at finding extraordinary coding talent, regardless of educational background, college degree or experience.  

Back for its second year, the six-week program gives aspiring coders with a passion for gaming – and IGN – the opportunity to get paid to learn cutting-edge coding languages and work on real engineering projects while being trained by leaders in the industry.  Candidates that impress may score a full-time job at IGN.  Out of the 75,000 people who reviewed the 2011 application for Code-Foo, IGN selected 30 to participate in the program – and hired eight.

"The average age someone learns to code is 13.4, so why should we care what credentials they have?  We want to find people who are passionate about us, and look at their actual work – not their resume," said Roy Bahat, President of IGN.

With Code-Foo, IGN removes traditional barriers to entry – like a lack of degree or a "jagged resume" – a term used by The Rare Find author George Anders.  Instead candidates are asked to submit a statement of passion for IGN and answer a set of four challenge questions that test their coding ability.

The application deadline for Code-Foo 2012 is April 30, 2012, and IGN will notify applicants by May 18th if they've made the cut.

In Code-Foo's first year, of the 75,000 people who viewed the application page, 104 people completed it and 30 participants were accepted.  Participants, ages 20-30, came from all over the country (Pa., Utah, Iowa, Kan., Md., N.J., Ind., Mich., Ohio, Ore., Colo., Ill. and Ariz.), including many places with limited employment opportunities for technical talent, and only half the group, had college degrees.

To learn more, please visit: (http://code.ign.com/foo).  

About IGN:
IGN Entertainment is the leading Internet media and services provider focused on the video game and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN's properties reach more than 57 million unique users worldwide, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore. IGN's network of video game-related properties (IGN.com, 1UP.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox and others) is the Web's #1 video game information destination. IGN also owns the world's largest men's lifestyle website, AskMen.com, and men's entertainment site UGO.com. It also provides technology for online game play in video games. IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices across North America, Europe and Australia.

SOURCE IGN Entertainment, Inc.

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