As a tech sourcer, I don’t often look for people in the creative space. I do, however, love to find new platforms to source from, and I couldn’t be more excited when I found out about ArtStation a couple of weeks ago. So here’s one for everyone who is occasionally looking for creatives and artists.
Art…What???
ArtStation is the leading showcase platform for games, film, media & entertainment artists. It enables artists to showcase their portfolios in a slick way, discover & stay inspired, and connect with new opportunities.
Here’s what the folks of ArtStation say about their platform, and I think it’s pretty accurate. Looking at it from a sourcers perspective, it is a fantastic extra pool to source from 😍.
- 2D & 3D artists
- Game designers & modelers
- Technical artist and illustrators
- Character Designers
- And many more similar professions
Why do people create ArtStation profiles?
- Showcase their portfolio
- Host (portfolio) website
- Sell their artworks
- To be found by recruiters/clients
And that last point is where you get in 😎. But before I dive into that, I’ll start with some of the basics.
The basics
When you open ArtStation, you will directly see what it’s all about.
They are quite a recruiter friendly company 💸. But don’t worry, you don’t need to spend money (or even create an account) to use their platform to source candidates. What I like is that they offer so many different services. They have learning platforms, a magazine, a marketplace, challenges, and more things to browse.
Search
Searching ArtStation is pretty straightforward. You can use the search engine to find profiles. The cool thing is that you don’t even need to sign up / have an account to use the search function.
Try it out yourself: https://www.artstation.com/search/artists
They made it easy for us by allowing us to search for Names, City, Country, Availability, Software, and Skills.
I’ll show you an example:
Let’s say that I am looking for 3D Environmental Artists in Boston, but I want them to be open for permanent positions. I could filter on these exact combinations of skills, availability, and location. In this case, it gives me 39 results — which isn’t bad if you ask me. If you want to broaden the results, you could add more skills or more locations.
See the blue button on top of the screen? I never signed in or created an account to view this.
Other ways to find profiles – Challenges
Another way of looking for people who are good in certain areas is looking for competitors in specific challenges.
https://www.artstation.com/contests/archive
Here you can view some of the winners and best submissions. So if you are looking for people who are great in a specific area, this can give you some good results! And how cool is it to mention their project when you reach out to them?
Profiles
Profiles in ArtStation are often full of info; next to showcasing a portfolio, you’ll also see the About tab. On this page, you can find links to other social media, contact details, hiring info, skills, and software they use.
Again, this is straightforward and easy to use.
Alternative searches
In this case, I think your best bet is to use the search function on the website. The only argument I can think of to X-ray profiles is if you want to look for specific keywords in summaries.
In that case, you could try a search similar to this one.
site:artstation.com inurl:profile "summary" love dogs
Summary
It’s an excellent addition to your sourcing platforms if you are looking for people in the creative space! Or just fun to browse for cool artworks if you are into that 😇.
There are so many different ways to source via platforms like ArtStation, and I’d love to hear more about how other sourcers use platforms like this to find talent, so feel free to comment 👇.