7. GAMIFICATION STRATEGY IN RECRUITING

Why Gamification in Recruitment?

(Wali, 2024) In definition, gamification is essentially the application of game technology – game theory, mechanics and gaming design – in non-game contexts. While companies initially used gamification solely as a marketing tactic to engage their consumers, it has disrupted workplace selection in the last decade, now serving as a viable alternative to traditional assessments and being used to attract, select, on-board and develop employees.

Dan et al., (2020) Game-thinking, more specific gamification, serious games and play, has beginning to get more attention and to be appear in a variety of non-game contexts, including organizational settings. In a recent survey of HR practitioners, 75% of the participants indicated that they would consider using gamification as part of their future screening and selection strategy (Povah, Riley, & Routledge, 2017).

The techniques used in gamification awakes and influence a person’s natural desire for competition, achievement and recognition.

(Equalture, 2022) Gamification in Recruitment

Gamification is becoming the new trend in Recruiting in the modern world today. Nevertheless, most HR professionals are uncertain about this strategy when it comes to implementing gamification recruitment tools.

Even those with game experience may view the use of serious games and gamification in a high-stakes context like selection as unfair if the serious game or gamification is poorly designed or executed” (Armstrong et al., 2016, p. 146) cited in Dan et al.,(2020).  

Bika, (2023) states that: The whole concept of gamification in the workplace (applying game elements to business processes) isn’t new: it has been a popular hype for 20 years. Despite some predicting that most gamification strategies would fail, the global industry value was estimated at $4.91 billion in 2016 and it’s expected to rise to almost $12 billion by 2020.

The Evolution of Gamification

The Initial attempt to gamify recruitment was made in 1999 by the US Army. The original idea to reveal the most talented prospects for hiring came from the US military. (Wali, 2024)

As Wali, (2024) mentions, they designed an online video recruitment game, America’s Army, which allows applicants to virtually explore the Army at their own pace, helping candidates determine if soldiering aligns with their needs, interests and abilities. After the overnight success of America’s Army, gamification in recruitment began to gain popularity but it still didn’t get the recognition it deserved. (Wali, 2024)

It was a mission to make recruitment a more fun task, thus gamification started playing its role. It was the trend during the late 2010s and eventually became the talent acquisition agenda of many organizations globally. Now, most of them are continuing to use gamification as a weapon for War for talent.

The practice of this strategy ‘recruitment gamification’ has widely increased since then.

Wali, (2024) further mentions that, In hiring, gamified assessments are now being used to discern a candidate’s personality traits that could determine how well they will perform in a certain role, as well as assessing their skills and abilities for a particular position this is done while improving the candidate experience at the same time.

(The Eventful Group, 2019) How US Army Uses Gamification for Recruitment

Why Use Gamified Recruitment?

·       Makes Recruitment a more fun task and a simple and fast way to test skills.

·       More preferred methodologies by the Gen Z and Millennials could be used.

·       Enhances the awareness of the Employer Brand.

·       Enables you to reach the competent candidates and allows you to evaluate a candidate’s full potential.

·       Employers can attract a wider range of Talented Candidates and enables to test their honesty and openness.

·       Gamification may be a good way to communicate key company information to candidates.

·       A gamified assessment platform enables to evaluate a candidate on their skills and abilities, not on the depth of the resume. Their teamwork – whether candidates are compatible with each other.

·       Helps in reducing employee turnover.

·       Makes the elimination process easier.

Indeed, (2023) and Wali, (2024)

Examples of Companies that use Gamified Recruiting

Source: (Wali, 2024)

Unilever

Unilever, the Dutch-British consumer-goods giant and one of the world’s leading conglomerates, has over 170,000 employees worldwide. In order to rejuvenate its recruitment process, the company partnered with an HR service provider, digitizing the first steps of the recruitment process using AI.

Candidates play a selection of games that evaluate them on their reasoning, aptitude and logic and then machine learning algorithms assess whether they are suitable for whatever job role they applied for.

Google

Tech giant Google organizes Google Code Jam, a code-writing competition as a way to discover and induct outstanding talent for the company. Participants not only get a chance to display their skills as potential hires but also get a golden opportunity to win up to $50,000 in monetary prizes.

Siemens

The Germany-based industrial company Siemens is another company that experimented with games, at least in part as a recruiting vehicle. Siemens created an online interactive game called ‘Plantville’ that provides players the opportunity to run a virtual factory.

While the game initially served as a kind of marketing tool to attract potential employees, the executives at the company later made the game a part of their talent acquisition strategy.

Deloitte

Deloitte, a multinational professional services network, uses a gamified and interactive recruiting video to make sure new recruits understand the fundamental values the organization is looking for in its employees.

Going by the name ‘Will you fit into Deloitte?’ the gamified recruiting video educates the potential hires about the company culture while also allowing the user to evaluate their own suitability to the workplace.

Marriott Hotel

Marriott, a hospitality giant, developed a hotel-themed game as part of its recruitment gamification strategy, in which applicants have to juggle all the responsibilities of a hotel kitchen manager. Players get acquainted with the workplace environment while simultaneously they earn virtual rewards that elevate the image of the company in their eyes.

By making gamification a part of its recruitment strategy, Marriot was able to bypass traditional hiring method and assess beforehand the suitability of the candidates for the hospitality roles.

Nestle East and Southern Africa Region (ESAR)

Nestlé East and Southern Africa Region (ESAR), the multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation, utilized gamified assessment to assess candidates on their aptitude, cognitive skills and personality traits. By gamifying its recruitment process for the Future Talent Graduate Development Programme, the company was able to induct ambitious graduates.

Creating a 21^st Century Gamification Recruitment Strategy

·       Clearly define your objective

·       Personalize the assessment according to the job position and industry.

·       Making it engaging & fun

·       Communicate with your candidates

·       Make sure your gamified tests are relevant to the job role.

Types of games used in Recruitment

Companies use many types of games in recruitment. These are some examples you may come across during recruitment.

Indeed, (2023)

Tests

Tests are simple games that allow recruiters to ask you closed and open-ended questions. They're versatile because companies may use them not only to assess your soft and hard skills but also to see how you may behave in certain situations. Tests are also useful for communicating company policies and values to candidates.

Challenges

Challenges are games that require candidates to compete with each other. In addition to assessing competitiveness, they test problem-solving or logical thinking abilities. Depending on the type of position and form of recruitment process, you could encounter both in-person and remote challenges.

Escape games

In escape games, candidates face a series of events, situations, puzzles and riddles that require innovative and forward-thinking. Games of this type are excellent for testing teamwork skills. By using escape games to engage a group of candidates, recruiters may easily notice who's a natural leader and how specific candidates use their different abilities to create a strong team.

Hackathons

A hackathon is an event or game that allows a group of people to engage in collaborative programming or engineering. Outside recruitment, the purpose of hackathons is to encourage innovation and create networking opportunities for like-minded individuals. Recruiters use this form of recruitment game to hire candidates for technical and IT positions.

The Variety of Games

Bika, (2023) mentions about a variety of games that could be utilized in gamified recruitment.

Gamification in recruiting doesn’t refer to one single type of game. Google used a public riddle to attract candidates, but the game could also be an online quiz or a challenge, such as the coding tests offered by companies like Workable’s partner HackerRank and Codility (where candidates solve online programming exercises).

Companies can also use online puzzle or platform games. For example, benchmark.games has developed puzzle games, one of which involves the candidates “navigating a car to reach a goal, while facing unexpected challenges.” (More on benchmark.games and their effectiveness later).

Simulation assessments could also count as ‘fun recruitment games’ – for example, using a service like HR Avatar that gives candidates scenarios to handle (such as difficult customers).

Also, online games are common, but there are other great ideas to gamify your process. Lee-Anne Edwards, CEO and founder of recruiting firm Oneinamil, says she has been experimenting with escapology through Amplified Workforce out of Columbia, S.C.

Gamification Tools used in Recruiting

There are numerous tools used for gamifying recruitment. Some tools can be used for the entire hiring process, while some only focus on specific stages like screening or interviewing.

Below are some tools that simplifies the gamification process (Holt, 2024).

OneUp	Centrical
TeamTailor	Trakstar Hire
Spinify	Jobvite
The Talent Games	Equalture
Canditech	Owiwi
Test Gorilla	Pymetrics
Toggl Hire	HireVue
myInterview	Boon
Radancy	EdApp
Seppo

OneUp is an outstanding tool for introducing gamification into your recruiters’ workflows. Display real-time leaderboards, create competitions amongst teams or individuals, and celebrate success with personal anthems. (Holt, 2024).

Some Examples Gamification Methods in Recruitment

·       They can have video games to evaluate the candidate skills and experience

·       To track recruiters’ performance, you can have leaderboards.

·       You can have collaboration tools that enables the teams to score potential candidates.

·   Can use software that assures employee referrals through a gamified dashboard and motivations.

·    Can use software for the onboarding process that teaches new employees all about the company through a game.

Bika, (2023) ‘Everybody’s tired of the old hiring process, so we’re looking for creative ways to match candidates with jobs. I have started experimenting during the interview process by inviting candidates to spend some time in a room, working together to solve a mystery or puzzle. An interviewer will observe them and make notes on how they work with each other, how they handle the situation and, of course, whether they can provide solutions. I am hoping to observe for teamwork, problem-solving skills and intellectual curiosity. We’ll see how this eventually works out, but I’m super optimistic’.

Conclusion

For organizations to be successful in this ever-evolving digital age, they need to implement a current trend to help the talent acquisition strategy that will attract the to-notch talent and encourage them to bring their extraordinary skills to grow your organization. Gamification appears to be the best way to do this. Recruiting experts from the Society of Human Resources Management believe that gamification in HR can project an innovative image of an employer, encourage people’s interest in job openings and accurately foresee applicants’ future job performance.

References

Armstrong, M. B., Landers, R. N., & Collmus, A. B. (2016). Gamifying recruitment, selection, training, and performance management: game-thinking in human resource management. In H. Gangadharbatla & D. Z. Davis (Eds.), Emerging research and trends in gamification (pp. 140-165). IGI Global.

 

Bika, N. (2023) Gamification in recruiting: How and why to give it a shot [Online]. Available at: https://resources.workable.com/stories-and-insights/gamification-in-recruiting-effectiveness [Accessed on 02^nd April 2024].

 

Choma, I. (2023) Examples of gamification in HR: a complete guide [blog]. Available at: https://hrforecast.com/gamification-in-hr/  [Accessed on 01^st April 2024].

 

Dan Florin, Stanescu & Ionita, Catalin & IONITA, Ana. (2020). Game-thinking in Personnel Recruitment and Selection: Advantages and Disadvantages. Postmodern Openings. 11. 267-276. 10.18662/po/11.2/174. pp.267-272 [Online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342607167_Game-thinking_in_Personnel_Recruitment_and_Selection_Advantages_and_Disadvantages [Accessed on 01^st  April 2024].

 

Equalture (2022) Gamification in Recruitment | Equalture [video]. 5 April. Available at: https://youtu.be/8RMtKgmBQGA?si=FCB9Z9BwT7rI4pn0 [Accessed on 01^st April 2024].

 

Holt, D. (2024) Top 19 Gamification Recruitment Tools to Use in 2024 [blog]. Available at:https://oneupsales.co.uk/blog/gamification-recruitment-tools [Accessed on 03^rd April 2024].

 

Indeed (2023) Gamification in recruitment: definition and benefits [Online]. Available at: https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/gamification-recruitment#:~:text=Benefits%20of%20using%20gamification%20to%20recruit%20people%201,easier%20...%208%20May%20reduce%20staff%20turnover%20 [Accessed on 02^nd April 2024].

 

The Eventful Group (2019) How US Army Uses Gamification for Recruitment [video]. 16 January. Available at: https://youtu.be/BKFZgnOuKF8?si=rXX_YReAJZaJDvOU [Accessed on 02^nd April 2024].

 

Wali, D., (2024) Gamification in Recruiting [blog]. Available at: https://thetalentgames.com/gamification-in-recruiting/ [Accessed on 01^st April 2024].