What is gamification in recruitment?

Recruitment gamification involves using game theory to make the hiring process more attractive for applicants and more effective for hiring organizations.

Gamification can help make it easier to connect with applicants, transforming your hiring process and enabling your HR team to source quality candidates.

Examples of recruitment gamification

Here are examples of potential ways to implement gamification into your hiring processes.

Virtual management simulations

Companies can design immersive simulations where candidates run a virtual business, handling tasks like budgeting, customer service and inventory management. These simulations can recreate real-world scenarios, requiring participants to solve problems and make strategic decisions under pressure.

This approach helps employers gauge how candidates adapt to changes, prioritize tasks and demonstrate leadership skills.

In-game advertising for recruitment

Companies can place targeted recruitment ads within popular online games to reach potential candidates in a unique setting. These ads can lead directly to job application portals or interactive recruitment pages, potentially minimizing barriers to entry.

This approach is particularly effective for attracting candidates in technical roles, like programming, as it meets them in their environment, and can make the application process more engaging and accessible.

Hackathons

Hackathons bring coders together to solve hardware and software problems, making them helpful for assessing a candidate’s ability to collaborate and come up with innovative solutions to technical challenges. If you use this approach, you can sponsor another organization’s event or host your own event.

Benefits of recruitment gamification

Gamification has several benefits for employers. As part of the recruitment process, it can offer the following advantages:

• Enhanced ability to evaluate entry-level applicants: Some roles require extensive experience, which you can evaluate by reviewing an applicant’s resume or conducting reference checks. If you’re filling an entry-level role, however, it can be harder to determine which applicant is most likely to succeed. Gamification allows you to assess skills instead of relying on education or work experience.
• Increased interactivity: The traditional application process doesn’t let job seekers interact with anyone from your company unless they make it to the second stage of the hiring process. Gamification increases interactivity, which may give applicants a positive impression of your organization. It also creates opportunities for applicants to ask questions.
• Ability to assess practical skills: When you review a resume or application form, the provided qualifications can be fairly subjective. Gamification allows you to assess specific skills, enabling you to choose quality candidates.
• Improved brand reputation: Gamification makes the hiring process more exciting, generating interest in your organization. Applicants might even share their excitement with family members, friends and colleagues. As a result, gamification has the potential to enhance your brand’s reputation.

Gamification also has advantages when used later in the hiring process. Here are several benefits of using it to evaluate your top candidates for each role.

• Ease of comparison: When comparing two candidates, it can be difficult to make objective assessments and prevent unconscious bias in hiring. When you use gamification in recruiting, it can be easier to compare two candidates based on objective criteria, such as final scores or game times.
• Increased efficiency: The standard application process has several steps, such as reviewing applications, matching applicant qualifications with those listed in your job post and responding to applicant emails. These steps take time away from other activities. Gamification enables you to collect valuable data from an applicant within minutes. You can even have scores sent directly to your email, eliminating the need to gather data.
• Ability to assess candidates for cultural add: Culture add describes how a candidate’s unique attributes, values and perspectives can enhance your company’s mission, vision, goals and overall culture. Certain types of gamification allow you to observe how candidates interact with others, making it easier to determine how they could positively contribute to your company’s culture.
• Ability to provide timely feedback: After a round of interviews, you might not provide feedback to each candidate. This leaves some candidates wondering how they performed or whether they can expect to hear from you in the future. Some types of gamification allow candidates to see their scores immediately, eliminating questions about their overall performance.

Disadvantages of gamification in HR

Gamification has clear benefits for HR teams and hiring managers, but it also has some drawbacks. These are the most common disadvantages.

• Cost: Depending on the type of gamification you choose, you may need to hire a game designer or have a developer create a game from scratch. This introduces an additional cost, although the benefits of gamification may outweigh your initial investment.
• Time required: If you don’t hire a game designer, you may use in-house resources to develop exercises for the hiring process. You might include employees from several departments, such as IT and learning and development (L&D). You can also consider hiring a consultant or using temporary workers to assist with the process and creation.
• Need for regular assessment: Your game may not be well-suited for every position. Once you create a game, you must assess it regularly to ensure it’s helping you find quality candidates. At the end of the assessment process, you may discover you need to replace a game or create multiple games for the same position.
• Resistance to gamification: If you decide to incorporate gamification into your recruiting process, you may encounter resistance from recruiters and other HR staff. Apply the principles of change management to help employees embrace your new approach to hiring.

FAQs about recruitment gamification

How can a company start implementing gamification in its hiring process?

Begin by identifying the skills you want to assess and the types of gamification techniques that fit the role. Design tasks that reflect real-world scenarios relevant to the job, and consider using gamified recruitment platforms or software. It’s also important to monitor the process and gather feedback for continuous improvement.

Can gamification be used in remote recruitment?

Yes, gamification can be used for remote recruitment. Companies can create virtual challenges, coding competitions or online simulations that candidates complete from anywhere, making it an effective tool for recruiting globally.