Gamification in Recruitment: What Is Behind?

In the ever-changing landscape of the tech industry, the recruiters tend to find new approaches to attract top talents. The recruiting challenges that involve limited insights on candidates, lengthy stages of interviews, and adaptation to hybrid and remote work need fresh ideas. 

Gamification in recruitment is one of such innovative approaches that brings new insights and also helps to solve most challenges. With its elements of play and competition, it enhances new experiences in the hiring process. The approach is also one of the contributors to the future of tech hiring. 

So what is gamification, and how does it move the tech recruitment to the next level?

Gamification has become widespread in hiring during the last decade. This approach implies the usage of such gaming elements as competition, challenges, rewards, and feedback loops. Not only do they help to create a dynamic experience with candidates, but also find an approach to the candidates of a younger generation. 

Recruiting gamification has the following characteristics:

• Engagement. The gamification in hiring supposes various interactive tasks during the interview phases. This way, the candidates remain highly engaged, which leads to the positive experience both for candidates and the hiring company. 
• Interactivity. Interaction during the hiring process comes in the form of tasks, competitions, challenges, and real-life simulations to assess the candidate’s skills. 
• Real-time evaluation. Putting a candidate in real-life situations or offering scenarios to check their problem-solving skills allows assessing a candidate real-time. With gamification in hiring, the evaluation of a candidate becomes more accurate, which facilitates the decision whether a candidate will be suitable for the role. 
• Real-time feedback. With recruiting gamification, a candidate can expect to receive immediate feedback regarding their strengths and areas for improvement. This also contributes to a positive experience among the candidates, since they don’t need to wait long weeks to know the result. 
• Objective assessment. The evaluation of a candidate’s behavior in different scenarios makes the final decision more objective, excluding subjective biases that may lead to inappropriate hiring decisions. 

Why Does Gamification in Hiring Work?

Since hiring in tech industry involves checking candidates’ hard and soft skills, gamification is one of the most effective tools. It can help to build a recruiting process in such a way that recruiters will get a more complete picture of a future hire. The tasks for candidates motivate them to get achievements in the end.

Problem-solving and practical skills are some of the most important skills in the tech industry, and with simulation of real-life scenarios, gamification in recruitment allows checking them. The digital nature of gamified tests allows hiring candidates from different locations and for remote work. Besides, such form of the recruitment process creates a relaxed atmosphere among candidates, reducing anxiety that usually comes with traditional interviews. This way, there are higher chances that candidates behave as they typically do in their daily working environment. 

What Skills Can Gamification Assess?

The application of gamification shows the innovative and tech-savvy approach of a company. The multifaceted assessment of a candidate allows it to find the best talents in the market and to hire the most suitable fit for a team. With gamification, a company can assess such soft and hard skills:

• Analytical thinking. Tasks during interviews evaluate how a candidate analyses data, resolves technical problems, and deals with daily tasks. 
• Creativity. Open-ended challenges give candidates the opportunities to think outside the box and show their creativity capabilities. 
• Flexibility. Tasks with changing rules and requirements allow seeing how a candidate can adapt to new situations and deal with challenges.
• Collaboration. Tasks oriented to a group of people give space to assess how a candidate cooperates with others and accomplishes tasks in a team.
• Cultural fit. While observing a candidate’s actions in real time, recruiters see if their values correspond to a company’s ones and whether they’ll be a suitable match for the team.
• Leadership. The potential of leadership is especially important to check for leadership roles. Gamification allows finding this trait in candidates.
• Emotional intelligence. From empathy to social interaction to managing emotions, gamification gives space to check a candidate’s profile. 

With application of artificial intelligence (AI), the future of gamification approach is dynamic, with individual approach towards the candidates. With implementation of AI tools, the tasks for interviews can be more elaborated, adaptable, and personalized. Besides, the AI can help to analyze candidates’ answers and predict candidates’ potential success.

AI is already used in various HR systems, such as Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS). Once integrated with gamification tools and tasks, it can move the overall HR system to the next level. Such a holistic approach toward a candidate allows companies to stand from the crowd, being a couple of steps in advance in attracting talented specialists.

Gamification is one of the alternative ways to organize a recruiting process. With such elements as competition, achievements, and challenges, it creates a new and engaging experience for a candidate. In comparison to standard rounds of interviews, gamification creates a game-like experience, turning the interview into an interactive action and giving companies the opportunity to assess a candidate’s skills in their integrity. 

Gamification allows tech companies to go with the times and meet the requirements of the dynamic nature of the tech industry. It has all the chances to move from a trend to a standard approach that creates a personalized experience for every candidate.