Recruitment Gamification

Humans love games. Many people would already describe the hiring process as a 'recruitment game' - after all it seems to have rules (such as how to compose a cover note or behave in an interview) and various players (candidates, recruiters, hiring managers) and conforms to the classic engagement-reward structure of games. So as computer games are increasingly invading our everyday lives (Google Doodle games, Mobile games, Farmville, online poker, prize draw games, military training games, MMORPG etc etc), it seems like a natural progression to bring games into recruitment. Many would shudder at the thought, but like all these innovations, when done well, it can be highly effective and catch on very quickly.

Gartner defines 'Gamification' as "the broad trend of applying game mechanics to non-game environments to motivate people and change behaviour" (such as recruitment, training and health/ wellbeing). Furthermore, Gartner predicts that "over 70 % of Global 2000 organisations will have at least one gamified application by 2014".

So what's the attraction?

There seems to be a double-whammy at play in the recruitment field that has led to gamification's recent successes. Firstly, a lack of workforce engagement. A recent survey by Gallup, shows that 71 percent of American workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” in their work. Secondly, job boards no longer work, or as Adecco said in 2010, after slashing their job board spending, "candidates that come via paid job boards are often unqualified, raising costs [as we] have to wade through irrelevant resumes". Indeed, those that are qualified are often put off by the apparent 'black hole' that jobsites, and even recruitment and company job portal websites, often represent. It could also be argued that when people finish work, they are more likely to want to relax with a game than fill out a long winded job application that could lead nowhere. The advantages of games is that they can be designed to target a particular audience, engage the attention of participants so that they see the process through, and they tap into our deep seated competition, accomplishment and addiction complexes. It also give the participant autonomy in the recruitment process and provides fast and clear feedback.

A great example of gamification success comes from Danish digital agency, Uncle Grey. After trying all the avenues they could think of, including traditional job adverts and even street level direct approaches (!), they used their own audience mapping skills to identify the profiles of their target audience. This produced the insight that the people with the development skills they were targeting tended to play a lot of games in their spare time, with Team Fortress 2 being the most frequently mentioned game. This led to a sponsored version of the online multiplayer game Team Fortress 2 that included in-game recruitment posters and Uncle Grey representatives playing the game that potential applicants were interacting with. The result was 50 applications in the first week and a successful hire on a small budget.

That's all very well in the digital arena, you might think, but what about companies outside the digital and online worlds?

Perhaps the best example here is Reveal by L'Oreal. Originally designed as a way attract male graduates to work at L'Oreal (and increase its workforce diversity), the game has transformed the brand. The game gives you a virtual idea of what it's like to work at L'Oreal, try out typical corporate challenges across departments from finance to marketing, and receive feedback on performance. The game has also built on classic psychometric tests to assess aptitude. This means it can be tweaked or even re-built as desired to reflect new thinking in psychometrics. And as participants say, its can be a voyage of self discovery for the applicants too. While the game incurred several hundreds of thousands in dollars to originally build, it has now been online for 2 years and has been a hugely worthwhile investment - with L'Oreal making over 100 hires each year. The ability to roll it out across multiple countries will allow it to save valuable time and cost in the long term, while making more effective hires. Furthermore, it has allowed hiring managers to look past the usual resume mistakes and instead focus on testing desirable skills in real time.

Looks like Game Over for job advertising.