If I were to ask you what evolution your Recruitment process has underwent in the recent past what would you say? You’ll probably say you’ve added an assessment test to the process to better screen candidates? Or maybe you’ve automated the recruitment process and gone paperless? Maybe even increased the levels of interviews so that candidates are thoroughly screened and sifted before making your selection. Is this the extent of your recruitment process’s evolution?

The issue will all the add-ons you’ve made so far is that it hasn’t removed bias and added cognitive Aptitude Tests to predict job success of your new recruits. Think about it, the resumes candidates send you are half-truths and often too limited to really give you an understanding of who your candidates are and what they’re capable of. The references candidates mention are often biased as well – why would anyone list a bad reference? Then there’s the interview process itself which is ridden with bias and personal perceptions.

What’s truly missing in an evolved recruitment process is something that’s continuously proven and confirmed to work. And that’s cognitive aptitude and behavioral tests. So does that mean that by introducing aptitude tests you’ll have an evolved recruitment process that’ll guarantee you hiring success? Not quite.

Pre-employment aptitude tests provide a good objective solution that helps reduce much personal bias, however, that alone isn’t going to help you keep up with the times. Today, we have the internet age upon us. What that means is you have an entirely different breed of candidates out there in the market. They have shorter attention spans, require visual stimulus and are highly demanding of the companies they work for. Attracting, engaging and retaining this breed of talent is much more challenging than it used to be 10 years ago.

To add to this complexity, high levels of mobile usage is the current norm. A study conducted by Glassdoor found that 9 out of 10 job seekers use mobile devices for job searches. Since you can’t impact or alter the ever increasing mobile usage, you could, however, take a closer look at your recruitment process and come up with an innovative solution to attract this new breed of talent. A solution that’s engaging, quick, modern and of course fun. Yes, that solution is gamification!

Incorporating Gamified Assessments Into Your Recruitment Process

Gamification is the concept of turning a process or strategy into a competitive and engaging form that feels like a game. What makes gamification such an interesting solution is its versatility. It’s currently being used in various industries to help achieve a wide array of goals and objectives. In marketing, gamification is being used in various forms to promote brand loyalty, repeat purchases and brand awareness. In the health and wellness industry gamification is being used in fitness apps to award users trophies and badges for their activities. And internally, companies have been using gamification to enhance employee productivity, engagement and motivation.

Which brings me to the recruitment process. This industry and key aspect of an organization has benefited from gamification as well. Gamification has made an aged, mundane process much more engaging, fun, interactive and of course, significantly more accurate in identifying talent that fits.

Gamified assessments have the unique ability, unlike any other aptitude tests, to test candidates against specific traits that the employer regards highly and demands from their talent. These could be critical thinking, teamwork, attention to detail, problem-solving, communication skills, collaborative abilities and even leadership. All this can be assessed in a fraction of the time that traditional aptitude tests would take, and much more accurately. What’ more is that you’re engrossing your candidates in an experience that much more engaging and fun to go through, unlike traditional aptitude tests which can be tiresome and extremely dull.

There are three key areas where your recruitment process can benefit from gamified assessments:

1. True Evaluations

Often candidates don’t do too well in interviews as they get nervous or intimidated. Sometimes you miss out on a high potential candidate simply because they haven’t presented their resume in an eye-catching layout. Gamified assessments have the ability to bring out everyone’s A-game. Why? Because everyone can play a game. And when you’re having fun you’ll perform better and give it your best. Through gamified assessments you’re providing candidates a familiar and fun environment which allows them to present their true abilities. Hence, enabling you to seek true evaluations of your candidates.

2. Keeping It Fair

Resumes often lead to bias mainly because they either say too much or too little. When selecting candidates, the younger candidates suffer because of the lack of depth in their resume, while the older ones may be impacted by irrelevant past experiences. Because of these limitations, as a hiring manager you’re missing out on what your candidates can really offer you and your company. Gamified assessments bring all candidates on a level playing field. In the gamified world you’re as good as your capabilities and skills allow you to be, irrespective of what you’ve done in the past and what you’ve stated in your resume. Candidates are evaluated on their abilities and skills thus creating a fair opportunity for everyone to shine.

3. Wide Audience

Sifting through resumes can be cumbersome and tedious. Sometimes it’s even impossible when you have hundreds of resumes against a single job vacancy. On the flipside, companies also face the challenge of not having enough candidates to select from because of their inability to reach out to the masses. How do you attract more candidates and be able to shortlist the right candidates?  Gamification provides your company the ability to reach a wide audience with ease and cost effectiveness. Because the games are fun, people will want to play it and try their hand at how good they are and of course, flaunt their capabilities. Hence, you’re able to attract a much larger talent pool to select from.

The Recruitment Evolution You’ve Waited For

The recruitment process isn’t ever going to get eliminated from a company’s operations. There’s always going to be a need for talent and, in that, high performing talent. Sifting through resumes, interviewing numerous candidates and making hard choices between candidates can be a huge challenge. However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a mistake. Often traditional recruitment methods result in hiring mistakes (sometimes even hiring nightmares). Gamification is the evolution that the recruitment process is in desperate need of. It’s a technologically advanced, highly engaging and fun way of finding the right talent that you can align to your company’s purpose.

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Paul Keijzer is the CEO and Founder of Engage Consulting and the co-Founder of The Talent Games, which aims to transform HR by digitising talent processes and creating more engaging and productive workplaces through gamification and mobile technology. As a global HR and Leadership Management expert, Paul knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.

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