Antigoni Papageorgiou — January 17, 2020 Think of the craziest thing you could do to convince the most qualified candidate to accept a job offer. Would you meet them in Second Life over a virtual cup of coffee? Would you approach them through Tinder? These gamification scenarios might sound a bit crazy or ahead of time. But allow us to say they’re not. Both of them are real examples of gamification in recruitment. For example, Eurowings kicked off a clever recruiting campaign that converted each job post into a Tinder profile, and job seekers could either swipe left or swipe right.
In a world of start-up ping pong tables, and employee perks, companies do whatever it takes to attract, engage, and retain the best talent out there. Long story short, they strive to catch a prospect employee’s attention, be different, and create compelling employee experiences.
And this is where “recruitainment” fits in perfectly, as it stands for the incorporation of game elements into the hiring process.
Recruitainment: Gamification in recruitment is gaining ground
With Generation Y predominating in the labor market, recruitainment has taken the lead.
But how employees do feel about it? Is recruitainment in HR a firework or an impactful hiring strategy? TalentLMS surveyed 900 employees who revealed that they would eagerly work (78 percent) for a company whose recruiting practices are gamified.
If you are looking to revitalize your hiring process, here are four tips on how to implement gamification in the recruiting process:
1. Create a digital game
Alluring prospective employees to submit their job applications by playing a game is a common example of how companies can apply gamification in the hiring process.
For example, PWC has launched Mutlipoly Next where candidates get a fully-gamified hiring experience, and, eventually, become virtual trainees in the company. What’s more, Marriott Hotel designed a Facebook game, My Marriot Hotel, with the aim of attracting talent from various locations.
Creating a digital game, though, might sound like a considerable investment for small and medium-sized businesses. What you could instead, is use a corporate training software program to apply gamification in recruiting without the hassle.
A gamified Learning Management System (LMS) helps you test your candidates’ skills by discovering in practice whether they are a good fit for the role.
2. Organize a hackathon
If you’re into tech, you’re already familiar with hackathons. If you’re not, here’s a brief explanation: Hackathons are sprint-like events where various digital professionals are invited to work intensively on software projects.
Companies like Google and IBM occasionally run hackathons so candidates can solve hard challenges in no time and boost their engagement.
The reason why hackathons are so popular is that they fully leverage the concept of gamification in employee development. By incorporating game-like elements, hackathons foster collaboration among diverse teams and trigger innovation. So, it comes as no surprise that over the past few years, they have emerged as a gamification tool for hiring.
If you want to hire candidates whose roles are going to involve teamwork, you need to get rid of conventional recruiting methods. Could an event like a hackathon address your company’s needs?
The answer is yes. With a collaborative event, you can check skills in practice, observe how participants interact with each other, and see their problem-solving thinking.
3. Think outside the box
We get it. People often tend to oversell themselves in their CVs.
What you need to find out right off the bat is whether the candidate you are interviewing is an actual “Design Thinking Expert” or just good with presentations. But how can you do that without treating your candidate as a “walking skillset”?
In an era when companies are scrambling to find capable candidates, pre-employment assessments shouldn’t be composed of hard-copy, outdated tests.
Think outside the box.
If you’re looking for a Research Client Executive, for example, give your candidates fictional scenarios to work on. Ask them to present their tasks in unconventional ways; give them the space to act or even produce a short movie.
With such out-of-the-box assessments, you’ll be able to test their creativity and innovative thinking in practice. As well as engage them from day zero.
4. Treat gamification in recruitment as onboarding training
A gamified recruitment process is not only about playful activities based on how a company can measure skills and performance. It’s also about giving your candidates a glimpse of what their job is going to be like.
When a company chooses recruitainment as a solution, it basically lets candidates know how work is done. Based on real-life scenarios, gamification in recruiting is usually designed to see how prospects would react to realistic on-the-job requirements. And, either they fail or succeed, they get a full grasp of how your company operates and what is requested from them.
So, without even noticing it, successful candidates get their onboarding training even before they accept the offer.
Give recruitainment a shot
Despite the fact that today’s businesses are the ones that spend a great deal of money on hiring, the room for improvement remains huge.
So, with recruitainment, the hiring process becomes both more engaging and less stressful for the candidate. And, foremostly, it creates a positive link between an employer and a potential employee through the power of entertainment.
To learn more about how gamification has changed employee training and development, read the full TalentLMS research, “Gamification at Work Survey”.
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