helloTalented People

The Gamification of Recruitment

Market Watch, August 2016

Contents4 What is gamification

Why gamify the recruitment process

Gamification best practice

Case studies

23

What next for gamification

5

9

16

Start Game

IntroductionAn increasing number of companies are adopting the principles of gamification to take their recruitment processes to the next level and increase the likelihood of finding candidates with the right skills and attitudes. Some recruiters are embracing gamification with some really innovative approaches.

Gamification is currently being applied across many facets of the employment experience, not just recruitment – from employee performance, training, and innovation management, to personal development, sustainability and health and wellness – the list continues to grow. But gamification is very misunderstood.

It’s easy to misunderstand because it is a broad term that touches on interface design, user experience design and even psychology. Understood correctly though and it can be highly successful in engaging candidates and getting them to think “this company is for me and I’d like to work here”.

Microsoft improved its translations for the Windows OS through the Language Quality game, with over 900 employees completing 26 000 tasks with 170 additional errors reported.Volkswagen registered 33 million webpage hits and 119 000 ideas through its People’s Car Project that lets people design their perfect car.

So it’s worth investing the time to understand gamification properly and how to do it right. The following document looks at what is gamification and more importantly what it is not; how to do it right and how other companies have successfully gamified their recruitment processes. We hope you find this useful and even better that it inspires you to use gamification to drive impact in your recruitment process.

Gamification is the application of game mechanics and design in a non-game context. It involves applying the elements of competition, point-scoring, badges and role play in a marketing, project management or recruitment context.

“People rushed in and thought it was about adding a game to the

recruitment process, which wasn’t quite right…What we are

really talking about are the dynamics of engagement”, Matt

Jeffery, SAP vice president, global head of sourcing and

employment brand, HR talent acquisition

Gamification is not…The addition of a game to a non-game

context.

What is gamification

It gives candidates real insight into the tasks and skills involved in the job, helping them self-select on whether this is the right career for them

It personalises, humanises and adds fun to the recruitment process

It showcases that the brand believes in innovation and creativity

It encourages candidates to engage with the brand at a deeper level than is possible in an ordinary recruitment process

It can test aptitude for the job, increasing the likelihood of finding candidates with the right skills, and a good fit for the brand

It can attract candidates who may not have otherwise considered the brand

Why gamify the recruitment process

Start

Finish

Gamification enables employers to better connect with millennials

Attracting good quality young talent is one of the biggest challenges faced by today’s employers – gamification helps meet this challenge.

Hiring managers have observed that used effectively, gamification can attract and assess candidates from the generation raised on consoles like Wii and Xbox i.e. Generation Y also known as Millennials.

The UK is highly attuned to game mechanics

GameTrack estimate there are 18.8m people aged between 6 and 64 playing games in the UK, or 40% of the population. (GameTrack, 2016 Q1).

On average, 11 to 64 year-olds spend 8.8 hours per week playing games (GameTrack, 2016 Q1).

Spain 5.8

Germany 7.9

France 6.6

UK 8.8

Average weekly hours of gaming (in # hours, 11-64

year olds)

Further reasons to gamify recruitment

Hiring managers who have used gamification have found it to be a particularly useful way of testing for specific personality traits that would otherwise be difficult to check. It enables recruiters to assess candidates’ drive for innovation, their ability to problem solve, and their capacity to perform under pressure.

A gamified recruitment process works well in sectors where there is a shortage of skilled candidates or where competition for qualified candidates is very high.

Gamification – Best Practice

Gamification best practice

Opinion polls, candidate surveys and page ratings can all be used to increase impact and interaction, while league tables and leader boards ensure an element of competition.

Build gamification into multiple candidate touchpoints. Include social

media channels and careers sites.

Keep content simple, interactive, stimulating and entertaining.

Gamification best practice

Feature characters that the candidate is likely to identify with. They are more likely then to think “this company is like me and I’d like to join”

The mistake some companies make is to “broadcast” what they see as their selling points to potential candidates. They say ‘look at us, we’re a great place to work’ or ‘look at how great our results are’. But they don’t engage, listen or join the real conversation.

Gamification best practice

Matt Lasky, creative team leader at recruitment marketing and digital branding company 4MAT, believes LinkedIn is the master of this: “When you go onto your LinkedIn profile you have a profile strength bar on it. You’re constantly being encouraged to reach a new goal and improve your profile strength by performing different tasks to provide them with better quality information about you.” 

To be effective, gamification strategies must have targets built

into them and the candidate must be

encouraged to meet them.

Gamification best practice

“I have recently implemented a gamification version of a referral scheme and this works by receiving points every time you refer someone, and if that person gets

an interview you get more points.” 

Matt Lasky

Many recruiters and employers have referral schemes linked to reward. Matt Lasky of recruitment marketing and digital branding company 4MAT believes gamification can take the reward element of referral schemes to the next level and increase their effectiveness.

Gamification best practice

Many elements that can be used in gamification are trackable such as likes and shares and leagues and

leader boards but it’s vital to understand exactly what you want

and need to measure.

Don’t track something just because you can – track only those things

that will actually tell you if you have met your recruitment goals.

Have clear goals about what you are measuring

Gamification best practiceThe challenges included in a gamified recruitment process must be aligned with the skills specifically needed for the role.

“Game simulations that reflect what the work really looks like can be very

effective, whether playing against yourself or other people,” Katherine

Jones, vice president of human capital management technology research at 

Bersin by Deloitte 

TWI Case Study

Ericsson – Build the networked society

TWI created this game which has been used to promote the Ericsson employer brand in a number of ways. It has been used internally to encourage employees to re-engage with the employer brand and to promote Employee Referral.

The game microsite was launched in June 2016. Results from June to Dec 2016:• 16,430 page views• 6,242 sessions• 4,898 users

The game has been played in more than 100 countries.

Case studiesCompanies successfully gamifying

their recruitment

Shell has developed a game called “The Shell Explorer Game” to enhance its recruitment process. The game is available on their career page. It works by inviting potential employees to tackle various problem-solving quizzes and challenges that reflect the type of work the successful candidate would be expected to perform in the role. Shell uses gamification primarily to determine if the applicant is skilled and motivated enough.  

Shell Google

Google has run a Google Code Jam software-writing competition for 12 years as a way to find fresh, new talent with the right skills for the job. Potential candidates compete to win monetary prizes up to $50,000.

British intelligence and security agency, GCHQ has created an encrypted message on a website CanYouCrackIt.co.uk and used it as part of their application process. Candidates had to crack the code and decipher what the hidden message was in order to advance in the recruitment process. It gave applicants a sense if they were up for the challenge of the job, and GCHQ was able to weed out unsuitable candidates.

GCHQFormapostThe French postal service Formapost was struggling to retain new hires. The drop out rate for new hires was 25%. To address this, Formaposte launched Jeu Facteur Academy, which allowed potential candidates to spend a week in the life of a new hire postal carrier. They experienced getting up early in the morning and they learnt about postal work and the ethics of the job.The drop-out rate for new hires went from 25% to 8% after the game was introduced in the hiring process, and the company found candidates were better prepared for the role.

Domino’s Pizza Mogul game has potential employees create and name their own ideas for pizzas and toppings, and then for every item sold they get certain monetary rewards. This is designed to show potential job candidates that the company is innovative, creative, fun, embraces new ideas.  

Dominos Umbel

The big-data start-up Umbel has a gaming challenge called “Umbelmania,” in which potential candidates fight a series of opponents in a first-person fighter-style game. Their movements are coded and they win points. The points each candidate wins determine how far they advance through the interviewing process. Candidates who may not have known just how solid their coding skills are can see how they match up against opponents, and then see how well suited they are to the job.

The Hungary division of PriceWaterhousecoopers has developed a 12-day online simulation called Multipoly. This invites students onto Facebook to experience a virtual version of what it’s like to work for the firm. Students must meet quarterly goals and accomplish tasks based on PwC competencies while receiving feedback from company coaches.

“It provides insight into the audit and consulting profession in a fun way and builds engagement,” Noemi Biro, PwC’s recruitment leader in Budapest.

According to Biro, 78 percent of students surveyed said they wanted to work for PwC after completing the game. Ninety-two percent had a more positive view of the firm. The game has also contributed to a significant increase in the number of job applicants.

PWC

What’s next for the gamification of recruitment

“There are many reasons for this, starting with the lack of clearly defined business objectives, or focusing on the organization goals rather than the player goals.”

Industry commentators say it’s highly unlikely that gamified strategies will completely replace traditional recruitment tactics in the future. Effective execution of gamification of the recruitment process is still work in progress for most companies – at this stage only a minority can say, hand on heart, that they have achieved all of their gamification objectives. Brian Burke, who recently published a book on the topic, Gamify — ”How Gamification Motivates People to Do Extraordinary Things” has a theory why this is the case:

So expect to see companies embrace a mix of traditional recruitment methods and gamification – a wholesale shift towards gamification is not on the cards. The next few years will probably see many companies take stock of their gamified recruitment process is going in and ask themselves if it’s going in the right direction.

It’s likely that more and more companies will come to realise that the key to effective gamification is to focus less on what the business wants and more on what drives and motivates the candidates. This will lead to a more candidate-centric approach.

Market research will be critical to understanding the goals of the “player” and pinpointing how to lure them into the gamified recruitment process. It will become an increasingly key tool for companies that aspire to have a more candidate-centric approach to their gamified recruitment process. As such, over the next few years we’re likely to see an increase in demand for market research as a method of helping companies to optimise gamification of recruitment processes.

thanksfor listening