Engaging Candidates with Gamified Assessments

Recently we have been hearing a lot about gamified and game-based assessments in recruitment. But what are they, and how can they help you engage with your candidates?

To start with we need to understand the difference between a few commonly used terms when discussing these assessments.

• Gamification looks at how the game ideologies and elements are applied in non-game frameworks to achieve certain results and promote desired behaviours. These are incorporated throughout the recruitment and selection process, to increase its attractiveness and ease of use, thereby increasing the engagement and motivation of the individuals completing the assessment.
• Games are computer-simulated applications that offer fun and rewarding digital interactions to users. They are highly engaging as they keep the mind actively involved in a virtual environment. Games are great for attracting applicants; however, they are not suitable for making hiring decisions.
• Game-based assessments change the core of the assessment framework, incorporating and harnessing the full scope of game-design thinking from the beginning. This is to not only benefit the candidate experience but also to capitalise on the inherent psychometric properties of games alongside the usual recruiting data collected.

From these descriptions, we can start to understand the benefit that introducing gamified or game-based assessments can have within the recruitment process, especially within the candidate experience. As we all know, a positive candidate experience is crucial for keeping the best candidates in your recruitment funnel, and for your employer brand. Having a great candidate experience is about having an engaging process where candidates feel valued and that recruiters are engaging with their application.

Key things to consider when evaluating your candidate experience are:

• Attract and engage candidates with your employer branding, built through people’s experiences with a company as an employer, as well as the culture and values presented by the organisation.
• The application, interview, and offer process will influence candidates’ decisions on whether to accept the job or not, so invest time in reviewing and enhancing your application process.
• Predicting performance by measuring core capabilities that predict person-job and organisation culture fit.
• Providing candidate feedback at all stages is essential for building and maintaining a positive relationship.

By leveraging game elements and narrative, gamified assessments create a more positive experience for candidates, along with the opportunity to experiment and learn. Using gamified assessments plays into these additional key factors of the candidate experience as you can incorporate your branding through an engaging experience, helping you to evolve your employer brand. Assessments such as Talegent’s Immersify measures behaviours which predict future performance through bias-free measures of capabilities like learning agility and resilience.

One specific group that gamified assessments are often utilised when recruiting for are graduates. With most graduate roles having large numbers of applicants, especially for graduate programs, and graduates demanding an engaging and positive experience, gamified assessments are great.

With a combination of interactivity, entertainment, and novelty gamified assessments provide greater levels of attraction and engagement, especially for new entrants to the workforce who grew up in the digital age. They help you quickly evaluate your candidates, and with high completion rates due to the engaging experience, you maintain a positive reputation.

With assessments like those in Talegent’s Gamify Suite, you can actively engage your candidates while gaining insight into their ability and potential. As these assessments go beyond traditional assessments and simulate a two-way narrative by including your language and branding throughout, you build relevance with your candidates and reinforce you as an employer of choice.

This article  first appeared on Talegent website:

https://talegent.com/blog/engaging-candidates-with-gamified-assessments/