In the battle to hire the best talent, many employers are looking at new ways of recruiting, but could a smartphone game help them to make their recruitment decisions?
As more employers are expanding their recruitment to include school leavers and people with less traditional qualifications, they are looking for other ways to select candidates rather than just relying on the usual sift of applications and pre-interview testing when making their recruitment decisions.
A company has created a series of smartphone games that it claims can measure a number of personal traits, making it easy for employers to identify the best candidates.
Just imagine, your candidates may find themselves on a virtual spaceship having to compete six levels of challenges in 30 minutes. But while it may sound like a bit of fun, the game measures cognitive processes like problem solving and collects information about how the candidate instinctively responds to certain situations. This can help employers gain a better understanding of how they would perform in the role and if they are a good fit for the company.
Arctic Shores believe that you can tell a lot about a candidate who plays their games. As the candidate plays, the game collects data about cognitive ability and their decision making style. The games can cover up to 20 different traits that can be linked to competencies in agility, performance under pressure and resilience.
The games have been created by in-house psychologists working with game developers to input traditional psychometric testing principles within a mobile game.
Since the emergence of smartphones, gaming is not just the hobby of mid-thirties men shooting people or racing cars on their games consoles. Smartphones have enabled game play to reach a much wider audience and now the typical gamer is considered to be a 26 year old woman.
Some cynics say that this method of recruitment will simply discriminate against people who don’t have much experience at playing console or smartphone games. But the games makers say that the games are easy and simple to play and don’t need any gaming experience.
For employers it means they can have a game tailored to their specific business needs and which can even include their branding. After candidates finish the game, their scores are compared with an ideal profile specially created for that particular business, so they can see how well they compare.
Perhaps one day game-based assessment will be the key to hiring a more diverse workforce and help employers find the best fit for their companies.
Further assistance
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