Why Your Thumbs Could Hurt on Your Next Job Interview

I’ve known about gaming applications as a hiring tool for some time now, but this new article over on the NY Times shows the serious investment being made in the development of video games to help hiring managers choose talent.

In short, more and more people will be using their thumbs to help them land the job. (My hands are aching just thinking about it!)

What If You Aren’t a Gamer?!

Okay, so if you’re reading this article and thinking, “Crud. I stink at video games. My 5 year old son, nephew, neighbor, etc. kicks my butt every time we play.” Or, “Dang. I was good at Ms. PacMan, but it’s been awhile,” then you’re not alone. Millions of job seekers aren’t gamers – and that’s okay. You’ll just need to leverage your other assets – and I’m not talking about your good looks or college degree. (Here’s an article on why college degrees don’t get you hired, passion does.)

Personality, Aptitude & Experience – They’ll Still Count For Something

While using video games might help a company identify traits in a candidate that aren’t easily recognized in an interview, they will still need to make sure that you have the:

A) Personality type that will mesh with the rest of the team. If you can’t communicate and get along with your peers, you’ll negatively impact the office environment and team productivity.

B) Aptitude to adapt to change without getting flustered. Yes, the game might be able to test that to some degree, but they’ll still want to see how you physically handle the stress. They need to ensure you are able to stay positive in your thoughts and communication style enough keep it in check and not let it affect your teammates.

C) Experience needed to maintain a certain level of professionalism. Being “professional” is learned. You spend time in an environment and come to understand the unwritten rules of proper business etiquette and teamwork requirements. Even if you were the top scorer on the video hiring game, if you can’t act like a proper professional, you won’t be selected.

Want to Skip the Games? Become a Super-Connector

I do think even when these video games become mainstream in hiring, there will still be a way to bypass this part of the process: just be a super-connector. Those that recognize their network is their net worth know building powerful relationships will always be the best way to find work. (Here’s the Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Becoming a Super-Connector.)

Super-Connectors Don’t Play Games…They’re Game-Changers!

The definition of a super-connector is someone who focuses on helping their network with their career goals. They serve their network, and in return, their network rewards them by referring them to employers looking for their type of talent. There’s a reason 80% of all jobs are gotten today via referral – it works. So, while it might not be a bad idea to pick up a video game from time to time so your eye-hand coordination stays current, I’d spend more time picking up the phone, inviting people to coffee, attending networking events, and making professional introductions for others so you can build and maintain the quality relationships needed to get doors opened for you in the future.

Humans Hire Humans to Play the Work Game Together

My advice to anyone worrying about the video game hiring trend is to remember the best companies create cultures where the employees feel like they are on the same team. Humans hire humans so they can play the work game together. Not every employer is going to use this type of hiring tool. There will always be plenty of employers out there for you to land a position with that won’t make you hurt your thumbs to get the job offer.

via Why Your Thumbs Could Hurt on Your Next Job Interview | LinkedIn.

Why Your Thumbs Could Hurt on Your Next Job Interview

Gamification in HR: Going Beyond the Buzzword

In the recruiting world, it seems there is a lot of discussion about gamification even though gamification is something that’s been around for years. Let’s get this out of the way up front – for almost all companies or organizations, gamification should not be viewed as a solution for attracting candidates (America’s Army is one of a few exceptions). However, gamification can be an effective method of encouraging behavior once you are already interacting with a candidate.

Gamification is one of many problem-solving tools you should consider when approaching a challenge. As a general rule of thumb, any discussion about gamification should first start with questions versus answers – it is only through careful questioning that you can then determine if gamification offers an answer. The first question to ask is not “What should our gamification strategy be,” but instead, “What are our primary challenges from a recruiting standpoint? Are there aspects of gamification that could offer potential benefits that address these challenges?”

For example, many of you have likely read articles on, or even tested out, Marriott’s use of gamification that launched a few years back. Their tactic included the development of an interactive game within their Facebook page allowing players to manage all the behind-the-scenes aspects of running a kitchen within a virtual hotel. [While this game is not currently live, you can view a trailer for it here.] Without knowing the strategic foundation and problem the game aimed to address, it may likely have appeared somewhat elementary. Yet understanding that the target audience was young, international (many having recently moved from a rural environment to an urban one), and lacking the basic knowledge of what happens within a hotel – the simplicity of the game was by design. Marriott needed a way to educate an audience on what working in the hotel kitchen environment was like, and research showed the audience members were using social media channels to discover job opportunities and were also were heavy online gamers. This strategy addressed the questions noted above and was not put into place just to have gamification tactics.

Ultimately, to be successful gamification should never be based on a “wouldn’t it be cool if” idea a client or agency has. Always put your audience first; understand their needs, their behaviors, and their motivations. Then, understand your brand’s recruitment and employee challenges. By doing so you can have the best chance of developing a recruitment strategy that meets your objectives and offers an experience that resonates with your target audience. If this strategy includes some form of gamification, then great!

With that said, while it is critical to first understand your problem before considering gamification techniques, there are certain areas that gamification is often a potentially great strategy for. Because gamification is best used to encourage behavior with an existing audience, the following types of efforts offer great place to focus your initial consideration:

• Internal Employee Engagement

• Onboarding Processes

• Performance/Recognition

• Employee Referral Programs (ERPs)

via Gamification in HR: Going Beyond the Buzzword – RecruitingBlogs.

Gamification in HR: Going Beyond the Buzzword

Gamification?

Move over children, now it’s time for grown-ups and business leaders to play! The new buzzword is ‘Gamification’, and apparently it is no child’s play. We increasingly hear the term gamification bandied around in the business and technology world, and if you have ever wondered what’s behind the hype then here is my buzzword-busting lowdown on this new business trend.

In simple terms, gamification means applying some of the features we enjoy in video games to businesses, or indeed to any non-game-related area. The rationale is that people love playing games; they lose themselves in them for hours on end. Successful games such as Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft or even app games such as Candy Crush Saga have millions of passionate players, who on average spend 13 hours a week playing games. The 4% of extreme gamers spend a staggering 48.5 hours per week, which is more than most people spend at work!

So what makes games so appealing and how could we use this for business? What games offer people, and many real world situations don’t, is this intense competitive environment with constant challenges of trying to move to a new level and complete the next mission, where players get instant feedback, reward, collect points and badges, move up rankings, and see their status increase.

All this is possible because we play video games in a digital environment that can track and analyse everything we do. With an increasing digitization and datafication of our real world, we can now do the same in many business environments. Airlines, hotels and retailers have long used game principles in their loyalty programmes: Each time you fly, stay or shop you collect reward points and you might see yourself moving up the tiers to silver, gold or even platinum level. We all know that they work. People love colleting points and I see many who check their frequent flyer apps on their phone as soon as the plane lands to see how many points they collected, and once they reach a higher status level they can’t wait to put their gold or platinum badges on their luggage.

Deep inside we are all still children who crave fun, new challenges, achievements, rewards and recognition. I see how much my own children love to get a badge for doing well, they love competition, they love leader boards, and you can’t stop them if they can collect points. Their school uses it – my six year old loves to tell me that he got a ‘Super Brain’ badge from his teacher for work that was particularly good. Even our dentist uses it – he has given my 3 children a scorecard on which they collect points for cleaning, etc. and each time they have a check up the dentist scores them. Suddenly, brushing teeth becomes a competitive and fun thing to do!

Here are two more real business examples (one from a large and one from a smaller company), that illustrate the power of gamification:

Before Microsoft releases new versions of software it needs people to test them so it can find and fix bugs. In the past it simply invited Microsoft employees to test new versions of software but saw very low uptake. In the end, it takes some time to download, install, and run a new piece of software and everyone is busy enough. However, uptake went through the roof when Microsoft gamified the testing of one of their new operating systems. The difference: Microsoft published the names of employees on their intranet and gave people progress bars for e.g. downloading, installing, running a test for 48h, etc. It also created a leader board to show who completed most tasks and provided the most feedback. Soon everyone was talking about it, downloading and testing the software, and watching the leader boards change.

Bluewolf, a smallish consulting company, wanted to encourage employees to use more social media, build their own brands and develop themselves as subject matter experts and thought leaders. Even though the company knew that a bigger social presence would generate new leads, it struggled to make people do it. Then the company started to use their CRM system to track the blog posts people wrote, the amount of times people shared information on Facebook and Twitter, the amounts of reads, likes and comments people got. Each of these tasks would earn people points, which allowed Bluewolf to create dashboards with rankings and leaderboards. Needless to say, people became very social, which in turn tripled traffic to their website from social media, tripled blog readership, gave them an 8 times increase in blogger community, and increased collaboration internally.

via What the Heck is… Gamification? | LinkedIn.

Gamification?

Why HR Should Bet on Technology to Find the Best Talent [INFOGRAPHIC]

When finding the best talent – what do you use? Sparkhire reckon that HR should bet on technology – and this infographic explains why.

Takeaways:

• 33% of recruiters reported a decreased time to hire when using technology/social media.

• We are now crunching as much data every TWO DAYS as we did from the dawn of civilisation through to 2003.

• By 2015, companies will spend more than $2 billion on gamification.

via Why HR Should Bet on Technology to Find the Best Talent [INFOGRAPHIC].

Why HR Should Bet on Technology to Find the Best Talent [INFOGRAPHIC]

4 Steps To Gamify Your Hiring Process – and attract more talent

With Gartner reporting last year that 80% of gamification projects will fail to meet objectives, primarily because of poor game design, its fair to say that gamification is still struggling to find its way, particularly in the HR and recruiting arena. Just mentioning gamification of hiring to many recruiters could result in some funny and bemused looks. I mean what is gamification, after all?

Gamification typically involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging. Gamification has been called one of the most important trends in technology by several industry experts. Gamification can potentially be applied to any industry and almost anything to create fun and engaging experiences, converting users into players.

Well, in a hiring sense, its the idea of using game mechanics, usually in the form of competitions to help screen candidates for jobs. And in many senses, there is nothing for recruiters to be afraid of, because the hiring process has been using game mechanics for many years to select staff, but it has simply been using it a different point in the process. For example, many companies use aptitude tests, attainment tests (where candidates are ranked like in a competition) as well as various other competition like assessments to assess candidates. The main difference with this ‘early’ gamification versus the ‘new’ gamification is that companies are now also using them at the start of the hiring process to actually attract candidates and not just to rank their skills. Gamification has become a talent attraction tool in itself.

Gamifying your hiring process is easier than you think. You just need to be bold enough to try it. So, how do you get started? I think there are four main steps to go through.

Gamification Recruitment

4 Easy Steps to Gamify Your Hiring Process

1.Business Case; you might need some time and money to implement your new hiring initiative, so build your business case showing how it can improve key hiring metrics such as: number of applicants, time to hire, cost per hire, quality of hire and ultimately output and productivity.

2. Low hanging fruit

Also, focus on ‘low hanging fruit’ or areas that have been shown to benefit already from gamification in hiring such as technology staff and sales people, the latter of which are known to have a competitive streak. You are likely to get a better engagement levels in these spheres.

3.Platform

There are a range of gamification platforms on the market, which make it very easy for you to deploy an on-line, company branded game like competition for your hiring campaign, such as:

Your own company website: Simple; have your team develop your own competition which could be an online quiz or game focused on a particular skill. Have your developers build a simple delivery system which allows your talent community to do the test on-line, receive a score and a position in your league table.

Qmerce; This software makes it easy for technical staff or non technical staff to create a branded game or tournament for their communities. The level of technology offered here suggests that this system is about making on-line games to attract relevant talent and interest and less focused on ‘hard testing’.

Kaggle; This is a gamification platform for data prediction competitions which comes with its own talent community of 94,000 Data Scientists. You can create data analytic type challenges and invite the data scientist community to compete in your competition to supply your business with an answer to a problem. The prize can be money or it can be a job, as in the Yelp Recruiting Competition for a Data Scientist.

Crowdspring; This is a a gamification and talent community for Graphic Design where you can host and market design competitions to their graphic design communities. Rather than generate proposals, they generate designs and you choose the best one. The prize is money, but you could perhaps combine this with an interview to help attract qualified talent.

RippleHire: This is a fully gamified employee referral software tool that turns employee referrals into an exciting game, encouraging your employees to compete and win the game to be the best talent scout.

4.Market your tournament and attract participants

Many of the options such as Kaggle and Crowdspring come with their own ready made talent communities so your game is self marketing. If you are using something like Qmerce or your own website, you will of course need to market the tournament effectively through social media, google, advertisements etc…

via 4 Steps To Gamify Your Hiring Process – and attract more talent – RecruitingTools.com.

4 Steps To Gamify Your Hiring Process – and attract more talent

Using Gamification in the Hiring Process

This week, the TalentCulture community took a fascinating look at gamification in the workplace. And in my opinion, everyone earned badges and gold stars, as we shared collective knowledge at #TChat events.

Our two expert guests are masters at explaining the connection between business gamification and big data. These smart senior executives brought key concepts to life with practical ideas and real-world examples:

• Guy Halfteck, Founder and CEO of Knack, a company that integrates games into the hiring process to help companies define desired talent characteristics and improve recruiting outcomes.

• Mark Howorth, COO at Panavision, who previously served as Partner and Sr. Director of Global Recruiting at Bain & Company.

Gamification: What’s In A Name?

“Gamification” is a controversial term, but the concept it simple. It’s about employing game theory and mechanics in business environments to drive problem solving, boost workforce and customer engagement, capture better organizational insights, accelerate responsiveness, improve learning and increase ROI. Last year, Gartner predicted that by 2015, more than 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will integrate gamification.

Gartner identified four ways that gamification drives engagement:

• Accelerated feedback cycles. In the real world, feedback loops are slow (annual performance appraisals) with long periods between milestones. Gamification increases the velocity of feedback loops to maintain engagement.

 • Clear goals and rules of play. In the real world, where goals are fuzzy and rules selectively applied, gamification provides clear goals and well-defined rules of play to ensure players feel empowered to achieve.

 • A compelling narrative. While real-world activities are rarely compelling, gamification builds a narrative that engages players to participate.

 • Tasks that are challenging but achievable. While there is no shortage of challenges in the real world, they tend to be large and long-term. Gamification provides many short-term, achievable goals to sustain engagement.

 

Gamification: What Makes It Tick?

Gamification is serious business. As Accenture explained in a detailed report early this year, companies are striving to understand what makes games so appealing (a shared sense of purpose, challenge and reward). They are decoding gaming mechanisms (personalization, rankings and leaderboards), and applying these mechanics in imaginative ways across business functions. Accenture identified seven essential elements:

• Status: Because gamers are motivated by recognition of others in their social circles, game-based business solutions must make it possible to enhance players’ reputations.

• Milestones: Levels are everything in gaming, and enabling participants to perceive progress through incremental accomplishments is vital to sustaining interest.

• Competition: This is a major motivator that maintains engagement.

• Rankings: Visually displaying progress and rankings help participants benchmark their performance to their own goals and others’ performance. Rankings tap into natural human competitiveness, and motivate participants to continue, so they can improve their position.

• Social connectedness: Successful gamification initiatives create a strong sense of community.

• Immersion reality: With visually rich graphics and animation, digital environments can help immerse participants in their virtual reality.

• Personalization: The ability to customize promotes a sense of control and ownership.

 

In their book, “For The Win: How Gamification Can Transform Your Business,” Wharton professor and gamification expert, Kevin Werbach and New York Law School professor Dan Hunter, take a deep dive into gamification.

In this informative video, they explain how gamification helps people “find the fun in the things you have to do.” They make it easy to understand gamification, with examples of successful companies that are applying these techniques, and advice to help organizations avoid common pitfalls. We hope you find this, along with the collected resource links and #TChat Twitter highlights slideshow below a helpful resource for game-based initiatives in which you may be involved!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nKuW0luxvEI

 

via Game On! Playing To Business Strengths #TChat Recap – TalentCulture – World of Work.

Using Gamification in the Hiring Process