RANJ serious games - Recruitment and Assessment

Attracting the best

Employer branding

The first challenge is to create an excellent experience to attract and engage candidates. There might be many compelling reasons why a talented person would want to work for your company, but how will you get that across? Together with Dutch law firm Houthoff Buruma we developed “Houthoff Buruma, the Game” in which talented graduates get an exciting and realistic experience of the international legal practice. In this story-based game they will develop a strategy in a complicated law case. The player missions challenge exactly those competences Houthoff Buruma seeks in their recruits: creative, solution driven, stress resistent, social and worldly wise. The game puts the candidates in the drivers seat and lets them experience Houthoff’s way of working from an inside-out perspective. It will help them determine whether they fit in the company culture.

Improving the validity of the assessment

On the other hand, the game allows Houthoff to improve their candidate assessment. As the players get immersed in the game, they tend to lose their critical distance to the experience and behave more naturally. This allows the recruiters to asses the candidates on competences that are hard to test otherwise, far beyond just cognitive qualities and basic skills. A recruiter wants to know not only whether the candidate understands how to act, but how he will act in a real life situation, under great pressure or in a team. A well-designed serious game will be an accurate and realistic simulation of a situation in practice. Situations that are hard to practice in a real life situation (because of risk, costs or availability) can be simulated in a rich multimedia environment. The candidate will be confronted with a wide range of problems to solve, within different roles or context. This will help increase the socalled generizability of the assessed competencies.

Gamification of assessment

Assessing large groups of people

Companies that are recruiting large groups of people could make enormous savings if parts of the assessment proces would be automated. A gamified preselection process, for instance, could eliminate unsuitable candidates in an effective and efficient way, and still offer an excellent brand experience to all candidates. Besides, it would provide the recruiters with large amounts of additional player data to be used in the assessment process.

Gamification of recruitment and assessment

Serious games are based on the educational concept of learning by doing. They actively involve the players in a compelling story in which they have to solve problems that are meaningful and relevant to them, and not abstract or generic. They will get continuous feedback on their performance, which is a great motivator.

Gamifying the recruitment and assessment methodology will enhance an interactive dialogue between company and candidates. It will improve its validity and enable companies to incorporate their employer branding throughout the selection process, at a lower cost per candidate. It will provide candidates with an excellent experience and get them up-to-speed faster once they are hired.