How to Use Gamification to Improve Recruitment and Hiring

The future of work is now. 

As more workplaces move towards more remote work, organizations need to come up with new creative strategies to engage employees who may be working at home, or in different offices. This move towards better remote onboarding actually starts a stage earlier in the hiring process, at the recruitment level.

The recruitment process has gone through many changes over the years but has noticeably transformed in the last 18 months now that recruiters are not able to do in-person interviews as easily due to pandemic health restrictions.

Companies that are ahead of the curve and thinking proactively have begun to add gamification techniques to their recruitment process to help bridge the gap between their office and the virtual environment where recruits are doing their interviews. 

Gamified recruitment can help make this process more interesting, and can be used to motivate, engage, and train employees, regardless of whether they’re new hires or long-standing staff.

Today, we’ll explain the basics of gamified recruitment, and share strategies for including gamification techniques at every stage of your recruitment process.

Explaining the Basics of Gamification Technique

Gamification is essentially the process of taking everything interesting and engaging about a game and applying it to a new area of focus. Through this new mode of learning, many people find that they’re able to focus and engage with greater ease while having fun during the process. It can also make it easier to apply the lessons they’re learning to real-life scenarios.

The ideal gamification technique creates a more engaging learning experience, provides reinforcement for new knowledge, and ensures that people can learn more successfully while on the job.

Gamified Recruitment at Every Stage of the Hiring Process

Now that you know the basics of gamification, we can focus on how gamification can be applied to your hiring and recruitment. At every stage of the process, using these techniques can help you create a pathway for recruitment that attracts great candidates and engages them deeply, allowing your staff more opportunities to accurately assess potential hires.

In the Application Process

In the early stages of the hiring process, it’s very important to get qualified recruits interested and engaged in your job posting. Many recruiting experts say that gamification techniques can help your postings stand out from the crowd since the use of game mechanics is still outside of the norm.

Additionally, using game mechanics in the early stages of the application process can also give candidates a better sense of the day-to-day responsibilities of the job, making it easier for people to self-select whether they’d like to proceed with their application.

During the Assessment of Candidates

Most of us are familiar with the interview process, where candidates are brought in to be assessed by recruiters and company leadership. During the pandemic, most of this process has moved online, making it even more difficult to create a meaningful connection with a potential new hire.

Instead of relying on the same old rote questions, you ask for every job interview, gamification techniques can bring new life into the interview process. Some examples of this could include a quiz, a challenge, or some other behavioral evaluation that allows the executives in charge of hiring the opportunity to assess the candidate’s aptitude, skills, temperament, and so much more.

During Onboarding

If everything goes to plan and you find someone to fill your open position, the next step is onboarding. Before the pandemic, this was already a long and complex process that most people involved found uninspiring. During the pandemic, companies scrambled to figure out how to onboard new employees without being able to gather in person. What they came up with was a hodgepodge of Zoom calls, emails, and online training sessions. Not exactly a great way to inspire your new employees.

By adding elements of gamification to your onboarding, you can cut training time by more than 50% and create a program that’s so interesting new hires will always remember their first few days in your company.

With 1Huddle, there are lots of games to choose from, or you can build your own using our easy-to-use platform. All employees need to do is log into their dashboard, and everything they need is right there. 

Want to try it for yourself? Request a demo today.