Assessment games and recruitment games have been used for several years to recruit talent and to make a pre-selection.
Creating and utilizing assessment games is more complex than it seems. In our view, there are three main pitfalls to consider:
1. Assessment games with too low psychometric quality
Surely an assessment game is cool! How about psychometric quality? The first pitfall with an assessment game is low reliability. Games are designed to elicit exploratory behavior. And that is only possible if you develop a game world in which you can go in many different directions. Not a linear story, but a story depending on the choices you make in the game. The richer the choices, the more challenging the game often is.
Reliability in psychometrics means that if I measure the same construct again, I will get the same result. And reliability thrives on standardization. Games are made precisely to allow a player to experience rich choice. So, from a game design point of view, combining standardization with rich choices is very difficult. By the way, the reverse is also true: psychometric tests are standardized, and therefore often boring to do.
Why is reliability and validity so important?
Selection is about predicting functioning. You can only do that with instruments that are reliable (measure the same outcome every time) and valid (measure what they should measure). Otherwise, you’re going to make two kinds of mistakes. 1) You will start rejecting candidates unfairly. In an overstrained job market, this is unfortunate. You will be doing your own organization a disservice.
Moreover, you damage your employer’s brand image in the job market. Through social media, you can quickly work against yourself. 2) You will start falsely hiring candidates. Always a hassle and a lot of costs to solve. To avoid these mistakes, you need reliable and valid selection tools.
2. Too little involvement of hiring managers
It’s not difficult to get hiring managers excited about assessment gaming. However, the challenge lies in maintaining that excitement. This is important because hiring managers frequently serve as interviewers. If an assessment game does not provide adequate filtering, hiring managers may notice a significant disparity in candidate quality over time.
We know from experience that perceived time waste negatively impacts interview quality. As a result, hiring managers often stop preparing and utilizing the STAR technique, reverting to their own methods. This shift returns to the classic unstructured interview format, further undermining the reliability of the selection process.
3. Navel gazing: oh oh how sexy is our assessment game
Recruitment and assessment games have been in use for several years. However, feedback from students and recent graduates indicates that many of these games have little impact. Human Resources often overlooks that millennials frame their expectations for such games as entertainment games, which typically have budgets 1,000 times higher than those of a typical assessment game. As a result, their expectations are much higher. Meeting this standard is challenging with a budget of around $50,000 to $150,000. Nonetheless, achieving success is not impossible.
Want to know more?
Find out more about the differences between recruitment and assessment games.
Also read our blog on differences between online assessments and games
