With digitalization shaping the corporate and social contexts, formation of human capital has taken the main stage in the matter of adopting digital recruitment and management practices in organizations. One of the most recent developments we can see in organizations is the use of Game-Based Assessments, or GBAs, in hiring.
The hiring process has included and been influenced by behavioral and personality assessments for a long time. However, traditional psychometric assessments like that of are often challenged about a number of unfavorable aspects of their use in actual employee selection. For instance, self-report noncognitive measures are susceptible to a range of biases pertaining to a person’s capacity for accurate reflection upon themselves and their desire to do so honestly (Landers & Sanchez, 2022). The integration of artificial intelligence into new age hiring practices has paved the way for the development of more interactive, valid and less biased methods of assessing candidates through gameplay.
Measuring Cognitive Abilities Using Games
A standard ‘gamified’ assessment entails specific cognitive abilities or behavioral competencies that are linked to a game. Research in the field of gamification shows that certain in-game tendencies, such as abstract reasoning (fluid intelligence), knowledge (crystallized intelligence), inductive reasoning, visual perception, memory, learning, and cognitive speed, are either reliable indicators or strong correlates of various cognitive abilities (Wu, et al., 2022). Even before the advent of gamified ability and skill assessments, several researchers found the link between games and cognitive skills and abilities. Games have been inherently linked to cognitive development in students. A study by Reynaldo and their colleagues (2021) stated that cognitive skills such as perception, attentional control, and decision-making improved when subjects were trained with video games (Reynaldo. ,et al, 2021). Games, in addition to aiding cognition, can be a good indicator of an individual’s cognitive abilities.
Playing a game to get hired sounds fun, but the question we’d all like to ask is: How accurate are these ‘games’, really? How well can they predict an individual’s performance on the job?
One of the leading providers of professionally developed pre-employment tests, CriteriaCorp, states that because cognitive aptitude tests have been shown to be twice as likely to predict job performance than interviews or education, gamified assessments are indeed a good predictor of various job outcomes, such as job performance and productivity (Silverstein, 2019). Adding game-like elements to traditional cognitive ability tests enhances candidate experience by creating a fun environment for them, while also providing data-driven information about their skills and abilities. These games are developed on the principles of game science and psychology to make them scientifically accurate and valid predictors of individual potential.
Games to Measure Personality Traits – Is it Scientifically Viable?
Since the science underlying personalities and their relationship to job outcomes seems to be less established than that for cognitive abilities, measuring personalities and behavioral competencies through games is a relatively emerging domain. Studies state that personality assessment games can be useful for people who understand games intellectually but struggle to provide accurate self-reports, for example, due to a lack of self-insight (Schriber., et al., 2014). Findings also show that personality measurement in applied contexts can benefit from the use of game-based assessments (Barends., et al., 2022).
Converting personality measures into a story to create a game-like simulation, or ‘storification’ is one of the few methods proposed to gamify personality measures (Landers & Collmus,, 2022). In one of the studies on profiling personality traits with games, Santos and colleagues (2019) developed a set of games to study self-esteem in individuals through gameplay. After finishing a level, players were asked to rate their performance and assess how they compared to other players. The player was given questions that were expected to be influenced by their sense of self-esteem. The outcomes demonstrated that a player’s selfesteem did have an impact on their selfevaluation in the game. Research in the area of personality gamification has also tapped the big five traits, and personality constructs of honesty, humility and compliance. The use of valid and reliable gameplay components as a personality indicator in hiring would be made possible by a scientifically supported approach in this area.
What is in it for Organizations?
Game-based assessments make cognitive, personality and behavioral aspects of hiring data driven, predictive, and more fun and interactive, as we have seen. But why would organizations forgo their tried-and-true methods that work perfectly well for them?
Today’s workplaces are making an effort to adopt more “Gen-Z friendly” practices; the emphasis is shifting toward candidate retention, hiring the best talent in a candidate-driven market, employer branding, keeping job applicants engaged throughout the process so we don’t lose them, finding the right ‘culture fits’, and streamlining and speeding up the hiring process – and these are all the reasons why GBAs are more in demand today than ever-
- They are Data-Driven: Compared to a conventional psychometric test, game-based assessments collect 20 times more data. They provide recruiters with a plethora of information, observations, and insights in a fun and highly interactive way. GBAs give us multiple data points. For example, they can tell us how a player performed a certain task, what were the risks involved in the process, how different their previous approaches were, and which part of the game the player couldn’t perform to their fullest potential.
- They are Engaging: Anyone would choose to play a game than fill out a long self-report questionnaire that claims to measure your personality. When playing a game, individuals often tend to let themselves go with the flow in the process, making it easier to assess their skills and abilities through gameplay. Players wouldn’t spend so much time worrying about what if they do it wrong, or how they are perceived during gameplay, or how well they’re doing in comparison to others.
- They are backed by Psychometrics: Gamebased assessments are developed using principles of organizational psychology, data science and game design. An assessment, to be gamified and to yield the best outcomes, needs to be scientifically backed and have 800d psychometric properties. Game-like elements are added to existing assessment frameworks, to make them more engaging and predictive of various job outcomes.
Organizations have slowly started implementing Game-based Assessments in their process of recruitment. Companies such as HireVue, Pymetrics, CriteriaCorp and others are leading as some of the top game-based employee assessment providers. They are making it possible by combining data science and games, which allows for a precise and scientifically supported implication. In addition to providing rich data for unbiased selection, they assist in attracting potential talent from a variety of backgrounds.
Work Cited:
- Barends, A. J., de Vries, R. E., & van Vugt, M. (2022). Construct and predictive validity of an assessment game to measure honesty-humility. Assessment, 29(4), 630-650.
- Landers, R. N., & Collmus, A. B. (2022). Gamifying a personality measure by converting it into a story: Convergence, incremental prediction, faking, and reactions. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 30(1), 145-156.
- Landers, R. N., & Sanchez, D. R. (2022). Game-based, gamified, and gamefully designed assessments for employee selection: Definitions, distinctions, design, and validation. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 30(1), 1-13.
- Reynaldo, C., Christian, R., Hosea, H., & Gunawan, A. A. (2021). Using video games to improve capabilities in decision making and cognitive skill: a literature review. Procedia Computer Science, 179, 211-221.
- Santos, C. P., Hutchinson, K., Khan, V.-J., & Markopoulos, P. (2019). Profiling Personality Traits with Games. ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, 9(2-3), 1-30. doi: 10.1145/3230738 Schriber, R. A., Robins, R. W., & Solomon, M. (2014). Personality and self-insight in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of personality and social psychology, 106(1), 112.
- Silverstein, M. (2019, May 14). How Accurate are Game-Based Assessments? | Criteria. Criteria Corp Blog. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://blog.criteriacorp.com/how-accurate-are-game-basedassessments/
- Wu, F. Y., Mulfinger, E., Alexander III, Lo, Sinclair, A. L., McCloy, R. A., & Oswald, F. L. (2022). Individual differences at play: An investigation into measuring Big Five personality facets with gamebased assessments. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 30(1), 62-81.
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