Are you still hiring with the old age assessment methods?
Imagine you are the HR head of an organization and the year is 2012. What were the steps you used to follow to hire a candidate?

These ones, right -

1. 1. Application
2. 2. Resume screening
3. 3. Screening call
4. 4. Assessment test
5. 5. Technical round
6. 6. In-person interviewing

It's 2022 and my assumption is that you are following almost the same steps with improvements to manage hiring at scale remotely.

The candidate market is going through a rapid shift. Baby Boomers are retiring, and Millennials and Gen Z are constituting a larger share of the candidate market with these two combined taking 46% of the workforce as per Gallup. As these younger digitally savvy natives, with mobile phones in their hands, internet and social media as a necessity, and gaming as part of their lives enter the talent market in 2022, the methods of hiring have to become more digitally savvy and engaging in nature.
This is making way for game-based assessments as the tool of choice to make the hiring process easy, engaging and fun for recruiters and candidates.

1. 
   What is game-based assessment, and why it is important
2. Game-based assessments are psychometric assessments intentionally built as games. Due to their fast-paced and immersive nature, game-based assessments reveal a candidate's natural behavior and responses in a way that traditional testing methods cannot. Framing the assessment as a 'game' rather than a 'test' reduces anxiety, making the hiring process more inclusive and accurate for candidates who get nervous during formal testing.
   
   
3. 1) Virtually impossible to manipulation
4. With the game-based assessment hiring process and assessment data is objective, which eliminates the chance of bias that may arise from subjective interpretations of a resume, letter of recommendation, biographical information, or interviews. Game-based test comprise machine learning technology which provides increased predictive validity & a more accurate picture of how a candidate will perform in the job.
5. 
   2) Engaging and stress-free
6. Because of the long raging pandemic, employees are bound to get stressed due to the monotony and a lack of work-life balance. This stress prevails on job seekers as well in a process that is already stressful for a lot of candidates. The immersive nature of the game reduces stress resulting from the so-called stereotypical threat, i.e. negative stereotypes about culture or gender differences inhibiting doubts and high-pressure anxieties in the test taker's mind. Games help in minimizing socially desirable behaviour by eliciting authentic responses.
7. 
   3) End-to-end management of your recruitment drive
8. A well-designed selection process is critical for sustainable and scalable talent identification, and it allows recruiters to leave a lasting positive impression on applicants. Game-based assessments convey a fresh and dynamic employer image. The enhanced candidate experience creates an essential competitive edge for companies in an increasingly global war for talent.
9. 
   4) Increases candidate engagement
10. A game-based assessment is remarkably more engaging than a traditional psychometric Assessment. Some organizations experienced an 80% decrease in dropout rates with game-based tests Candidates are generally more likely to complete a short series of games than a lengthy test and are more likely to enjoy the experience.

1. 
   Some of the prominent use cases of game-based assessment
   
2. Game-based assessments have become the flavor of the season and organizations across industries and geographies are using game-based assessments for their fresher, campus, and lateral hiring and development needs.
3. 
   1. Large Automobile Major
4. The client is one of India's largest automobile manufacturers and was struggling to assess their territory managers on specific competencies required to do their job better. They needed an assessment to create individual training and development plans for the managers in the service training department. There was a reluctance and stress amongst the participants towards the traditional assessment and therefore client's mandate was to get an assessment that is engaging and fun to complete. "Gammezo", India's 1st game-based assessment was chosen by the client as it offered the assessments in a neutral, immersive, and engaging manner. The Competencies measured were categorized as Work Management, Change Management, People Management, and Self-Management respectively. The program was launched across the country with over 200 participants. The output reports were simple and easy-to-understand and came along with automated built-in Development Action Plans. Basis the scores and development plan the participants were categorized into different training program buckets.
5. 
   2. Global Consumer Goods Company
6. The company is a consumer goods company with over 400 brands and employing around 170,000 people globally. They recruit 30,000 people a year and receive around 1.8 million job applications. Keeping in mind every application requires coordination, filtering and interviews; this is a massive job even for a big company like them. The company has saved around 70,000 hours of interviewing time and application processing by streamlining its recruitment process with AI centric Game based assessment technology. The company - narrowed their applicants from 250,000 to 3,500 people - all of whom were invited to assessment centers. The dropout rate decreased up to 2X, and the whole hiring process became speedy & easy.
7. 
   3. American Consumer Goods Company
8. The company is an American consumer goods giant specializing in a wide range of personal care and hygiene products. They wanted to transform the hiring process to embrace technological advances in candidate assessment, to increase completion rates and engagement while retaining high validity and fairness standards. After switching to game-based assessments, the company saw a 300% increase in favorable employee outcomes (e.g. performance, potential, retention). They were able to make offers to 80% of the candidates because of identification, mapping & sourcing of potential talent AND their offer acceptance rate increased by 11%
9. 
   4. Professional services firm
10. One more case in this List is a professional services firm wanted to ensure that they were hiring graduates who had the right skills and were a good 'fit' with the organization, to be able to help it continue to grow in the future and make sure they will be comfortable with the organization's Environment. They wanted to:
    • Increase the efficiency and validity of their hiring process
    • Decrease unconscious bias and increase the diversity of candidates moving through to interview.
    • Improve their employer brand by enhancing the candidate experience with the use of best practice recruitment technology.
    The employer decided to approach towards game-based assessments to help them improve their recruitment process by incorporating assessments that would help them achieve their goals. The firm immediately noticed large improvements in the efficiency of their recruitment process due to the higher caliber of candidates reaching the interview stage. Their recruitment team and hiring managers were able to spend significantly less time on previously time-consuming interviews, with a decrease of 2-3 hours for each hiring manager and a total of 115 interviewing hours saved.

It is evident that there is a clear shift towards game-based assessments to transform your hiring processes for the new generation. Game-based assessments have come as a breath of fresh air to improve candidate engagement and employer branding.