Win the Recruiting Game…Through Gaming

Job interviews can be stressful for both parties; the candidate worries that one wrong answer can take them out of the running, while the interviewer knows that a bad hire will cost the company time and money. Add to that the calls from some recruiters to replace interviews with personality tests because
interviews only increase the likelihood of a great hire by 2%. In short, interviews don’t filter out all but the best employees.

But there’s a solution to ease the tensions of both the employer and the candidate: gamification. That is, requiring applicants to play a game that simulates the actual job. This not only gives applicants a rare inside look at what their work will be like but also subtly gauges their memory, aptitude, ability to follow directions, and other important factors.

Does gamification work? When the French postal service created a game for its applicants that included not just mail delivery but non-work activities like taking a shower and eating, the dropout rate for new hires fell from 25% to 8%.
Marriott’s famous hotel kitchen game, which launched in 2011, helped propel Marriott’s careers Facebook page to over one million likes — and is still available for new players two years later. Or look at it from the competitive angle: Research firm Gartner predicts that over 70% of the Forbes Global 2000 will have at least one gamified application by 2014.

Image courtesy of SeriousGameBlog.com

I saw the growing excitement for gamification when two recruiting games won 2012 Creative Excellence Awards, given by the ERE: Home Depot’s Facebook game, in which players had to race among the store’s aisles to help customers
and find products, won first prize in the Social Media category. Deloitte China’s “Green Dot Mission” game, a scavenger hunt through a virtual version of the company’s office, took second place in the Interactive category.

Gamification can also be used for other initiatives, such as employee referrals, employee wellness, and even internal rebranding. A strong employee referral program cuts down on hiring costs while employee wellness cuts down on health insurance costs. I’m sure savvy companies will find other ways that gaming can reduce costs and increase profitability.

Ready to add gamification to your recruiting or other HR initiative? We’re standing by.

Brandemix Bonus Reel: Sneak Peek of Employer Branding Boot Camp

Jason Ginsburg, Director of Interactive Branding at Brandemix, offers a sneak preview of Employer Branding Boot Camp, a webinar presented on September 25.

Register for this free webinar here.

Brandemix Bonus Reel: Decoding Social Recruiting

Jason Ginsburg, Director of Interactive Branding at Brandemix, reveals surprising insights from the 2013 Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey.

Download our free Social Media Strategy Guide for Talent Acquisition here.

Register for our free webinar, Employer Branding Boot Camp.

Decoding the 2013 Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey

Jobvite has just released its sixth annual Social Recruiting Survey, polling 1600 recruiters and HR professionals on their social media efforts.

The results continue a trend that I’ve been following for years: Social is a major part of any organization’s hiring efforts. In 2008, 78% of recruiters were using social media. In 2011, it was 89%. This year, it’s 94%. Even more telling, 73% of respondents planned to increase their social recruiting spend in 2013 – compared to the 39% who planned to increase their spend on job boards.

LinkedIn was the most popular social network in many categories, from searching for candidates (96% of companies), contacting candidates (94%), and posting jobs (91%). Only about half of respondents posted jobs on Facebook, and a little less than that posted jobs on Twitter.

Just what you’d expect, right? But there’s more to these numbers than meets the eye.

From the 2013 Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey

First, the cracks in job boards’ dominance, already mentioned above, become more apparent deeper in the survey. Respondents said that 42% of their applicants are sourced through job boards…but only 14% of hires come that way.

Compare that to applications through referrals and company career sites, which make up 39% of submissions, but 61% of hires. This is a much better ratio, especially since 43% of these employees stay for at least three years, while only 14% of job-board hires do. It looks like job boards are generating lots of applicants who don’t get hired – or don’t stay if they do.

Another interesting discovery is that recruiters use LinkedIn differently from other social networks. LinkedIn was good for assessing a candidate’s professional experience and “specific hard skills.” But Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and others were better at determining a candidate’s cultural fit. Which is more important? How would Southwest Airlines respond, whose co-founder Herb Kelleher coined the phrase, “Hire for attitude, train for skill“?

What I found most revealing were the questions that related to the financial value of social recruiting. 43% of companies spend less than $12,000 a year on social recruiting. But 65% believe that its value is greater than $20,000 a year. And 20% place its value at more than $90,000 a year!

From the 2013 Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey

I understand the budgetary restraints placed on HR departments, but these numbers show that even a small investment can generate tremendous savings, especially combined with higher quality of candidates (according to 49% of recruiters) and less time to hire (33%) that social recruiting produces.

Are you one of the 6% of companies not yet using social in your talent acquisition strategy? Or one of the 73% that plans to increase their social recruiting budget? Brandemix can help. Download our free Social Media Strategy Guide for Talent Acquisition. If you’re ready for the next step, visit our website for more info.