When it comes to the end-to-end recruiting process there’s one piece of the candidate puzzle that continues to complicate things – the so-called ‘soft skills’. They’re about the candidate’s personality, their level of empathy, how well they work in a team environment, how adaptive they are, how well they respond under pressure and other profoundly human skills that have less to do with their strictly professional abilities and everything to do with the way they think, behave and read a situation. There’s just no good way to test for these, so frequently it comes down to the recruiter and their ‘gut feeling’.
Trying to understand such deeply embedded into who a candidate is as a person is borederlining on the impossible. Just like there’s no way to read a person in a 30 minute conversation, testing for prodounfly human abilities is just not feasible when you’ve also got to make sure that you’ll get a candidate matching the company style, objectives and job requirements.
Which is why often times this crucial part gets ignored.
So now ask yourself – can we do better? Is there a way in the recruitment industry to make sure that you’re truly getting the best of the best?
We wouldn’t be here if there weren’t.
The solution is AI-backed gamified recruitment platforms. It’s down to the winning combination of candidates having fun while completing assessments and the power of AI and advanced analytics that take those assessments and generate a complete picture of the candidate for recruiters to use going forward.
Pre-assessing candidates is a part of the recruitment process that we should try to help with an extra layer of intelligence in the industry – because it’s a complex, lengthy, messy process that can be easily automated. How, you’re asking?
Through Gamified Recruitment Platforms
Let us just start by underlining that gamification is not just about ‘playing’. It’s about resonating with people on a very low note of our brains, which is our innate desire to turn every process (learning, applying for jobs) into a fun, challenging, desirable one.
The word gamified refers to the design and development features of the platform, not to the fact that most of the tests and assessments are styled to resemble video games as you might think at a first look. These are all-in-one recruiting solutions that combine the best of previous generations (job boards, private messaging, resume posting) with the best of the cutting-edge solutions that we’ve created to magnify impact (gamified assessments, AI-powered analysis).
The power lies in the holistic view of each candidate that recruiters can now receive in their inbox. This view will include hard skills and soft skills, of course, but it will also include an assessment of the candidate based on factors such as how their cover letter is worded, which academies they select to participate in, and many more.
Simulations Offer Soft Skills Assessments That Don’t Feel Like Tests
Bolding the second part. Being able to complete an assessment of any kind, as an adult, whether millennial or Gen-Z, without thinking like you’re in the pits of dispair, is an achievement in and of itself. Make them enjoyable and you’ve got yourself an engaged candidate looking forward to getting to work with you.
Designed using the principles of the gaming industry, these online stimulations feel more like a role-playing game than an actual job-related test. When it comes to gauging how someone will respond under pressure, say in a situation where their team is about to miss a major deadline and the client isn’t happy, simulations offer a new solution.
Recruiters are often asked to fill hiring managers in on things like a candidate’s intent, empathy, how long they’ll stay at the company, and even emotional intelligence. These are difficult personality aspects and traits that even the most intuitive recruiter often misjudges.
Candidates are under a lot of stress during interviews and video screens, so much so that over 50% of the people in the current U.S. market said that changing jobs is one of the most stressful events of their lives. So normal responses are often blunted. Hidden under their discomfort with panel interviews may be the most empathetic software developer you’ve never met. Online simulations are a great way to let that empathy shine by removing the stressful surroundings.
Academies Provide More Than Simple Skills Training
Academies are MOOC-like (massive open online courses) settings where candidates can opt to learn the skills that companies are looking for. Recruiters have the ability to upload these academies, so they know the candidates are getting the training hiring managers are looking for, and candidates know the skills they’re learning are in demand.
Structured online classes are an awesome, scalable way for recruiters to get a glimpse of traits like honesty, follow-through, and teamwork under pressure. With the power of advanced analytics and logs from in-class chat sessions to provide the data—it’s possible for the platform to collect more than enough information on a candidate to provide a full picture to the recruiters.
On top of all that, the academies can offer training in these very soft skills. Emotional intelligence, in particular, is becoming a highly sought after trait. Results from the academy’s final projects are then added to the candidate’s profile so the AI can parse them along with everything else known about each candidate.
Put it All Together: A Complete Candidate Picture
It’s once a person has been using the platform for a bit that the true power of AI shines through. Every badge they earn, every challenge (small situational assessments recruiters can post) they complete, and every academy project is added to the candidate’s profile. Then the analytics take over.
These advanced analytics look at these results, the person’s resume and cover letter (or profile summary), and run it all through the algorithms. What results is a profile that is easily searchable by recruiters and provides a comprehensive look at that candidate as a person. Their hard skills, soft skills, and even something about their personality and ability to thrive in any given office culture—it’s all there.
Gamified Recruiting Platforms Offer So Much More
Whether you’re a job seeker fresh out of school and looking for your perfect entry into the field of your choice, or a mid-career go-getter looking to move up, or a recruiter looking for ways to get a leg up on your competition by finding the best candidates before they do—gamified platforms are the way to go.
Newbies can use academy projects as the foundation for a portfolio, mid-career folks can get training in the latest technologies and soft skill fundamentals they might have missed the first time around, and recruiters can find exactly who they’re looking for to fill even the trickiest niche position. That’s not all, there are additional benefits when it comes to soft skills specifically:
Benefits for Job Seekers
- AI resume scanning can tell you what skills to emphasize. By highlighting your personality traits that recruiters are looking for, you can make it apparent what a great fit you’ll be with their office culture.
- Challenges ensure recruiters see what you have to offer. These 5-10 minute assessments can give recruiters further information about your empathy, how you interact with coworkers, and how you’ll react in stressful work situations.
- Academies give you the skills recruiters are looking for. Because they’re created by those same recruiters specifically for these platforms, academies are tailored to the skills they’re hiring for.
Benefits for Recruiters
- One-stop-shop for the best and brightest candidates. And those candidates will be awesome fits in your company culture because the AI already pared down the list before presenting them to you.
- Advanced analytics cut time to hire and eliminate the rote work of scanning resumes, etc. This leaves you more time to interact with those candidates deemed great fits to see if you agree with the AI, then pass them along to the hiring managers for interviews.
- Self-selecting audience of high-quality candidates give you a ready talent pool to draw from. And that pool will be full of people who you already know are great cultural fits, are ready to go with the skills they need, and are already up on cutting-edge tech since you found them on the latest and greatest gamified recruiting platform out there!
Let’s talk about your recruitment goals!
