Recrutainment

Recrutainment is gamification in the area of personnel acquisition. Gamification means the use of game elements in a context that is not itself a game. Personnel acquisition is understood to mean all activities that serve to supply companies with managers and employees. The process of personnel acquisition includes personnel marketing on the one hand and personnel selection on the other.

Within recrutainment, a basic distinction can be made between online and offline recrutainment. While Offline recrutainment requires a physical gathering of people, online recrutainment is based on human-machine interactions. In the meantime, examples exist that offer both online and offline features are therefore referred to as blended recrutainment.

In the area of online recrutainment, a distinction can essentially be made between procedures that serve self-selection or personnel marketing and procedures that serve external selection or personnel selection. Self-selection means that people select themselves for an organization they would like to work for. External selection means that organizations make a selection from among all the people who have applied. Both selection processes are interdependent in terms of the quality of the final selection decision.

Recrutainment applications in the field of personnel marketing are Self-Assessments. On the one hand, the use of such procedures within the framework of employer branding aims to improve the perception of an organization as a potential employer. On the other hand, such applications serve to promote the self-selection ability of candidates on the basis of a Realistic Job Preview

Self-Assessments are on the one hand Matchers as playful, simulative self-tests. In the context of such applications, users can receive a recommendation based on gamified content as to whether they are a potential fit for the job and the company. Self-Assessments are also Recruiting Games. In the context of such applications, users can learn something about a job on the basis of gamified, simulated content in order to be able to decide for themselves whether or not they are a good fit for the job and employer. The more a person learns about the company and its culture in a Recruiting Game or the more he or she learns about him or herself (in relation to the job and the company) in a Matcher based on a matching algorithm, the better the self-selection decision should turn out to be.

Recrutainment applications in the area of personnel selection are gamified Online Assessments. Here, a distinction can essentially be made between Game-based Assessments (GBA) and Gamified Assessments (GA). GBA are procedures that are based on games and are therefore games, but used as tests. In contrast, psychometric procedures that are not games themselves but have been enriched with game elements are referred to as GA. The transitions between the two classes of procedures seem to be fluid, and within the two classes, the following four subcategories can be identified:

• (Online) Gamified Assessments as Serious Gamified Assessments (SeGA): Realistic simulative tests designed to be close to the company and the requirements
• (Online) Gamified Assessments as Surreal Gamified Assessments (SuGA): Unrealistic, because imaginative, but far away from the requirements designed game-like simulative tests
• (Online) Game-based Assessments as Psychometric-Games (PsyGA): Games designed and validated for aptitude diagnostic purposes
• (Online) Game-based Assessments as Video-Games (ViGA): Games alienated for aptitude diagnostic purposes that have been validated on tests

One goal of all the methods listed here is to improve the perception of the organization as an employer in the context of employer branding. In addition, one overriding goal of organizations seems to be to use gamified, innovative selection methods to tap into new target groups or to make themselves interesting for new applicant groups.

However, the methods also pursue goals that are clearly different from one another and may even be mutually exclusive. The goal of many Game-based Assessments and Surreal Gamified Assessments (see above) is to disguise the test intention. Here, gamification should be entertaining in such a way that test persons do not notice during the game that they are being tested or at least perceive this as pleasant. In this way, undesired behavior in the sense of faking or impression management should be made more difficult, but also test anxiety should be reduced and thus, if possible, test acceptance (social validity) should be improved by gamification. This concealment is the goal of so-called "stealth" - i.e. "camouflaged" or "disguised" - assessments.

In contrast, the goal of Serious Gamified Assessments (see above) is not disguising, but open and transparent communication with the test person. SeGAs aim to enable playful, simulative learning of relevant requirements and contents of the potential employer. The basis for this is transparency as to why a particular test procedure is used. The more a person learns about the company and the specific position to be filled in the course of the test on the basis of a realistic playful simulative test designed to be close to the company and the requirements, the more likely the test person is to accept that he or she should show certain performance (e.g., in a cognitive performance test) or provide personal information (e.g., in a personality test). Thus, the goal is to promote social validity or acceptance of the tests used as well as a positive perception of the entire selection process (Candidate Experience). Among other things, this should lead to fewer or no suitable applicants dropping out during the personnel selection process.

Recruiting Games, Matchers and Serious Gamified Assessments focus on transparency and the possibility of learning on the basis of a realistic job preview. This is intended to improve the quality of self-selection in the context of personnel marketing and to increase the acceptance of external selection in the context of personnel selection. These three classes of procedures can be regarded as recrutainment in the narrower meaning of the term.

Based on the relationships outlined above, recrutainment can therefore be defined as follows:

• Recrutainment is the gamification of recruiting and refers to the use of playful, simulative and user-oriented elements and procedures in personnel acquisition, including personnel marketing and personnel selection.
• Recrutainment serves to improve the matching of "suitable" candidates and "suitable" employers or "suitable" training institutions against the background of an optimal candidate experience.
• Recrutainment includes offline and online procedures, which in turn can be divided into self-assessments and online assessments.
• Ideally, entertainment is not an end in itself in recrutainment. What should always be important is the concrete reference to an employer, a training institution, professions/occupational profiles or career and educational paths. A recrutainment application designed in this way can be described as recrutainment in the narrower meaning of the term.

References

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