Game-thinking in Personnel Recruitment and Selection: Advantages and Disadvantages

Game-thinking, more specific gamification, serious games and play, has beginning to get more attention and to be appear in a variety of non-game contexts, including organizational settings. In a recent survey of HR practitioners, 75% of the participants indicated that they would consider using gamification as part of their future screening and selection strategy (Povah, Riley, & Routledge, 2017). In this respect, current paper aim to investigate and to present the advantages and disadvantages of using gamification in two of the most important areas of organizational life, namely personnel recruitment and selection. Defined as the organizational activities that influence the number and types of applicants who apply for a position and affect whether a job offer is accepted (Breaugh, 1992), recruitment can benefit from gamification through the process of finding the best fit between potential applicants and the recruiting organization and to enhance the recruitment process itself (Gangadharbatla & Davis, 2016). In the selection area, usually, organizations provide to applicants a series of psychological assessments in order to later predict job performance and to support shortlisting and eventually, hiring decisions. In this area, game-based assessment represents a well-established methodology used to increase the fairness perception of the selection process, reduce anxiety, and to better assess knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics of job candidates. The future of game-thinking, especially of GBA is further discussed, with a clear accent on both its limitations and true potential.