Gamified or games-based pre-hire assessments are often thought to be an innovative solution, but they can inadvertently perpetuate bias, hinder diversity, and even lead to subpar performance outcomes.
Here we discuss how Bulb Energy realised there was an issue with their gamified pre-hire assessments, and the results of switching to Realistic Job Assessments.
Bulb’s contact center consists of 500 customer service representatives committed to assisting customers via telephone.
This role necessitated outstanding communication skills, attention to detail and proficient problem solving abilities.
Considering these essential attributes, the lack of effectiveness of gamified job assessments in this particular context comes as no surprise.
Their analysis of their previous “game-based” assessment tool showed that their assessment scores were not at all correlated with who they would hire and worse still, they found that their assessment scores were actually inversely correlated with job performance! e.g. the better someone did on their assessment the worse they’d be at the job! Assessments were having a negative impact on their hiring performance.
Hiring managers would ignore the assessment scores and ask for CVs instead. Recruiters then had to manually screen candidates. This processes lengthened the time it took to hire candidates, leading to delays in filling critical positions.
High staff churn meant their recruiters had to work twice as hard to find talent and backfill vacant positions and reducing time to hire became a key goal for them. Although some candidates liked playing games in theb hiring process, others did not and felt it was discriminatory.
Better aligned candidate assessments resulted in lower attrition.
The recruitment team could spend longer with the candidates who would be the best fit.
Validation checks confirmed candidates who scored highly with ThriveMap’s pre-hire assessment were 5 times more likely to be rated as Good or Excellent on the job.
Valuable time savings enabled Bulb to build a more diverse and qualified customer experience team, driving improved customer satisfaction and retention.
Using feedback from Signal, our free job analysis tool, and collaborating with Bulb’s recruitment and HR team, our experts analysed the job’s daily demands. We then crafted an Ideal Candidate Profile in alignment with the role’s realities and designed a pre-hire assessment that accurately mirrors the job’s requirements and company culture.
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Due to the high volume of roles required to hire, sifting job applications manually created a huge administrative burden for hiring managers, recruiters, and HR teams. By outsourcing the candidate resume sift to ThriveMap’s online assessment, Bulb’s recruitment team saved time and money on their recruitment process.
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Following the ThriveMap Realistic Job Assessment, the hiring team utilised the dashboard portal to choose their preferred candidates. Hiring managers had access to candidate analytics, providing insights into strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to support new recruits effectively during onboarding.
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1 in 2 new people have left a job because the reality of it didn’t live up to expectations.
Because ThriveMap assessments let candidates
experience what life is really like in a job ahead of joining it enables candidates to deselect themselves from the hiring process if they feel it’s not right. This drives down the number of possible bad hires.
