In 2024, companies are still finding it difficult to recruit. 57.4% of them consider it difficult to recruit employees. Six out of ten employers anticipate difficulties in filling vacant positions, due to :

• An insufficient number of applications (in 85% of cases).
• Unsuitable candidate profiles for the position to be filled (76%).
• An unattractive image for talent (24%).

Organisations need new recruitment tools to meet the challenges they face. Whether it’s attracting the best talent, keeping them engaged throughout the process or assessing their skills.

Gamification, or the integration of fun and interactive experiences, is a way of optimising the candidate experience. In this article, we take a look at the advantages of offering competitions to improve your recruitment process, using a range of inspirations.

Gamifying recruitment: the basic principles

Gamification involves introducing game-related elements into a different field. Gamification can be used in marketing (to better interact with customers) or even in education via edutainment (to effectively engage learners and facilitate information retention).

But for several years now, gamification levers have been used in recruitment. This trend even has a name: recrutainment (a fusion of recruitment and entertainment).

The idea is to make the recruitment process fun and a more enjoyable experience for candidates. Above all, it will enable employers to attract talent and better assess their skills.

What are the benefits of gamification in recruitment?

Games are an effective way of optimising every stage of the recruitment process:

• Upstream: it improves the employer brand and helps to stand out in a competitive market. Gamified recruitment processes will not only intrigue candidates, but also encourage virality (with mechanisms that encourage the sharing of experience within a network). Thanks to gamification, the company can broaden its pool of candidates and unearth atypical profiles;
• During recruitment: games are an interesting format for analysing behaviour. In addition to a traditional job interview, the recruiter can test the skills of talented people in a less stressful environment. The recruiter can evoke the positive emotions associated with games (the challenge, the challenge of surpassing oneself, the fun, etc.).
• Post-recruitment: by improving the candidate experience, the competition co-solidifies the relationship between the employee and the company. Gamification boosts commitment and the feeling of belonging. It also helps them to integrate by providing all the information they need in a fun way to facilitate onboarding.

A competition for every recruitment objective

For gamification to bear fruit and improve a company’s recruitment process, it must be designed with specific objectives in mind. The format of the competition offered to talent must correspond to the results desired by the organisation (the stage of the candidate experience it wishes to enforce). But it must also be adapted to the expectations and profiles of the candidates.

1. A competition to attract the best talent

If the company’s main challenge is reaching the right profiles and attracting a sufficient number of candidates, the solution will be a competition. This format increases the recruiter’s visibility when it is broadcast on the right channels (and boosted by an Ads campaign) or organised with an influencer.

This was the strategy chosen by Camaïeu to recruit its future communications manager. By teaming up with content creator Léna Situations, the brand was able to reach a wider, younger audience (who were less familiar with the brand).

Focusing on GenZ, the recruitment process involved sharing your profile on social networks. Candidates had to fill in a form highlighting their personality and creativity.

2. A fun test to assess skills interactively

Games are also useful for recruitment because they allow you to test candidates’ abilities in eal-life situations. A format like the Quiz can be a way of validating the knowledge of talented people at the start of recruitment, so that profiles with an appetite for the job can be retained in subsequent phases.

The game can also take the form of a challenge to see how candidates interact. it is also a way of speeding up the process by organising group sessions.

Decathlon, for example, organises group recruitment sessions, bringing together a dozen candidates to play sports games. During the games, the recruiters observe the interaction between the candidates, the way they react to failure, their ability to work as a team, etc. These gamified experiences make it easier to detect leadership profiles. All while putting candidates at ease and offering them an opportunity to showcase their skills.

3. Serious games to immerse candidates in the world of the company and facilitate their integration

This is the strategy chosen by LaPoste to limit staff turnover. With the Facteur Academy game, the organisation was able to immerse candidates in a highly realistic virtual world where each talent played their own role anonymously. As they progressed though the game, they were asked different questions. For each correct answer, the candidate received an award. if the answer was wrong, a comment was sent to explain the mistake and help the contestant to progress.

Gamification makes the recruitment process more immersive. This makes it easier to assess skills, but also to increase the commitment of candidates. For the recruiter, it’s also a way of reducing the risks that new recruits won’t like the job, saving time and money (and reducing staff turnover).

The game is also an effective way of conveying the company’s values and culture. Employers can thus ensure that the candidates selected are aligned with these valued and that they will integrate easily into the teams.

Gamification is therefore a powerful lever for optimising your recruitment process, at every stage of the candidate experience. With Socialshaker, you can set up your competition according to your HR objectives and your brand universe. Our formats will enable you to boost your employer brand, test candidates more ffectivaly and prepare them to join your workforce!