Demystifying gamers for HR
Where and how to spot talent
HR challenge: Finding Agile employees for tomorrow
Today more than ever, workplaces value and need employees with a high learning ability or learning agility: employees are expected to acquire new skills continuously, and those who are good at it are very valuable for any employer.
One of the challenges HR has to face today is to find agile employees, with a learning mindset, who are open to continuous development and are skilled in critical thinking. Indeed, having employees with a learning mindset is key in supporting one of the top trends for HR professionals also echoed in a recent Gartner’s Study[1] on Top Trends for HR leaders. In the study, 66% of HR leaders identified building critical skills and competencies for the organization as crucial.
Solving the need has been to train internally or select for learning agility, developing and using tools which could assess the competency. This is nice, if you have a number of applicants to evaluate and select from, but what if you don’t? Is there a high probability that there are groups of people out there who have this skill? Where do we find people with already-honed continuous learning skills? Where should we market our open roles?
Gamers — A hidden resource?
We all start learning by playing. Playing is one of the most effective learning techniques, so why not look for those individuals explicitly who carried on playing into the working age: gamers?
In one form or another almost everybody plays. Gaming is a lot of things to a lot of people and the same game may be played professionally or as a social activity — say an evening of bridge or League of Legends. Very different games, but still games, and no doubt a considerable difference between the professional player and the casual or leisurely one.
The number of gamers worldwide is estimated to be 2.6 billion, so roughly speaking, a third of the world plays — and only looking at countries with a computer supported gameplay infrastructure means the real percentage may be much higher.
Of this number there is only a small fraction (approximately 100 million) playing complex Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs).
Sports, reading, visiting museums, traveling — all the fancy and socially accepted pastimes are there, but somehow gaming seems to either not be sexy enough to mention, or stigmatized to the point that it remains concealed.
However, gaming must be the most well-hidden pastime, because as an HR recruiter, I rarely see gaming related information mentioned as a hobby on resumés.[2] Not yet, at least.
Why select from a group of gamers?
We in the HR profession know that grades, job history and titles do not necessarily predict performance, and so regardless of these, when selecting from a pool of applicants we all use our methods to assess the skills of our applicants. We also know that the greater the talent pool we select from the better our selections are going to be — i.e. diminishing the probability of a false positive or a “bad hire”.
It is a feature of many games that you must acquire new skills or hone your existing ones to play successfully. At first everyone is clumsy, but with practice and, depending on the game, you may be able to master it or become reasonably proficient in playing.
For some gamers, it is natural to learn, seek out new challenges, discover the rules of the game or the physical skills needed to master it. They have a learning mindset. In the workplace, they can use this ability in any field, practically. An employer can expect them to learn quickly, deeply, and in an engaged way[3]. Whether that happens will be dependent on the fit between the person and the role, but the ability may very well be there.
“Learning how to play this game since 2005 made regular spreadsheet tasks outside of the game a breeze. Sometimes almost too easy. It made me catch on the concepts of stats while learning how to do opinion poll analysis in college. My boss adopted the spreadsheets for the whole department.”[4]
Gamers may acquire and train valuable skills
Different games help develop different skillsets, so you want to know what kind of game your applicants are playing. Knowing about the most popular games is an asset like working knowledge about any industry, but it is openness that is the essential recruiter skill. If you know what Counter Strike: GO, League of Legends and World of Warcraft stand for, or the difference between a First-person shooter (FPS) and a Third-person shooter (TPS) game, you will be in a better position to understand what you can expect from the candidates playing these games. This sounds complex, but it is by no means sorcery.
For example, Counter-Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO)[5] is believed to improve competencies like teamwork, cooperation, planning, communication under pressure (which can be very useful in workplace environments), and some other skills requiring quick reflexes which might be less relevant for most jobs.
Another example is EVE Online, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, where players have — since 2003 — developed the learning mindset essential to playing the game successfully. Players regularly describe EVE as a difficult game with a punishing learning curve,[6] famously depicted by the image below.
In EVE, players may be intergalactic CEOs running an alliance of over 20,000 players around the globe or working as inter-alliance spies looking to undermine rival corps or alliances in an intricate, complex simulation of the real-world in a sci-fi setting. They often play long term plots, learning to plan meticulously and execute their plans under pressure in an ever-changing environment. They use marketing techniques, competitive intelligence, and have to develop risk assessment skills to identify security threats. They use detailed Excel sheets to keep track of the logistics, assets and materials, working in teams collaborating online. There are mentors in the in-game corporations who support and coach junior players for different positions. Moreover, players reported other skills gained while playing EVE Online, including raw data analysis, programming, and supply chain management. These skills can be very valuable to any real-life workplaces, if the applicants dare to talk about them during an interview, or if they know they would not be rejected or stigmatized because of sharing in-game experiences.
The complexity of the game has led to a player controlled and created EVE University, an obvious reference to the vast array of skills they can gain by playing (and a hint at the difficulty of the game).
Recent research conducted on the EVE community by Bakamo, a social media intelligence and research agency, traces the transformation process of EVE gamers. Through gamers’ engagement with EVE, they develop the skills to handle complex and challenging situations that help lead to success in EVE. These skills can provide benefits for players outside the game such as: Excel and spreadsheet competency, supply chain understanding and management, and team leadership among others.[7]
Unfortunately, HR professionals do not seem to value or know to probe for gaming-related skillsets — something I consider to bring value to the process.
To use gaming as an evaluation criterion, I suggest looking for the following features:
- the game requires collaboration between several players
- the quests are complex and demanding
- players challenge each other rather than the challenges set by program or AI
- the game is challenging on many different levels
- games with steep learning curves
Inclusive company brand strengthened
Today, gaming is often considered in a negative light. However, not all games have this stigma; chess and GO have high social status. Society already recognizes the value of the skills these games strengthen. As younger people become recruiters and CEOs, more games might be appreciated on the same basis as well. Some recruitment sites already suggest featuring gaming as a hobby for certain positions.[8]
If you can assure gamers that you won’t discriminate against them, or what is more, you would appreciate them, gamers will see your brand as inclusive. They will likely spread the word about your company among their fellow players as a non-discriminative employer. This could significantly increase your access to quality applications.
“Video games do have a certain stigma though, so there may be some employers that react to a game being mentioned with a resounding “no, no, no”. If you’re thinking whether to mention EVE in an interview, I would keep it to myself unless the interviewer asks something about “experience in leadership”, particularly if he’s asking about it in context of pastime activities.” — EVE Forums
Targeting gamers
The easiest solution (reading the resumé) is not always helpful, since games are not often featured on resumés, something you might solve by adding a question on gaming on your applicant site. Online advertising techniques such as advertising on pages visited by gamers (Kotaku, GameSpot, IGN, etc.) or targeting people with gaming interests, is another advertising avenue, as is appearing at conferences frequented by gamers at a more local level. There is also an opportunity to advertise through game subreddits. It is important to make it clear that you value the gaming experience of the applicants so that they don’t hide the fact that they play.
Selecting the right candidate
When you have your group of applicants, now preferably seeded with gamers, you will use your trusted selection methods and processes as before. As always, use the appropriate methods, but you may have to remember to probe for gaming-related experience and — when appropriate — ask the applicant to reason how that experience may be useful for the role applied for. According to Bakamo’s research, some gamers sometimes find it difficult to talk about their in-game experience, so it might be a good idea to explain to the candidate why you are asking questions about gaming experience, i.e., it is a way to learn about their skills.
Almost every game gives players the opportunity to become the best, which requires practice, resilience, patience, application of different learning methods, and the study of other excellent players’ techniques. If you can identify top gamers, you might tap their potential. It is a very similar phenomenon to top athletes, except the latter is referenced prominently in resumés, while you must make some effort to learn about online gaming success.
Beating the competition by gaining a foothold in a valuable applicant pool may create the competitive advantage your company needs in this ever-increasing war for talent.
Allow me to close with a call to our industry. We in the HR space, myself included, often don’t recognize our influence on people and society. I am here to drive forward the cultural evolution and help our companies to become beacons of innovation and inclusion.
ANDRÁS HORVÁTH
András is an HR consultant, trainer and expert. With over 25 years of HR experience, he started his career at SHL, then founded his own HR consultancy agency. András designs, trains and runs assessment and development centers for his clients. He is specialized in competency-based interviewing, and has trained hundreds of HR professionals internationally. His main focus is assisting multinational companies with HR matters, he provides consultancy for a broad range of small and medium businesses, too. His clients include IBM, ABB, Philips, KUKA, Telenor, and Samsung.
[2] With the exception of gaming companies, where some gaming background might be even expected, as it contributes to industry and product knowledge.
[3] https://uk.pcmag.com/games/37497/action-video-games-make-you-smarter. Different games attract different players. In effect, the games applications play can be used as a pre-selection for your purposes. In a sense the games have done the screening for you.
[4] Quote from Bakamo Study “Beyond the Friendship Machine” 2019
[5] Rambusch, Jana & Jakobsson, Peter & Pargman, Daniel. (2007). Exploring E-sports: A Case Study of Gameplay in Counter-strike. Lakshmi Jagad Ms.Online Gaming and Teamwork (2011) https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079&context=communication_theses
[7] EVE Effect Research (November 2019, 759 respondents)
[8] https://www.reed.co.uk/career-advice/five-of-the-best-hobbies-to-include-in-your-cv/