Play This Game and Win a Job!
2nd December 2016
I think I saw a movie based on this premise once … The Last Starfighter, I think it was called. I doubt that these are for that sort of job.
Stockfuse, developed by SHFuse Inc., a New York-based startup, is just one of a new breed of apps that invite people to play games that also serve as real-world recruiting tools.
Such apps aim to shed light on how a candidate might perform in a job based on how he or she performs in a game. With Stockfuse, for example, what stocks a player invests in and the returns achieved typically provide plenty of data for consideration. Games from other developers range from solving mazes to managing a simulated sushi restaurant.
The question immediately arises, are they testing the correct qualities in their prospective employees? I have long been doubtful of whether companies, even successful companies, really know what skills are responsible for their success. On the other hand, the military is increasingly using ‘wargames’ to train — and evaluate — their officers, so the attraction seems to be widespread.
I wonder who will be first to use games as an admission factor for schools? One could quite plausibly say that admission tests are actually such ‘games’ — after all, what is a game? You face a situation, you make choices, and on that basis succeed or fail. Sounds like a test to me. Myst was notorious for being an animated IQ test; I’m perfectly comfortable with the notion that anybody who could work through Myst could handle college.