We’ve all read articles like “How to make your contacts lead to a job” or “5 suggestions to get your CV noticed.” The entire recruitment profession is rife with prejudice, individual opinion, connections, and, let’s face it, a lot of luck.

You’ll need an impressive CV chock full of ivy league schools, relevant experience, and glowing recommendations in order to land your dream job, but even then you might not get past the front door. Because the recruitment industry is so focused on who you know rather than what you know, top talent who may not have the right connections or could not afford the brand name schools miss out on important opportunities.

From the standpoint of the company, this approach does not appear much better. The conventional hiring process takes a long time and costs a lot of money. HR professionals’ subjective evaluations of exaggerated CVs consume a lot of time and money with little to no return on investment. Self-evaluation is measured through interview questions, which are generally standardized. Candidates arrive at interviews prepared, making sure to use language that HR managers are looking for in their answers.

Although the industry has a long way to go, there is a bright side. The last few years there has been a huge alteration not only in the best way to test true skills of candidates, but also a move to make the process more fun. Yes… I said fun. 

Gamification of Recruitment 

The recruitment industry, like many other industries has turned to gamification. Quizzes, social media platforms, virtual reality and online competitions are now being used to find and engage top talent. The gamification industry is projected to be a 5.5 billion dollar market by 2018, so it’s about time the recruitment industry joined the party.  

Early adopters of this so called ‘recrutainment’ trend have seen huge benefits. Marriott International, who created a virtual reality Sims-like game in which players have to juggle all the responsibilities of a hotel kitchen manager, was one of the first to dive into gamification. Other big name companies followed; Dell, Wells Fargo, PwC, Wal-Mart and L’Oréal are all using gamifcation in their recruitment strategies. 

External agencies and crowdsourcing techniques have proven popular as well. Sqore, a fast-growing Swedish startup that specializes in gamified recruitment, acts as the middleman between organizations and top candidates. Both startups and international organizations alike have also used crowdsourcing techniques such as hackatons where coders compete to showcase their coding skills, and ultimately land jobs. 

These early adopters have found a faster and simpler way to find candidates with the correct skills, both based on the position requirements and company culture. They are introducing candidates to jobs and fields they may have never explored or even considered before, and doing so in a fun and interactive way. The best part is, the company can choose exactly which angle they want to take it. Pure skills testing, work based scenarios, product development, innovation… the ways in which recruiters can gamify their recruitment strategy are endless. 

From a candidate perspective, there is now finally an outlet to let your uber-competitive inner-selves shine. Test out different jobs, and showcase your skills without leaving the comfort of your couch. You can finally stop adding new fonts to your CV and sending messages to anyone who could potentially get you an interview. If you have the skills, and are ready to compete to show them off, you can finally land your dream job by what you know, not who you know. 

My recommendation? Start checking out organizations that have gamified their recruitment process. Fingers crossed, this may be the start of skills being the frontrunner of the recruitment process. Say good-bye (or more like good riddance) to the CV.