With a look into recruiting and hiring in 2025, staffing agencies need every advantage to attract and evaluate top talent. Applicants aren’t interested in questionnaires and generic interviews. Gamified assessments to identify top candidates, can make the process engaging, insightful, and enjoyable.

What is Gamification?

Can you remember the last time you were truly engrossed in a game? You were focused, motivated, and probably even enjoying the challenge. That's the power of gamification. By applying game mechanics to assessments, you can:

• Boost Candidate Engagement: Gamified assessments transform the evaluation process into an interactive experience, keeping candidates motivated and invested.
• Uncover Hidden Potential: Traditional reviews can miss crucial soft skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making. Gamified assessments reveal these abilities in action.
• Gain Deeper Insights: Observe how candidates approach challenges, strategize, and react under pressure. These behavioral insights provide a more holistic view of their capabilities.
• Enhance Your Brand: Gamified assessments position your agency as innovative and forward-thinking, attracting tech-savvy candidates and giving you a competitive edge.

How can staffing agencies use and benefit from gamified assessments?

• Personality Profiling: Use game-based scenarios to assess personality traits, work style preferences, and cultural fit. To illustrate, agencies can test candidates' ability to prioritize tasks and handle pressure in a fast moving office setting and assess customer service skills and problem solving or evaluate collaboration and communication in a warehouse through different zones/work environments. 
• Cognitive Ability Testing: Measure critical thinking, problem-solving, and logical reasoning through engaging puzzles and challenges. For example, higher level candidates can be asked to analyze data patterns, identify trends, and make predictions in a simulated stock market challenge, evaluating their logical reasoning and ability to interpret information.
• Skills Evaluation: Create simulations to test specific skills like coding, customer service, or language proficiency in a realistic environment. In particular, a staffing firm can present candidates with a series of challenges that test their skills in areas like typing speed, data entry accuracy, customer service scenarios, or language proficiency.
• Teamwork and Collaboration: Assess how candidates interact and cooperate in virtual team-based challenges. Role-Playing is a good example where you can assign candidates different roles and observe their communication, teamwork, and conflict resolution skills throughout the challenge.

Choosing the Right Gamified Assessment Platform:
When selecting a platform, here are some factors to consider:

• Relevance: Ensure the games align with the skills and traits required for the roles you're filling. Start with one client with specific needs and this can be a highly sought after feature in sharing the benefits of using your staffing agency.
• Validity and Reliability: Choose assessments that are scientifically validated to measure what they claim to measure. If clients have questions, firms want to make sure their tests are accurate and useful. 
• User Experience: The platform should be intuitive, engaging, and accessible across various devices. Make it easy for candidates to access and complete the assessment. 
• Data and Analytics: Look for platforms that provide comprehensive reports and actionable insights. Sharing examples of the assessments your firm provides with potential clients can shine a light on how you differ from other agencies in your area.

COATS Staffing Software: Using Gamification for Success

COATS Staffing Software recognizes the power of gamified assessments. Our platform is designed to store and search interview notes, skill assessments, drug test and criminal record checks, shifts available and desired to work, preferred cities for job assignment, and type of role desired, to name a few. 

• Centralize Candidate Data: Store assessment results in each job candidate's record along with other relevant candidate information for a complete view of each candidate to match every job opening. 
• Streamline Workflows: Move from application and assessment to online onboarding to save time and increase efficiency.
• Enhance Decision Making: Combine assessment data with other insights to make informed hiring decisions.

And here's where COATS truly shines: Our software offers powerful customization features, including custom screens that allow you to create highly specific searches. This means you can tailor your searches to identify candidates who excel in particular assessments, quickly pinpoint individuals with the skills and traits you need, and ultimately make faster, more effective hiring decisions. Many clients have very unique and specific needs and being able to customize these is key to searching your database quickly to fill open positions fast. 

Ready to gamify your talent acquisition process? Contact COATS today to learn how our software can help you integrate gamified assessment results and unlock the potential of your candidates in 2025 and beyond.

Read More by Lynn Connor