Gamification Recruitment Examples: 7 Creative Ideas for Agencies

Gamification is an excellent technique for boosting recruiters’ performance. Check out our 7 creative gamification recruitment examples here.

Table of contents

Done well, gamification makes the recruitment process more effective, efficient, and fun — for both reps and candidates. 

This exciting technique transforms often dull, run-of-the-mill tasks into compelling online games, complete with badges, missions, challenges, leaderboards and points. 

Recruiting gamification software empowers recruitment leaders to motivate and engage employees and successfully focus them on the most important tasks. 

Meanwhile, gamification recruitment tools are also used during the selection process, from screening and skills assessments to data analysis and employee referrals. 

What’s more, they don’t demand high levels of technical skills from users. 

In a tough recruitment market, leaders can no longer rely only on the traditional recruitment process.

They must double down on productivity and performance within their agency, while also ensuring the candidate journey is as seamless as possible. 

Through gamification, you can achieve both — while saving plenty of time. 

7 Gamification Recruitment Examples For Recruitment Agencies

Wondering how best to implement gamification techniques within your recruitment agency to engage employees?

Here are seven of the top techniques we’ve seen from companies using gamification for recruitment. 

1. Ring In the Good Times

We may be operating in a brave new recruitment world of AI and social media — but never underestimate the power of a good old sales gong. 

Celebrating when a deal is closed is one of the most enjoyable and motivating parts of a recruiter’s job.

It boosts company culture and employee engagement, and is instrumental in gamification. 

Whether you go for a sales bell or a gong, every recruiter will dream of the day it's their turn to make it echo down your corridors. And of course, receive their bonus. 

There are plenty of creative variations on this theme too — perhaps most notably the ‘close a deal, spin the wheel’ game. 

When a recruiter closes a deal, they are given one chance to spin an office prize wheel. Different segments on the wheel represent a variety of potential prizes. 

Top tip - OneUp allows users to set individual celebration anthems that automatically play out when they hit a goal, making that walk to ring the bell even more euphoric! 

2. Unleash a Call Blitz

6-sales-dashboard-targets-B-528x521

Every rep understands the importance of business development calls to the health of the recruitment process.

But often, the very real fear of rejection put them off picking up the phone. 

So why not put everyone in the same boat — and then gamify it. 

Book out a two-hour slot in your recruiters’ calendars and announce a call blitz. 

Before reps start slamming the phones, set up a real-time leaderboard using OneUp, and display it on a prominent screen in the office. 

This leaderboard should track the number of connections made or meetings booked, inciting healthy competition as reps see themselves move up the leaderboard or be overtaken by colleagues. 

And at the end, the recruiter at the top of the leaderboard wins a prize! 

A call blitz should also help any phone-shy reps overcome their nerves as it makes the process seem more like a game and less like real-life. 

3. Run a League for Business Development Days

20-communicate-tvs528x521

Most recruitment agencies run business development days where their reps work flat out to make new connections, book meetings, and essentially generate new business. 

If you’re ready to level up your business development days, consider gamification.

Not only should this spur on productivity and boost business — but it makes the day more fun for all involved. 

Use OneUp to create a league that encompasses all participants in the day. 

Now choose which business development activities you’re going to focus on and track them in real-time. 

This could be calls, emails, meetings booked, or new connections made. 

It’s important to ensure everyone in the office can see the league displayed on a screen.

And at the end of the day, deliver a prize to the person who ends up at the top.

You can even set collective team goals, such as 25 client meetings booked, if the team achieves the goal together, they win a prize. As they say, teamwork makes the dreamwork.

4. Form a Big Billers Club

1 Performance__Pink

Greener recruitment consultants often look up to their more experienced colleagues — aspiring to one day make as much commission as they do.

Through gamification you can compound this effect, sparking competition to climb to the top of the office league table. 

First off, set up a monthly or quarterly event such as a lunch or dinner at a swanky restaurant, with the bill taken care of by the company. 

Now, set a revenue target for that month or quarter that consultants need to hit in order to bag an invitation to the event.  

Finally, announce the initiative to the office, and set up a public leaderboard that clearly displays the revenue target and progress towards it.

It’s worth making the target sufficiently lofty to ensure making it into the ‘Big Billers Club’ actually feels aspirational — rather than like a participation trophy.

At the same time you don’t want to make the goal so high that it feels unachievable, or only one person passes the threshold every month. 

You can bolster the desire to make it into the ‘Big Billers Club’ with added bonuses too, such as the afternoon off after lunch.

5. Sun, Sea, and Successful Recruiters 

12-motivate-missions-leagues-528x521

Now, this is one of the most fun gamification examples in recruitment — and a big win for company culture and team building.

Instead of setting up a monthly or quarterly event, as described above, why not take a company-wide holiday every year? 

The catch? Recruiters have to hit a certain revenue threshold in order to jet off. 

Throughout the year, display a leaderboard in the office that shows real-time progress towards the target. 

This is a huge reward certain to incentivise strong performance among recruiters. 

Not only is a free holiday worth a lot of money — but reps won’t want to feel left out when all their colleagues are partying in the sunshine. 

What’s more, advertising such a big reward as a perk of working at your agency should also help you to attract and retain your own top talent. 

6. Focus on problem areas

4 Analytics__Pink

This is a frequent use case from companies using gamification in recruitment — and it’s easy to see why. 

By investing in tech with Leagues functionality, you can easily target areas of your business and recruitment process where performance needs to be improved. 

You can even build this into your workflow by focusing on a different task or goal every single week. 

On Monday morning, dive into the previous week’s data. 

Are there any leaks or blocks in your recruitment process? 

What tasks are your recruiters not paying as much attention to as you’d like? 

Now set your goal. 

For example, this could be:

  • Make more business development calls
  • Take more meetings
  • Phone more candidates
  • Send more CVs
  • Push more candidates through to Interview 

Finally, set up a league incorporating all the reps you want to work on this goal.

In many cases, this will be the whole office. 

This league should display in real time who is ‘winning’ and who is lagging when it comes to the task you have set. 

Of course, there should also be an incentive for the eventual winner — perhaps an early finish on Friday, a gift voucher, or a free lunch.

7. Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept it…

The Missions functionality on OneUp is perfect for gamifying personal goals such as a pay rise, promotion, or bonus. 

You can simply set a recruiter a mission to hit £X revenue by a certain date, alongside the incentive that if they reach this goal they will qualify for that promotion. 

Ensure their progress towards the mission is accurately tracked, centre one-to-ones around it, and make sure they have access to the mission dashboard so they can check its status at any time. 

Not only will this make working towards their goal more fun, but it will give them a real sense of progress towards their next rung on the career ladder, boosting morale.

Final Thoughts

Gamification gets undisputed results  — and it pays to get creative.

From launching call blitzes and forming a Big Billers Club to honing in on your problem areas and simply installing a bell, there are so many gamification options for getting more out of your team and your recruitment processes.

When developing your gamification strategy, remember:

  • Always set tangible SMART goals
  • Align these SMART goals with your own agency goals
  • Ensure progress can tracked by both managers and recruiters on accessible leaderboards or dashboards
  • Make sure the parameters of any challenge or mission are clearly communicated to all involved
  • Always offer a clear incentive for hitting goals
  • Set up a prominent leaderboard in the office for agency-wide challenges
  • Don’t forget to celebrate!

So get planning your leagues, missions, and challenges and watch your agency’s productivity and performance rocket. 

Not only does gamification deliver the results you want to see, it also makes the office a more enjoyable place to be, boosting morale and teamwork.  

It ensures goals and rewards are tangible and tracked, helping recruiters develop within their role and making them feel valued.

Ready to play?

With real-time data insights and the functionality to gamify your processes, OneUp focuses your team on the tasks that are important to you. Book your demo here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Gamification in Recruitment?

Gamification in recruitment is when different parts of the recruitment funnel are set up in a game-like way. Recruiters' jobs may be gamified by, for example, a leaderboard that displays their progress towards a target. Meanwhile, the candidate experience can be gamified through game-style assessments that gather in-depth data on their performance. This has many benefits. Gamification engages employees, and assesses candidate performance in a more real-world setting than traditional tests in the application process. 

What are Gamification in Recruitment Examples?

Here are some of the best gamification recruitment examples:

  • Video games designed to assess candidate skills and experience
  • Leaderboards in offices that track recruiters’ performance towards their targets
  • Collaboration tools that allow teams to score potential candidates
  • Software that encourages employee referrals through a gamified dashboard and incentives
  • Software for the onboarding process that teaches new employees everything they need to know through a game

What is Gamification AI Hiring?

Gamification AI Hiring is when recruiters employ gamification within the hiring process, and supercharge this effort with AI capabilities. 

A frequent example is the use of AI-powered software to gain insights into the candidate’s skills and experience. On the front end, this might take the form of a video game-style assessment that tests the candidate’s skills in a lifelike setting. The AI tool then analyses their performance and delivers recruiters an in-depth report of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, empowering them to make a more informed hiring decision. 

Image of Derry Holt
Derry Holt
I'm Derry, the CEO & co-founder of OneUp Sales (by day) and a professional video games commentator (by night). I have a background in software development, but if the last 7 years have shown me anything, it's that my passion truly lies in creating, building, and growing software companies.
More Tags:

“I like that can see everything all in one place. From my own targets, to activity from colleagues, to Team Leagues, everything is simple and easy to use.”

leona_mcphail
Leona McPhail
Head Resourcing

Similar posts