Three-quarters of job seekers and nearly 70 per cent of employers would consider using activities such as escape rooms as part of a job applicationMore than eight out of 10 job seekers in the UK would like companies to adopt more unorthodox recruitment methods such as the use of escape rooms and “speed dating”.
Training company, The Knowledge Academy, recently surveyed 1,200 job seekers and 480 companies, revealing potential recruits are most open to being assessed through escape rooms, with 76 per cent saying they were willing to be evaluated on their performance in a physical adventure game of that sort.
Second-most popular was the idea of professional “speed dating”, with 70 per cent of would-be applicants willing to give this a try. 54 per cent, were willing to be assessed by a game of Capture the Flag.
Employers who have used escape rooms say they are useful in more rapidly assessing candidates’ “soft skills”.
“Up until the start of the year, we were solely using online tests,” said one human resource manager at a rapidly-expanding digital marketing agency.
“Unfortunately, that didn’t really allow us to see an individual’s soft skills in motion. Having added the escape room challenge into our stages of recruitment, it has enabled us to judge how well candidates work in teams and their problem-solving abilities under pressure.”
The results showed growing disillusionment among employers themselves with traditional recruitment processes.
Of the UK companies questioned, 68 per cent said they would be interested in using escape rooms, while 62 per cent would consider professional speed dating sessions. However, just 30 per cent would consider Capture the Flag.
“Capture the Flag was already a game we were playing at our team socials,” said the managing director of a telecommunications start-up. “The more we played, I began to realise the positive impact the game had on our employees’ interactions and chemistry with each other.
“So I took the drastic decision to make it one aspect of our recruiting process. We have now used it a few times and it’s been insightful for assessing candidates, especially their ability to listen, communicate and work together in a team.”
