通過玩遊戲甄選人才 Recruiters' use of video games is a fad worth fighting for

“What is your biggest weakness?” The first time I encountered this classic interview question I was about 20 and I had no idea how to handle it. “I’m really bad at turning up on time for things,” I replied, which had the virtue of being true. The interviewer, frowning, drew a careful X on his clipboard.

“你最大的缺點是什麼？”第一次遇到這個經典面試問題時，我20歲左右，完全不知道怎麼應付。“說實話，我並不擅長準時出席各種場合，”秉承着誠實的美德，我這樣作答。面試官皺着眉頭，在他的本子上仔細地打了個叉。

The lesson I learnt is that persuading someone to hire you is like playing a game: there are rules and you need to find out what they are.

我從中學到的教訓是，說服別人僱傭你就像玩遊戲：這其中是有規則的，你需要找出規則是什麼。

Some employers are now taking this idea to extremes by designing games for job candidates to play.

現在，有些僱主把這個理念發揚到了極致——設計遊戲，讓應聘者玩。

L’Oréal, Ernst & Young, Microsoft and Deutsche Bank have signed up to a smartphone app called Debut that promises to let young people “fast-track the recruitment process and land roles in blue-chip companies simply by playing mobile games”.

歐萊雅(L’Oréal)、安永(Ernst & Young)、微軟(Microsoft)和德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)都和一款叫做“Debut”的智能手機應用簽署了合作合約。這款應用承諾讓年輕人“只需通過玩手機遊戲就能快速走完招聘流程，贏得藍籌公司的職位”。

At first glance, it is hard to see why these employers thought this was a good idea. L’Oréal’s game involves running around a maze, jumping over walls and collecting things. Deutsche Bank’s requires you to roll a ball around the corporate logo without letting it fall off the edge. Do bankers need good balance? Do product designers need good reflexes?

初看之下，很難看出這些僱主爲何會認爲這是個好主意。歐萊雅的遊戲是在迷宮中奔跑，翻牆越壁，收集物品。德意志銀行的遊戲要求玩家操控小球滾過該公司的logo，不能讓球從邊緣掉落下來。銀行家們需要良好的平衡感嗎？產品設計人員需要良好的反射神經嗎?

Even if these games were testing for the right attributes, the obvious problem is that they can be gamed. It does not take a genius to set up several user accounts with different email addresses, practise the games endlessly, then log on with their real name once they have perfected them.

就算這些遊戲測試的是正確的特質，一個明顯的問題是人們可以耍花招。一個人無需聰明絕頂，也能想到用不同的郵件地址設置幾個賬號不斷練習，達到完美以後再登錄用自己真名註冊的賬戶。

It would be like having the chance to answer that “biggest weakness” question over and over again until you found a response that did not elicit a frown.

這就像是有機會一遍一遍地回答“個人最大缺點”的問題，直到你找到一個不會讓對方皺眉的回答。

Thankfully, these companies are not foolish enough to have overlooked this. Notwithstanding the app’s hype, these mobile games are really a marketing tool rather than an alternative selection process. They are a way for employers to engage with potential job applicants who they might not otherwise reach.

幸虧這些公司還沒有蠢到忽略這一點。和這款應用的宣傳措辭不同，這些手機遊戲實際上更多是一種營銷手段，而非可替代的選拔流程。這種遊戲是僱主接觸它們在其他情況下可能接觸不到的潛在應聘者的途徑。

“It’s not as if we’re struggling for applications, but it’s about getting the right applicants,” says Dan Richards, EY’s head of UK recruitment. He does not want to keep fishing for recruits in the small and homogenous pool of university students who go along to recruitment fairs.

“並不是說我們在力爭收到申請，而是要獲得合適的申請者，”安永英國招聘主管丹•理查茲(Dan Richards)表示。他不想一直在赴招聘會求職的大學生這種同質化、規模又不大的人才池中尋找新員工。

In that sense, these mobile games are indicative of an important shift taking place in recruitment.

在這個意義上，這些手機遊戲折射出了招聘領域所發生的重大轉變。

Big employers are beginning to realise they have to change the way they do things if they want more diverse workforces.

大僱主開始意識到，如果它們想要打造更加多樣化的員工隊伍，就必須改變行事方式。

Deloitte, for example, has changed its application process so recruiters do not know where the candidates went to school or university. It is running a video game trial of its own.

比如，德勤(Deloitte)改革了申請流程，招聘人員不知道應聘者的教育背景。德勤有自己的視頻遊戲測試。

Many of the biggest law firms, meanwhile, have signed up to use a “contextual recruitment product” that identifies people who might not meet standard academic requirements but have outperformed relative to their backgrounds.

同時，許多大型的律師事務所已經簽約使用一種“情境招聘產品”，這種產品能夠辨識出或許沒有達到標準的學術背景要求、但相對於他們的背景表現出色的人。

For its part, EY has scrapped all academic qualifications from its entry criteria and replaced them with a set of standardised online tests. Its research shows that a good score on these tests is a better predictor of professional success than academic performance. In the first few months of the new system, one in 10 applicants who made it to the interview stage would have been ineligible to apply previously.

至於安永已經取消了申請標準中的所有學歷要求，取而代之的是一組標準化在線測試。安永的研究表明，比起應聘者在校的學習成績，在這些測試中拿到高分更能預測應聘者在職業上的成功。新系統啓用後的頭幾個月裏，在成功抵達面試環節的應聘者中，每10個人中有1個人在以前根本沒有資格申請。

“Name-blind” recruitment is also gaining ground to try to combat racial bias. Academic studies in the US and UK have shown that identical job applications make more progress when they have “white-sounding” names on them. Experiments in France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands suggest that anonymous job applications do increase the probability that applicants from ethnic minorities are invited for interview.

作爲一種應對種族偏見的手段，“不記名”招聘也在逐漸流行開來。美國和英國的學術研究表明，提交內容相同的簡歷，署有“聽起來像白人”的名字的簡歷能夠走得更遠。法國、德國、瑞典和荷蘭的實驗表明，匿名工作申請的確能夠提高少數族裔申請者受邀參加面試的機率。

The evidence is too patchy to tell whether their chances of a job offer recede again at the interview stage.

要判斷這些人在面試階段過後被錄用的機率是否會再次回落，證據還不充足。

Interviews, of course, are the final frontier in this battle to diversify recruitment. This is the stage where racial discrimination can creep back in. It is also where those candidates with polish and practice can still outgun the rest.

當然，面試是招聘多樣化員工這場戰役中的最後一道戰線。這是種族歧視可能會再次悄然迴歸的階段，也是那些有風度、有經驗的應聘者依然能夠脫穎而出的階段。

Employers will have to tackle this challenge next. “Gamification” is easy to dismiss as a passing fad involving online play. Yet in its broadest sense, it is something well worth fighting for: an attempt to make recruitment the sort of game where the playing field is level and everyone knows the rules.

下一步，僱主必須解決這個挑戰。“遊戲化”很容易會視作不過是跟在線遊戲有關的一時風尚。然而，從最寬泛的意義上來講，這是一種非常值得我們努力爭取的東西：它力求讓招聘成爲公平競爭、每個人都知道規則的遊戲。