TALENT ASSESSMENT. Gamifying candidate evaluation

The aim of the game is to quickly assemble haphazardly placed drain pipes so that they lead downward into the ground before the zombies reach the top of the pipe. If you manage to do it within the time limit, the zombies are flushed out of the pipe. Otherwise you lose.

As you play, the levels keep getting tougher. There are no second chances. Once you are done with the game, you get a detailed report on your performance, your problem-solving ability, your speed, attention and so on. It also tells you how you benchmarked against others.

Talent transformation company Knolskape has come up with this interesting game as part of its new tool kit Kognitix, which tests the cognitive abilities of candidates. Essentially the idea is to take the fear out of taking tests. Besides Zombie Flush, there are five other games in the Kognitix tool kit., Each game is five to seven minutes long. Users cannot fake or distort responses.

Launched three months ago, the games-based assessments are seeing great traction, says Vijay Kalangi, co-founder and chief technology officer Knolskape. “One of the biggest automobile companies has signed up,” he says, adding that for companies it takes no time at all to set up and administer. “Global roll-out can happen in a matter of hours,” he says.

The use case is mostly entry-level for manufacturing, IT and retail. An on-the-go mobile first solution, candidates can take the test anywhere. It is also language-agnostic, so anybody can play the game without having to read instructions etc. Just play the tutorial video and play.

But the question is on the efficacy. How reliable are the results? Kalanagi says a lot of neuroscience and behavioural research has gone into designing the game. It tests competencies and abilities like problem solving, risk appetite, mental agility, attention, speed, response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, memory and planning.

Besides, testing through these games, which generate a computerised report within minutes on the candidate’s competencies, also eliminates bias.

Creating a marketplace model

One of the biggest recruiters in India, the IT industry is estimated to do over 10 million candidate assessments every year. In many companies, hiring is a year-long process with over a lakh technical assessments done in a year. How do you reduce the time taken to do assessments and how do you reduce bias?

These are the two spots that Igauge, a new community marketplace powered by Artificial Intelligence, hopes to catch. What it does is bring together hundreds of qualified evaluators who are well versed in technical skills like Android, Java, Python etc, on its platform. All a company has to do is to upload profiles. An ID number is assigned to the candidate and an ID to the assessor. Once the CV is scanned, a candidate interview happens through the platform — neither the assessor nor the candidate knows each other’s identity. During the interview, technical skills, process orientation and communication abilities are gauged. The company gets the feedback instantaneously.

“We work like an Uber for the talent acquisition industry,” says Udayaraj Punnorth, CEO of Igauge, describing how over a thousand qualified evaluators are already on the platform. It’s Igauge’s responsibility to maintain a quality check on evaluators.

A dashboard is maintained that tells a company how many assessments are done, how many pending, and how much money and manpower it has saved!

So far 14 companies are availing Igauge’s services. Thirteen are in contract negotiation stage.

For the evaluators, this is like a freelance assignment that they can do when free. Just like Uber, profiles are assigned automatically to evaluators. Once the assignment is completed and the company pays igauge, the money is credited to the evaluator’s account. “It’s a fee per assessment and instant money,” says Punnorth.