Simulators Take the Humans Out of Hiring 143
Hugh Pickens writes "Ken Gaebler discusses a new way of hiring called 'employment simulations,' which are gaining popularity among high-tech firms that are seeking data from prospective employees that you can't get from sit-down interviews. In a typical employment simulation, candidates participate in online 'video games' that leverage simulation software to determine how well candidates perform in actual job situations. 'There are no questions about your former work experience and office habits. There's simply a computer game. If you win, you get the job. If you lose, game over.' As one example, call centers are very amenable to simulations because the work environment (a series of computer programs and databases) is relatively easy to replicate and the tasks that make up job performance are easy to measure (data entry speed and accuracy, customer service, multitasking, etc). Other employment simulation programs have been written for healthcare, insurance, retail sales, financial services, hospitality and travel, manufacturing and automotive, and telecom and utilities. But skeptics say employment simulators and other computer-based hiring models have some drawbacks. 'Like any technology, the effectiveness of employment simulations is limited to the quality of the software and its accessibility to users,' says Gaebler."
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Funny)
this is how I got my last job (Score:5, Funny)
defending the frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan armada.
Re:We could do that. (Score:3, Funny)
Fortunately for me, I'm an expert at porting "hello world" across multiple platforms.
Ask me to code anything else, and you're probably SOL.
Conspiracy theory: (Score:4, Funny)
How do you know these simulations aren't being used to train A.I. replacements today!
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Funny)
What I can't help wondering is how soon some start-up will offer to help you literally "game the system?"