Recruiting as a Game - Exploring Gameplay Design Patterns in the Development of a Recruiting Process

Abstract

Recent years have seen, and future years will see an increased demand of talented programmers. This implies that companies at some point will need to reform their recruiting processes to be able to attract these talents and compete with rivaling companies. This master thesis investigates how to utilize gameplay design patterns (GDP) as a design foundation to reform a general recruiting process, with the purpose of analyzing the impact of applying gameplay design patterns on a general recruiting process. To achieve this, a rigorous analysis of existing gameplay design patterns in a recruiting process has been made, as well as an investigation of what impact the addition of other gameplay design patterns to the process has. As a result of this, a concept design of a recruitment tool called Operation Talent was developed. Operation Talent was developed in order to illustrate an example of what a recruiting process could look like if it was designed as a game with a foundation of gameplay design patterns. From the standpoint of this concept design, arguments regarding the impact of applying gameplay design patterns on a recruiting process are made. Furthermore, lessons learned and knowledge gained from working with gameplay design patterns as a design foundation and as an analysis tool are discussed. Future research within this subject could imply further developing the Operation Talent tool with other gameplay design patterns, evaluating the tool with real users or investigating the application of gameplay design patterns on other routine processes.