Hiring by Video Game
Note to Self
WNYC Studios
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2014
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The traditional job interview is obsolete. That is, when compared to an all-knowing video game that peers into the psyche of every candidate.
Some companies are adding specially-designed video games to their hiring processes. When a job applicant plays one of the games — like the one we test out in this episode, Balloon Brigade — algorithms monitor the "micro-behaviors" within the gameplay to build a detailed, data-driven portrait of his or her strengths and weaknesses.
"This phenomenon, if it does continue to take hold, will really significantly change the way people are hired, the way people are promoted, and to some extent, the way they see themselves," says the Atlantic's Don Peck, who wrote about these new-fangled hiring practices in the excellent article, "They're Watching You at Work."
Good hiring is an art, but it's turning into a science replete with video games, intelligence tests and personality quizzes that can know you better than your boss, and maybe better than yourself. But... will this lead to a darker kind of professional determinism, or to a new breed of biased hiring?
On this week's New Tech City, we find out. We get inside these new data-driven hiring practices so you know what to expect. We test out the video games and assessments for ourselves — to some shock and indignation. We hear from the people who make the games. And we show you what it is going to be like when you apply for your next job (so you can start studying).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello friend, this is an episode of Note to Self, but from when we used to be called New |
| 0:05.8 | Text City. |
| 0:07.2 | Same good content, just the old name. |
| 0:09.3 | Enjoy. |
| 0:10.3 | I'm a new Samarote, and this is New Text City, the show about how technology is changing |
| 0:15.4 | the way we live, and this week we're preparing you for the future of hiring, how you might |
| 0:21.1 | find your next job, or how your next employer might find you. |
| 0:27.0 | We could all come down to taking a test that might sound like this. |
| 0:36.0 | That's me playing a video game, a quick fun diversion, yes, but also potentially a window |
| 0:41.9 | into my psyche. |
| 0:42.9 | The data that is being collected from the game looks at everything that you do in the game, |
| 0:47.0 | subconsciously or consciously, in a very fine way. |
| 0:50.4 | You win. |
| 0:51.4 | I'm getting the sense that everybody wins. |
| 0:54.1 | Big companies can already use video games, personality quizzes, brain teasers, to get |
| 0:59.7 | at your subconscious data, and they're going to be doing this more and more. |
| 1:04.4 | This phenomenon, I mean if it does continue to take hold, will really significantly change, |
| 1:10.0 | I think, the way people are hired the way they're promoted, and to some extent the way |
| 1:14.2 | they see themselves. |
| 1:18.2 | We're entering a world where video games can determine hiring, firing, and promotions. |
| 1:24.0 | This is huge, where machines can predict our behavior better than our bosses can, maybe |
| 1:30.0 | even better than ourselves, but the results may not be pretty. |
... |
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