想来应聘？先把这盘游戏打了

想来应聘？先把这盘游戏打了

为了招聘到更具多元化的人才，许多优秀企业已经在招聘环节尝试做出改变，招聘流程“游戏化”的可贵在于，可以消除很多偏见与不公。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

reflex 反应能力['riːfleks]

notwithstanding 尽管[nɒtwɪð'stændɪŋ; -wɪθ-]

Scrap 取消[skræp]

Ernst & Young 安永会计师事务所

Endlessly 不断地；无穷尽地['ɛndləsli]

Homogenous 同质的；同类的[hə'mɒdʒɪnəs]

Standardize 使…符合标准['stændədaiz]

阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。

如果您读完全文用时为： 那么，您的阅读速度相当于 每分钟阅读的英文单词数

5分32秒 母语为英语者的朗读速度 140

2分47秒 母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250

2分25秒 母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350

0分11秒 母语为英语的速读高手 1000

Recruiters’ use of video games is a fad worth fighting for （718words）

By Sarah O’Connor

-----------------------------------------------------

“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.

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.

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

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”.

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?

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 previously have been ineligible to apply.

“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.

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

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.

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.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. Why did those employers take use of video games?

A. to relax

B. to cater to customers

C. to get more diverse workforce

D. to establish corporate image

2. Which company has changed its application process that recruiters do not know where the candidates went to school or university?

A. Deloitte

B. EY

C. Microsoft

D. Deutsche Bank

3. Which kind of company has take use of “contextual recruitment product” that identifies people who might not meet standard academic requirements but have outperformed relative to their backgrounds?

A. banks

B. audit firms

C. software firms

D. law firms

4. Which company has scrapped all academic qualifications from its entry criteria?

A. EY

B. Deloitte

C. Microsoft

D. Deutsche Bank

[1] 答案 C. to get more diverse workforce

解释：文中多次提到，企业想要多元化的劳动力就必须改变以往的招聘方式。

[2] 答案 A. Deloitte

解释：文中提到，德勤采用了这种方式。

[3] 答案 D. law firms

解释：一些律师事务所在招聘时会辨识求职者在其领域的突出能力而非仅仅是学术背景。

[4] 答案 A. EY

解释：安永取消了所有学位证书的限制，而采取了一系列标准化的网上测试。