(CNN) — Business is a game, as Bill Gates observed, and in the modern workplace any distinction is fast dissolving. Firms are increasingly adopting the principles of successful gaming and applying them to the office to build teams of problem solvers.
The entire global games business could be worth over $100 billion, according to research from Digi-Capital, and its tendrils extend into the workplace even before a prospective employee arrives, with major organizations from Twitter to Quora using games in their recruitment process. Companies like HackerRank are hired to set a series of programming challenges and competitions for prospective employees, allowing both the organization and potential staffer alike the chance to get a real feel for the job they’re applying for.
“What we do is give people the opportunity to connect with any company on the planet by building a set of challenges that employ the skills required for a job there,” says Vivek Ravisankar, HackerRank’s co-founder. “There are so many diamonds in the rough, so it’s important for companies to introduce gaming into the hiring process in order to test their skills.”