Exciting news this week via Slashdot that game-like “employment simulations” are being used to assess candidates for jobs:

There’s simply a computer game. If you win, you get the job. If you lose, game over.

Speaking to KiaSA, Clifford Prodger of recruitment specialists Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel said “We did have some early teething troubles, such as a larger than usual number of candidates with a propensity for storing animal entrails and hats in their desks, and their limited range of interaction with objects; when tasked with photocopying a document they tended to kneel in front of the machine, perform a vaguely non-specific mime and colour in a strip of paper, expressing surprise when this didn’t have the desired result. Many others were found to be unable to perform basic functions such as finding the coffee machine or going to the toilet without a line manager marking the objective on a map, leading to some completely undrinkable coffee when a hurried team leader got the labels the wrong way around. Remuneration was also an issue with more than one case of an applicant having to be forcibly removed from the premises because they refused to work further unless their boss rewarded them with the Seven Souls Sword of Sanctified Susurration and seventy seven silver pieces. But we’ve stopped basing our simulations around MMO systems now, and everything seems to be working quite well.”