Computer game for Deloitte job-hunters

Business consultancy Deloitte is to use a computer game as part of its selection process for apprenticeships.

The firm plans to use gaming technology to help find 200 recruits for a business apprenticeship scheme.

It says if this is successful it will be applied to its graduate intake.

Deloitte says it wants to find staff "who may not necessarily stand out through a traditional recruitment process".

The game, Firefly Freedom, will be used to assess the "innovation, creativity and problem-solving" of applicants, who are likely to be aged 17 or 18.

Applicants will play for 20 to 30 minutes, with challenges in the game that are meant to show personality traits or a "candidate's natural preferences".

The game, made by a firm called Arctic Shores, provides "games based personality assessments".

This is the latest attempt by major employers to find new approaches to recruitment in a bid to get a more diverse workforce.

Employers have struggled with intakes, particularly at graduate level, where entry has been dominated by applicants from a narrow range of universities and backgrounds.

Deloitte, which recruits 1,500 graduates and school-leavers each year, has already announced plans to conceal the name of the university and school attended by applicants.

It said it wanted to remove "unconscious bias" about job-hunters, based on their university.

Accountancy firm Ernst and Young has said that it will carry out tests and interviews without considering applicants' exams or degree grades.

As well as wanting to promote social mobility, Deloitte's Emma Codd said the firm needed people "from a variety of backgrounds, bringing a range of perspectives and experience into the firm".

"There is compelling evidence that alternative methods during the recruitment process support this objective, helping to identify exceptional talent," she said.

Rob Fryer, head of student recruitment at Deloitte, said such approaches could find highly innovative people from "less privileged backgrounds" who otherwise would have been missed by employers.