Roblox talent acqusition wins with assessment games

Online gaming platform Roblox uses cognitive assessment games to help screen entry-level job candidates for its technical roles, joining other industry titans like consulting giants McKinsey & Co. and Deloitte using assessment games as part of their talent acquisition strategy.

Jack Buckley, vice president of people science at Roblox and former president and chief scientist at Imbellus, says the company’s use of game-based assessments began in 2020 when it acquired cognitive assessment game company Imbellus. Using these assessments has helped the company boost candidate engagement and build a more diverse pool of applicants.

Job applicants today score their candidate experience at approximately eight on a 1-to-10 scale, compared to five or six before the company started using game-based assessments, Buckley estimates. He notes that cognitive assessment games are a vital component of Roblox’s candidate screening toolkit, which also includes personality tests and computer coding assessments.

In a recent video interview with Human Resource Executive, Buckley shared his insights on the importance of cognitive assessment games in HR, their practical application and their impact on talent acquisition and DEI. He also discussed the challenges in developing these games or selecting vendors to purchase them.