Decoding Gen Z: Playing the AI-Recruitment Game

Getting hired for a new job can often feel like a game: a series of levels that must be passed to reach the finish line. Gamification has been a growing concept especially within Gen Z.

Pre-selection testing, specifically skill-based, is growing quickly, with TestGorilla reporting that 85% of employers use skills-based hiring in 2025 after a large employer survey.

Game-like testing is now established in early-careers hiring, with credible estimates of penetration. For many candidates, those early levels now include skills tests, gamified assessments, and AI-driven screening before they ever speak to a person.

But where there is new technology, there is a fear questioning what is gained and what is at stake? 

From Conversation to Calculation

Gamified recruitment tools help employers forecast how candidates will perform on the job through games built on a scientific foundation, explains Equalture, a game-based assessment platform. Skills tested may include memory, pattern recognition, emotional response time, or decision making under pressure.

But something that has taken gamified recruitment assessment to another level is AI. According to a Resume.org report from August last year, 57% of companies used AI for hiring, and 74% of that same pool attributed AI to improved quality hires.

IE Talents & Careers conducted focus group interviews with IE master students who are currently undergoing or have recently completed a recruitment process themselves, thus are familiarised with modern recruitment techniques, including gamification. 

"Language models have an ability to match data and make correlations that prompt more accurate deductions than if a human were analyzing it," said an IE Master in Management recent graduate. "If the subject is honest, these tools can offer a good perspective."

AI-use inside hiring processes is rising and pushing more screening into automated “systems”. A 2025 global survey by HireVue, that included 4,000+ HR leaders and employees, reported that weekly AI usage among HR professionals has been rising from 58% in 2024 to 72% in 2025.

Where the Human Touch Slips Away

Even so, some students believe AI-driven recruitment sacrifices emotional nuance.

"AI can’t identify charisma or how someone handles ethically complex situations," noted an  IE Master in Management student. "It feels standardized and predictable."

The concern seems on point as an HRDive article claimed that companies are using AI not only for resume reviews, their assessments or onboarding, but also for candidate communication.

One Bachelor in Communication and Digital Media student highlights interpersonal communication.

"Gamified tools tend to prioritize quick thinking and pattern recognition," the bachelor student said. "But in my field, communication is about listening actively, interpreting emotion, and adapting your message in real time. That kind of relational intelligence doesn’t always show up in a structured assessment, but is more open in traditional interviews."

This tension lies in the misconception that AI can fully replace human intuition, when in reality, the mechanism works because of accumulated human intelligence. As a Forbes article notes, effective use of AI occurs when decision-makers combine its computational power with critical thinking and contextual awareness.

The absence of human interaction can leave people feeling invisible, evaluated but not understood. 

For Gen Z, that feeling matters.

"The nuance of communication, emotional intelligence, and mutual understanding between people simply cannot be replicated by an algorithm," said a Master in Interior Design 2024 Graduate. "So, while these tools can increase efficiency and fairness to an extent, they also risk making the experience detached and overly mechanical if overused."

A system that is overly detached and mechanical raises a broader concern about how AI-driven tools can ultimately reinforce existing biases. Even when designed to increase fairness, these systems rely on pre-existing assessment criteria and training data that may carry embedded assumptions. Where AI can reduce one set of biases, it can as easily form new ones.

Are Candidates Being Measured, or Just Learning How to Play?

But Gen Z is not only concerned about the lack of humanity present in the tools or the potential prejudices it may sustain, it is also skeptical that once candidates understand their logic, performance becomes strategic rather than authentic.

While AI-powered assessments excel at identifying cognitive traits and behavioral patterns, they often struggle to capture softer dimensions such as ethical judgment or creative ambiguity, qualities that emerge most clearly through human interaction.

In other words, gamification risks rewarding system fluency over self-expression.

The paradox deepens when candidates themselves use AI tools, such as generative models, to prepare applications, answers, and even personality-based responses.

"AI now recruits AI," said a graduate in Master in Interior Design from 2024. "Candidates use ChatGPT to apply, and companies use AI to filter."

Gen Z and the Future of Hiring

Despite their critiques, Gen Z does not call for a return to purely traditional hiring. Instead, they envision a hybrid model where AI and gamification are part of the early stages, while human interaction becomes non-negotiable as the process advances.

"I’d use AI for initial filtering," said one student, "but after that, personalization and real conversations should take over."

For Gen Z, the future of recruitment is not about choosing between AI and humanity. Because in a process meant to evaluate people, the most important metric may still be the one that cannot be quantified.