Gaming has become a popular pastime for many people across the world at a time when the workplace has become increasingly digital. But do employers value the types of skills, knowledge, and abilities that gamers develop from this extracurricular activity? Or, to put it another way, if you list gaming on your resume, will it help or hinder your chances of getting a job?
The answer is complicated, according to a new study from Germany. In an experiment designed to see how applicants’ gaming skills influence their hirability in the eyes of potential employers, the researchers found that listing gaming on your resume can be problematic compared to an alternative – in this case, team sports, specifically volleyball.
To say gaming is popular is a bit of an understatement. In the US, 61 percent of people report playing at least 1 hour per week, with around 29 percent of players being above the age of 50. This latter number was only 17 percent in 2024 and only 9 percent in 1999.
Far from just being a passive form of entertainment, gaming can help people develop various skills that a beneficial for the workplace. This can include multitasking, rapid decision making, information processing, and problem solving. Research has also shown that video games and game-based assessments are positively associated with cognitive ability, which is one of the best predictors of job performance.
At the same, digitization has changed the skills needed to be successful in many careers, making digital fluency, mental flexibility, and communication skills more essential. As such, traditional KSAOs, as they’re called (knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics), may no longer be enough as modern careers require increasingly diverse set of skills.
This, you would think, would make video gaming a potentially positive indicator when included on someone’s resume, but the reality is complex.
In their new study, researchers explored how hiring managers perceive the disclosure of gaming skills on resumes compared to traditional extracurricular activities – e.g. team sports – and how these perceptions affect an applicant’s chances of getting the job. To do this, they conducted an experiment where they contrasted listing gaming and/or participation in sports as activities on resumes, using two different proficiency categories: neutral or average, and high.
The team recruited 162 individuals aged 18-69 (with 32 being the average age). Of these participants, 64 percent identified as female.
Participants were randomly divided into four groups, each of which was instructed to adopt the perspective of a hiring manager evaluating fictitious applicants. They were then presented with a job advertisement for a fictitious organization looking for suitable people for a position of a “customer service advisor”. The advert explicitly listed the skills needed to fulfill the role and the responsibilities it required.
After reading the advert, the participants were randomly assigned to one of the four groups and were then given a candidate’s resume to assess. They were then asked specific questions about the candidate’s hirability and the resume’s quality. Regardless of the group the participants were put in, the resume included jogging as an extracurricular activity. But, depending on their group, the resume also included either “volleyball” or “gaming”.
In the neutral or average condition, the resume only said “gaming” or “volleyball”, while in the high proficiency condition, the applicant was identified as either a diagonal attacker in the third national volleyball league and a team captain, or they were a competitor in the Prime League in the game League of Legends. This is the official German-language league for the popular game.
The results showed that the applications that included gaming as an activity were rated lower in hirability than those who listed volleyball. This occurred in both the neutral/average and high proficiency levels.
“The results of the current study reveal that applicants who list gaming as an [extracurricular activity] alongside a common individual sport on their resumes are perceived less favorably in terms of both hirability and resume quality compared to those who list a team sport such as volleyball alongside a common individual sport,” the authors explain in their paper.
Significantly, the results show marked differences regardless of the proficiency levels of the activity, which contradicts previous research. It reinforces the notion that traditional extracurricular activities – such as team sports – are still regarded more positively in association with desirable skills, such as teamwork, leadership, and discipline.
Even though gaming may foster cognitive and social skills, these benefits appear to be less recognized in professional contexts.
“The results further contribute to the existing literature on resume screening and the impact of nontraditional [extracurricular activities], demonstrating lower ratings for gamers despite skills associated with gaming growing relevance in the digitalized workforce,” the team add.
“This underscores the need for further studies exploring how perceptions could change with increased awareness of the benefits gaming can provide.”
Despite its results, the study has some limitations that need to be considered. Firstly, participants were only given one fictitious application from one male application for one role in one specific sector. This limits the extent to which the results can be generalized. In addition, the job the fictitious application was seeking did not emphasize computer skills, leading to an imbalance in the skills needed for the role. In particular, it may have made participants place greater weight on the perceived interpersonal skills that come with team sports.
The study is published in the Journal of Personnel Psychology.
Source Link: Gaming May Be Popular, But Can It Damage A Resume?
