Listing gaming on your resume might hurt your job prospects

An experiment in Germany looking into the effects of extracurricular activities listed in job applicants’ resumes found that the (fictional) applicant who listed gaming as an extracurricular activity tended to be rated lower in hireability compared to an equal applicant who listed volleyball. The research was published in the Journal of Personnel Psychology.

Gaming is the activity of engaging with digital games for entertainment, competition, creativity, or social interaction across various platforms. It requires a range of skills, including problem-solving, strategic thinking, hand–eye coordination, rapid decision-making, and the ability to learn complex rule systems. Many games also demand social skills such as teamwork, communication, leadership, and conflict management, especially in multiplayer environments.

Employers historically tended to dismiss gaming skills as irrelevant, particularly when they were not formally certified or connected to education. However, this perception is changing, especially in fields such as IT, engineering, design, data analysis, and project management, where transferable skills from gaming are more readily acknowledged.

Some employers now value gaming-related competencies like systems thinking, adaptability, and collaboration under pressure. Despite this, gaming skills require careful framing in professional contexts as they still tend to be undervalued and even looked down upon by many.

Study author Johannes M. Basch and his colleagues wanted to explore how the gaming skills of job applicants influence their perceived hireability and resume quality evaluations during the preselection of applicants. They conducted a study in which they contrasted gaming and participation in a team sport listed as extracurricular activities on job resumes. They compared them at two different proficiency levels: neutral/average and high.

Study participants were 162 individuals recruited in Germany via posts on social media. Their average age was 32 years. 64% were women. 38% had a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, or a PhD. Only 4% indicated having prior experience as a hiring manager.

Participants were randomly divided into four groups. They were instructed to adopt the perspective of a hiring manager whose task was to evaluate a fictitious applicant. They then viewed a job advertisement from a fictitious organization seeking a suitable person for the position of a customer service advisor. The advertisement explicitly listed the skills required of the applicant and outlined the responsibilities associated with the role.

After reading this, depending on the group, they were given one candidate resume to read. In the end, they answered questions about the applicant’s hireability and the quality of the resume. Among other information, the resume listed jogging as an extracurricular activity and, depending on the group the participant was assigned to, either “volleyball” or “gaming” as the second activity. In the neutral/average skill level conditions, only the name of the activity was listed.

In the two high-proficiency skill conditions, the resume for participants in one group stated that the applicant was a diagonal attacker in the third national volleyball league and a team captain. In the other group, the applicant competed within the Prime League in the game League of Legends. The Prime League is the official German-language League of Legends league sanctioned by Riot Games, the publisher of League of Legends.

Results showed that the (fictional) applicant listing gaming as an extracurricular activity was rated lower in hireability compared to the applicant who listed volleyball. This was the case at both proficiency levels.

“This study can be seen as a first step in investigating the role of gaming skills in the preselection of candidates, with future research needed to pick up the limitations of our study and to examine whether these effects vary across different job sectors, job requirements, and organizations,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of how gaming and gamers are perceived in job-related contexts. However, the study authors note that the wording of their fictional job advertisements might have directed participants to put greater emphasis on interpersonal skills than on computer-related skills. This might have made volleyball, as a team sport that requires interpersonal communication skills, look more relevant for the job position than the study authors initially intended.

The paper, “Game Over or Game Changer? The Impact of Applicants’ Gaming Skills on Their Hirability,” was authored by Johannes M. Basch, Marie L. Ohlms, and Maria Hepfengraber.