Leveling up your career with games
A career path seen through game stages
LFG: Learning from Games is a series dedicated to making the complex world of video game research just a little easier to understand. I post one about 2-3 times a month in between my Science Shorts and Coming Soon series. LFG #28 is about thinking about our careers as a game!
Hello JOMT Reader!
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
It’s a question I struggled with, and still do, to a certain extent. Part of the issue is that I’m still discovering who I am and what I want to be. Without access to the vast internet, my knowledge of what I could aspire to be was limited. And video games didn’t factor into any equation because it was something that was only for kids.
Things have changed since then and video game playing is a lot more acceptable, with streaming becoming a lucrative but difficult career option. But not all video game career options have to be streaming — and career planning experts have realized the usefulness of thinking about careers in gaming terms.
There are plenty of similarities between video games and career planning:
Video games are designed to be played through challenges until you are successful; that drive to be succeed is required during our careers as we face challenges to overcome.
Video games let you discover new worlds or ways to accomplish things; the same is true when navigating careers as we consider different options and ways to get to the career we want.
Video games can be played with others in teams; networking and collaboration are important ways we build our careers.
Video games make you analyze information from different sources to accomplish a goal; for effective career planning, we need to learn how to take in and critically analyze information from multiple sources.
Despite all these parallels, the effect of video games to drive career planning hasn’t been explored. So, researchers in Switzerland designed a study to look at how video games, career planning, and skills are connected to each other.
💼What can video games do for your career?
Even if you aren’t thinking about becoming a streamer, video games have plenty to offer in terms of career planning. There was a connection between video games and the number and variety of real-world skills1 that participants in the study reported using. The most commonly identified real-world skills associated with video games were related to information processing, communication, and technology; and learning and innovation skills.
The researchers guessed that self-reflection and being critical would determine how many real-world skills were identified and used by gamers. Surprisingly, neither self-reflection nor being critical were connected to identification and use of real-world skills2. It’s surprising because it goes against what we know about how we gain skills in one context (video games) and transfer it to another (real world).
There are some challenges associated with the study. The first is that the authors weren’t looking at a specific game genre — as you might imagine, some games are better for training certain skills compared to others. Although they don’t mention it, your mileage in using video games for career planning will vary based on your gaming diet. My gaming diet doesn’t include online multiplayer games so trying to hone communication skills on my diet would be an exercise in futility.
The second challenge is that it’s all based on self-reported data, which can be unreliable. Not everyone remembers things exactly as it happened and biases can distort our perception of events. Quantitative data can usually balance the unreliability of self-reported data but unfortunately that wasn’t done for this study.
💡From paper to home: Ideas based on the research
It’s important to keep in mind that playing video games won’t necessarily land you your dream job or career3. But thinking about what we do in video games can provide a framework for how we plan and view our careers. With that in mind, I’ve got some thought starters that might help you or someone you give advice to see things in a different light.
What did you do in [insert game] today?
It’s a simple question but thinking about and explaining it allows us to practice a number of skills. At first, the answer to this question might be “I beat the boss.” But digging a bit deeper can get us thinking about what we did, how we did it, the problems we solved to beat the boss, and the strategies we used. Then, all of that information has to be explained in a way that anybody can understand it.
This simple exercise can help us to practice analytical, critical thinking, and communication skills.
How did you level up today?
As gamers we’re used to thinking about progression (character or city or whatever is changing). There are skills or technology trees that we make our way through, deciding our fate through the game. The skill/technology tree analogy can be useful for career planning. For example, we can ask, “What skills need to be mastered today or are required to gain other skills tomorrow?”
It’s a great way to map out a potential path of skills to keep yourself motivated to keep leveling up.
What’s the game stage like today?
In video games and in careers, the focus is usually on individual progression. But the stage of the game often influences the skills/technologies that we choose in a game. It’s no different in career planning: being aware of your environment is a great way to prioritize the skills/technologies that you need.
It’s also a great way to flex the skills/technology you already have to see how they can be adapted to a new environment.
Map out your career game
If you’re well into your career, mapping it out like a game world map might be a fun way to see all the skills you’ve gained and stages you’ve visited. It could be a really fun and creative way to showcase yourself or even build a resume/CV.
Over the next little while and in my free time, I will be remaking my resume and sharing parts of it with you that you can use. If there are icons and ideas that you want to see made, let me know!
Final remarks
I wish I knew about this way of thinking when I was thinking about my career all those years ago. But maybe I can spread the word to those that need to hear it, helping to make career planning just a little bit easier. And fun!
If you want to read more about this study, you can access the article here for free: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10468781251328894
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There was a weak connection between video games and real-world skills (small effect, r = 0.30) but a much stronger connection between real-world skills and the variety of those skills (large effect, r = 0.84). Both connections combined to lead to the conclusion that video games are connected to the number and variety of real-world skills.
The connection between self-reflection and frequency (medium effect, b = -0.33) and variety (small effect, b = -0.16) of real-world skills was small.
Unless streaming is what you are after.
As a non-native English speaker, videogames were a very important tool learning a new language as I began my gaming journey well before dubs and subs in games were a thing.
All I learned from online games is that some people suck at communicating!