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NATIONWIDE’S graduate recruitment process now includes an ‘escape room’ challenge designed to assess candidates’ behaviour and competence.

While it may sound like an idea pulled from the latest series of Black Mirror, the building society says the challenge offers an “engaging and scientifically-robust” alternative to a traditional job interview.

The escape room challenge runs for 25 minutes and includes a series of tasks in which candidates use clues to work out the padlock combinations to five different boxes - one of which contains the key to escape from the room.

Escape rooms are physical adventure games, usually involving puzzles and riddles, which are set in a variety of fictional locations such as prison cells, dungeons and space stations.

The challenges have surged in popularity over the last few years and as of 2015 there were more than 2,800 venues worldwide.

Due to their reliance on logic, teamwork and collaboration, escape rooms have also become a favoured “team-building” exercise for many UK businesses.

“An escape room is an innovative way to assess the problem solving and creative thinking abilities of candidates, as well as how they collaborate and work together,” said Hannah Crawley, occupational psychologist and assessment manager at Nationwide.

“Our escape room challenge is part of a suite of exercises designed by cut-e, the assessment solutions specialist, to create an assessment centre that’s fun and engaging throughout. “cut-e’s assessments are underpinned by robust science and they provide insights into each applicant’s aspirations, drive, emotional intelligence and intellectual capacity. “It also provides a good opportunity for candidates to showcase their skills in a range of settings.” Nationwide has run ten escape room challenges to date in both its Swindon and Northampton branches, with five candidates attending each centre.

Hannah says feedback from Nationwide’s hiring managers has revealed the new escape room assessments are attracting a higher calibre of candidate.

“The quality of candidates coming through the process is significantly higher than previously, reflected in an assessment centre pass rate that is almost double our previous figures,” she said.

“Many candidates have told us that ours is the most exciting and interesting assessment centre they’ve attended - this is the Holy Grail for recruiters.

“It’s great to hear candidates are enjoying the process that helps us make the best possible hiring decisions.”

An escape room is an innovative way to assess the problemsolving abilities of candidates Hannah Crawley