By Jon Scarr
A career in esports isn't the only way gaming can connect to work. Organizing a team, working through problems and adapting when a plan goes wrong can give you experiences worth talking about in an interview. The harder part is showing an employer how those experiences relate to the job.
By Jon Scarr
On October 19, Paul Fogolin, president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), shared a Globe and Mail article examining whether employers should consider gaming experience when hiring. On LinkedIn, he argued that employers should recognize skills developed outside traditional education and work experience. He also acknowledged that playing video games doesn't automatically make someone a good employee.
The 2025 Power of Play report, produced with the Entertainment Software Association of Canada and other international gaming associations, found that 80% of Canadian respondents believed video games can improve problem-solving, and 34% said gaming had positively influenced their career or education. Those are self-reported experiences, though, not proof that gaming makes someone better at their job. Whether those abilities carry over into the workplace is another question.
Canadian Gamers Report Developing Valuable Skills
In the same ESAC survey, 77% of Canadian respondents agreed that video games can improve critical thinking, and 76% said they can improve cognitive skills. The report lists 1,007 respondents for its Canada figures and another 514 for Quebec. Participants were 16 or older and played video games for at least an hour a week. These results tell us what people think about gaming's benefits, not what an employer would observe during a workday.
Still, the abilities they're talking about aren't far removed from what employers seek. The Government of Canada's Skills for Success framework includes problem-solving, collaboration, communication and adaptability among nine foundational workplace skills. Think about a multiplayer group trying to finish a difficult challenge. Someone might need to explain a plan, listen when it fails and help the group try something else. That's a reasonable example to discuss, provided the person actually took on those responsibilities.
Finishing a difficult game proves you finished that game. Explaining how you worked with others, handled disagreements or took responsibility for a result tells an employer considerably more.
Research Finds Modest Cognitive Benefits
The scientific evidence is more specific than the claim that gaming makes people smarter. A 2026 review published in Acta Psychologica examined 133 studies involving 14,245 participants. One of its authors, Xiaoxue Kong, is affiliated with the University of Northern British Columbia. The research covered memory, visual attention, spatial ability, cognitive control and intelligence.
Across different study designs, the researchers found small positive associations between video game play and cognitive performance. The controlled trials are especially useful because they compare gaming interventions with other activities or no intervention. Their overall effect was statistically significant but small. When the researchers examined individual abilities, only memory showed a statistically significant benefit in those trials. The findings don't establish that someone who games will perform better at work.
But practising a skill in a game doesn't necessarily mean you can use it somewhere else. A study published in 2025 followed 110 university students learning through either a competitive sandbox game or non-game instruction. The gaming group performed better when applying collaboration skills to similar follow-up tasks. Researchers didn't find a significant advantage for transferring creativity, critical thinking or communication. This was structured teaching, not a comparison of everyday gaming habits.
Ontario has explored that structured approach, too. Literacy Link South Central developed A Game Changer for Soft Skills Development in 2019 and 2020, using facilitated lessons and games to practise employment-related abilities. Its modules covered subjects such as teamwork, conflict resolution and adaptability. It offers a Canadian example of game-based teaching, though it doesn't show that recreational gaming produces the same outcomes.
Gaming Experience and Employer Perceptions
Even when someone can describe a relevant skill, the word "gaming" may influence how that experience is received. In a 2025 study published in the Journal of Personnel Psychology, researchers in Germany asked 162 people to evaluate a fictional job applicant. Résumés that listed gaming alongside an individual sport received lower ratings than those listing volleyball alongside that sport. Higher levels of gaming proficiency didn't remove the difference.
The experiment involved fictional résumés, not actual hiring decisions. It also couldn't fully separate a negative view of gaming from a positive view of team sports. We can't use those results to claim Canadian employers are turning away applicants because they play games.
Canadian employers also have to evaluate skills people develop outside traditional education. In a survey released in February 2026 by Express Employment Professionals, 86% of 504 Canadian hiring decision-makers said demonstrating how skills were used or could be applied was more effective than relying on a résumé alone. At the same time, 61% preferred formal education over self-taught learning, and 23% said their companies had updated hiring processes to recognize and verify self-taught skills.
That survey looked at self-taught skills generally, not video games. Employers may appreciate abilities developed outside a classroom, but they still want evidence that someone can use them.
Demonstrating Gaming Skills in a Job Interview
So what would that look like for a gamer? Listing a rank, trophy or number of hours played won't tell an employer much about how you work. A more helpful explanation would describe something you actually did and what happened as a result.
Someone who organized a regular multiplayer group could talk about coordinating schedules, assigning responsibilities and resolving disagreements. A person who helped newer members learn a complicated game could explain how they adjusted their instructions when someone was struggling. Neither example requires the interviewer to know the game. The responsibilities are what make the experience relevant.
The connection also depends on the position. For a customer-facing position, you might discuss communication and teamwork. For a technical role, troubleshooting might be the more relevant example. It's important not to inflate a gaming achievement into professional experience it doesn't represent. An employer may still expect formal qualifications, practical tests or examples from work and education.
There's no guarantee an employer will care about your gaming experience. But when it gives you an honest example of something the job calls for, it's worth talking about. You don't have to pretend it happened somewhere other than a game.
Jon Scarr
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