Global hotel giant Marriott is hoping the popularity of Facebook-based games such as Farmville will trigger enthusiasm for its own new game, built as a major part of its recruitment strategy.
The chain is currently going through a major job drive as it looks to fill 50,000 positions around the world by the end of 2011, mostly in locations outside of the US and targeting the 18 to 27 age range.
Recruiters have turned to social media gaming on Facebook after observing the enormous popularity of Farmville (135 million monthly active users) and others, creating a dedicated jobs fan page and an application called My Marriott.
The game puts users in various parts of a hotel, such as the kitchens, reception, bedrooms, etc, setting tasks against the clock so a user can earn points to move to harder levels or other locations in the property.
The idea is to showcase what is involved in running a kitchen and dining area or how easy (or not) it is organise the cleaning hundreds of rooms.
The game can be played in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Mandarin, with very visible links to the main recruitment pages on its corporate site.
The recruitment page has already found itself with 12,000 fans, with most users come coming from the US, Egypt and India.
The chain is hoping to double the number of rooms across Europe alone from 40,000 to 80,000 by 2015.