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Talent Acquisition

How Will Augmented & Virtual Reality Play a Role in Recruitment?

More and more companies are choosing to go the virtual reality route. Even recruiters. Many recruitment agencies are embracing what virtual reality can bring to them. Why? Because it makes sense. Imagine interviewing candidates in a digital space without having to schedule a time for them to come in physically.

It opens a door into an untapped market which allows people of different profiles a chance at roles they weren’t previously able to interview for. At least that’s what I think. Does our expert panel think the same?

Jonathan Kestenbaum 

While I don’t see a huge use case for talent acquisition today, I do think that VR will play a huge role in the training and development of employees. If VR were to play a larger role in everyday life, I anticipate there would be some use cases around employer branding.

Jonathan Kestenbaum, Executive Director, Talent Tech Labs

Cheryl Cran 

Employers will be able to provide a ‘day in the life’ of working in their company where potential hires can review using VR and interact with potential co workers, see how meetings are conducted, get a better sense of culture and more.

Cheryl Cran, CEO & Future of Work Expert, Synthesis at Work Inc

 

Nathan Perrott

AR & VR will be more suited and more effective to certain aspects of the recruitment process than others. For example, the benefits of using VR in assessment have already been proven. We’ve also used VR in talent attraction with some success. AR has been fairly limited until now, with the need to host the content on a specialist platform and then provide the user with download or usage instructions. However, now that Facebook has essentially democratised AR by opening up their platform for development, there will be some excited possibilities for its usage in recruitment.

Nathan Perrott, Director of Digital Marketing Strategy, AIA Worldwide

Adam Glassman 

I think that’s yet to be determined. There are some theories, and some use cases, to be sure. One area in particular where it could be very valuable is in employment branding efforts. Imagine being able to do a virtual office tour, or see what an off-hours employee event looks like. Imagine getting a real preview of what it’s like to work at a company – and in a particular role as well – through augmented reality. That’s a powerful component we’ve yet to tap into, but could in the very near future.

Adam Glassman, Recruitment Strategies Manager, Alorica

Hung Lee 

AR/ VR will be most logically be applied in employer branding, talent attraction, and talent assessment and training. We have already seen some incredible early examples of companies producing AR job advertisements or VR office tours and AR/VR job assessment. This is probably the technology trend that will be one of the earliest to secure mainstream adoption in the world of recruitment over the next 12-18 months or so.

Hung Lee, CEO, WorkShape.io

Chris Russell 

Job training is the first thing that comes to mind. Workers will most like be trained in a virtual reality world in order to qualify for work. It exists somewhat now like with flight simulators but the technology will be wearable very soon.

Chris Russell, Managing Director, RecTechMedia.com

Bryan Chaney

Recruiters are storytellers, and we’re continually looking for more and more interesting ways to show off our workspaces and the roles and teams we’re trying to fill. The current standard that companies need to reach is video, so the logical next step has to be immersive video, or VR. If the tech and the hardware can catch up, I see virtual and augmented reality playing a part in our shopping, our food and restaurant choices, and very easily our job searches and career decisions. Imagine a mobile 360 degree video showing off a live game room or meeting space, where you the candidate can interact with actual employees. That’s the next step in storytelling – story showing.

Bryan Chaney, Director of Employer Brand, Indeed