Companies are just beginning to grasp the limitless opportunities offered by the metaverse. In our recent paper, Moving into the metaverse, we discussed the advantages of creating virtual spaces for purposes such as collaboration and training for remote employees, internal events and customer engagement. Add to these metaverse use cases employee recruitment.
Supermarket chain Carrefour, SK Telecom and Samsung are among the companies that have already held recruitment events or job interviews in the metaverse. Taking this approach is an opportunity for HR and business executives to easily connect in an engaging way with great candidates, including those who don’t live in particular geographic areas. For many companies, location is less of a concern now that remote work has become part of their culture.
Equally important, using the metaverse for recruitment purposes helps companies to position themselves as modern and exciting places to work. They can create immersive environments with 3D visualizations to not only showcase their business portfolios, but reflect their values, culture and brand, as well. This insight will be valuable to potential employees who want to be able to relate to their employer’s purpose, beliefs, vision and work dynamics. Similarly, employers want to get a sense of whether candidates have the right behavioral profile for their organization, and the additional dimension the metaverse provides over a 2D call can add that perspective right from the start in first-round interviews.
So, candidates should consider how to represent themselves and engage others professionally in a virtual space. They need to think about how to portray themselves through their avatars and what kind of behaviors to display.
For example, candidates need to consider whether a creative avatar and an extroverted behavioral profile will be interpreted positively or negatively by recruiters. To be fair and get the most out of candidates, companies need to provide guidance to them about what they are looking for and what kinds of qualities will be perceived positively by recruiters.
Getting ready for recruitment in the metaverse
Using metaverse technologies in recruitment requires upfront planning and preparation. To make the most of the technology for this purpose companies should follow these steps:
- Train HR teams on how to organize and run events in a virtual world. That means understanding what type of virtual environment is best suitable for that event, the technology requirements needed for success, and the parameters and limitations of that technology. It is critical that they understand how to virtually manage users in a 3D environment including onboarding, troubleshooting and user traffic management. They should also be wary of candidates displaying disruptive behavior, understand how to identify them and revoke their access or priveleges.
- Give HR teams insight into how to interpret different behavioral profiles in a virtual world. That way, they can get a good handle on whether candidates look like a match for the company. Companies can support this by encouraging self-expression, participation and engagement. Give candidates the flexibility to customize their avatars to truly represent themselves and their personality. Encourage them to come off mute, use an emote or gesture to really get a feel for who they are and whether they are a good fit for your team and culture.
- Engage digital designers to build dedicated spaces that are optimized for recruitment purposes. For example, a recruitment metaverse should include private booth and conversation spaces, networking areas, info zones and reception desks, just like you would have at a physical event. However, the virtual world can enable creativity beyond the limitations of the physical world, so engaging with 3D artists, designers and game engine developers can help take your experience to that next level of engagement and make it truly unique to your brand.
- HR teams should work closely with their brand, marketing and events groups for business imaging and alignment. It’s important to ensure the metaverse environment meets brand standards as well as provides aesthetically pleasing and engaging settings that are representative of their culture.
- Be in contact with candidates in advance and set up training sessions to cover the processes they should follow in the virtual world. For instance, they'll need to understand how to navigate the virtual world, communicate with other users, self-troubleshoot or seek assistance and use the available capabilities and tools within the platform to have the most complete and valuable experience.
Support for your recruitment metaverse
Given the fact that the metaverse is a still-emerging technology, businesses won’t necessarily have on-staff expertise to execute and manage all aspects of recruitment events. There’s value in turning to a service provider with proficiency in metaverse solutions.
DXC, for example, has developed DXC Virtual World, a business metaverse whose capabilities include accommodating large-scale events — like recruitment fairs — with a capacity up to 2,500 simultaneous users. We also provide a range of services to help companies’ events succeed: building and customizing the event space, training, onboarding, and service desk and support services among them.
As businesses increasingly invest in the metaverse and virtual spaces, it is only natural that essential business practices, including recruitment, will take place in these environments. Younger age groups will be particularly receptive to this enticing way of getting acquainted with potential employers.
Bottom line: Now’s the time to think about building a virtual world to find your future talent.
Learn more about DXC Modern Workplace.