How are Jaguar and Land Rover looking to step up their presence in self driving technology, artificial intelligence and other technologies?
By recruiting through a video game.
Jaguar and Land Rover have launched an app featuring the animated electronic music group Gorillaz that includes a game designed to test players’ problem-solving skills. Themed around Jaguar’s i-PACE concept electric sports car, the game includes a series of code-breaking puzzles. Players who beat the game will be fast tracked through the interview process.
“The game on the app is fronted by Gorillaz’s female guitarist, a character called Noodle, who is also the fact of a STEM initiative launched by JLR with Gorillaz in 2016 to help address the engineering skills gap,” Electronics Weekly explains.
When a Video Game Becomes a Job Interview
Why such an unusual approach to the traditional interview? Changing times.
“As the automotive industry transforms over the next decade, fuelled by software innovation, we have to attract the best talent and that requires a radical rethink of how we recruit,” Alex Heslop, head of electrical engineering at JLR told Electronics Weekly. “Here we’ve found an engaging way to recruit a diverse talent pool in software systems, cyber systems, app development and graphics performance.”
The car maker is looking to recruit 5,000 more people, including 1,000 electronic and software engineers. Last year was the company’s best-ever year for sales, selling more than 583,000 vehicles.
