Jaguar Land Rover join forces with Gorillaz to address the global shortfall in engineering talent, by launching a new innovative mixed reality app to inspire future generations and identify bright sparks to fill 1,000 new roles
19th June 2017, Alternate Reality: Jaguar Land Rover joins forces with Gorillaz to address the global shortfall in engineering talent, by launching a new innovative mixed reality app to inspire future generations and identify bright sparks to fill 1,000 new roles.
Jaguar Land Rover and Gorillaz are working together to recruit the next generation of world-class electronics and software engineering talent, with a code-breaking challenge found in the virtual band’s app. The best performers will be fast-tracked through the recruitment process, helping to meet the company’s ambition to employ thousands of bright new talents over the next year. It’s a major change in the way the business looks for candidates, aiming to tackle the engineering skills gap and inspire and attract a diverse range of talent and new thinking.
The new Jaguar Land Rover recruitment area will launch in The Gorillaz App on 19th of June in the form of a 360-environment situated in the garage of the band’s home which also features all the iconic vehicles from Gorillaz’ past. Here, applicants can explore and take a two-part challenge. The first part, designed to educate users about the benefits of electric vehicles, involves assembling the Jaguar I-PACE Concept, Jaguar’s first all-electric five-seater sports car. The second and more demanding part of the game, developed to engage and recruit budding electronic wizards and coders, will focus on cracking code – there are more than 4,000 combinations, as well as cipher in an alternate reality format. The challenges put a stronger focus on skills and talents than on qualifications.
The project follows on from Jaguar Land Rover’s STEM initiative with Gorillaz in 2016, where founder member and female guitarist, Noodle, became Jaguar’s Formula E Racing and global STEM Ambassador.
Jaguar Land Rover is hoping the mixed reality app will tackle the engineering skills shortfall by attracting a diverse range of talent. As well as identify talent, the company hopes to both inspire the next generation of engineers and also attract more women to the profession. Only 9% of the UK engineering workforce is female – this has remained the same since 2005 (IET 2015). In fact, the UK has the lowest percentage of female engineering professionals in Europe, while Latvia, Bulgaria and Cyprus lead with nearly 30% of the engineering workforce female.
