Immersive Job Taste in VR for Young Job Seekers in Norway

In this ongoing project in collaboration with the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration, we explore how the use of Immersive Job Taste in Virtual Reality (VR) can motivate and inform young job seekers on their way to work.

Immersive Job Taste is an interactive and engaging VR simulation with gaming elements that provides a ‘peek’ into different workplaces and professions.

The VR experience allows the job seekers to be exposed to unfamiliar situations, such as job interview, typical tasks and interaction with others in a safe setting, thus supporting mastering the corresponding real-world situations.

Through the simulation, the job seekers can immerse into different workplaces, explore different locations, try out typical job tasks, collect points and get feedback. We have so far developed a theoretical Immersive Job Taste framework and implemented several workplaces in VR: Fisheries and Aquaculture, Road Construction, Windmill Electrician, Car Mechanic, Tinsmith, Crane operator as well as a job interview app. The project has received international awards and broad media coverage.

The initial assessment in lab setting among young job seekers and career counsellors has been overwhelmingly positive. The majority of testers believe that such applications should be available for job seekers and as a part of career guidance at schools.

At the moment, the existing Immersive Job Taste applications are being deployed and evaluated further at several unemployment centers and schools in Norway to assess the long-term effect of the intervention.

In this talk, we will introduce the project, the Immersive Job Taste conceptual framework, provide a demonstration of the VR apps and present the preliminary evaluation results, outlining the directions for future work.