There has been so much hype around the metaverse in recent years, but its definition, what it looks like and how it will impact our everyday lives is still being debated. Is it already here? Will it last? How will it really benefit? These are some of the hotly contested questions I’m often asked. 

Whilst it is still very much in its nascent phase, the vision is that the metaverse will help expand and enrich our real-life experiences, helping us to connect with people from all over the world in a more meaningful way. It’s the next generation of the internet; a persistent and shared virtual world where we can play, socialise, shop, work, learn and more. A connected experience where you can seamlessly move between platforms and experiences taking your personal digital avatar and crypto wallet with you. 

As an older woman and a non-tech native working in this space, I’m a prime example of just how possible breaking through the barriers to entry is.  My background is in the creative arts, training as a dancer from a young age; I’ve always had a huge passion for art and creativity. As an art collector myself, I used to feel intimidated going into galleries with white walls and expensive paintings with people creeping up on you asking if they could help you and looking down their nose. 

It dawned on me that, whilst I spent a lot of money on art and am a pretty confident person, I still felt intimidated by the traditional art-world, so what must that experience be like for others?

So, I decided to take the plunge and open my first art gallery. My mission was to break down the barriers and make art accessible for everybody. I wanted to banish the snobbery around art, and de-jargonise it – essentially removing barriers to people enjoying art. I founded the brand Bad Art, which rapidly cemented its reputation as a disruptive and dynamic venture within the art world. I created immersive and experiential gallery events. These quickly gained recognition through several award-wins and high profile events including Paul Karslake’s Banksy-inspired ‘Bank Robbery’ exhibition, which achieved extensive national media coverage and critical acclaim. 

As the world shifted during the pandemic, I became more and more interested in NFTs and their potential to elevate the art world through digital art. I saw an opportunity and began researching obsessively. I saw that it was evolving so rapidly and knew that wherever it was then, was not where it was going to end up. 

I was then introduced to the dynamic founder of Vertex Labs, Ander Tsui and Bobby Zhu through a business contact in 2020. Ander and Bobby are true visionaries with a keen eye for disruptive ventures. They had developed this technology far superior to anything else on the market at that time and were building a hyper-realistic virtual city called LightCycle, set to become the go-to destination for art, film, gaming, music, fashion, sport, property and retail. Powered by AI technology, it would empower users, businesses and brands to create commercial installations, or purchase land and other digital assets through a seamless and secure virtual experience. Users would be immersed in a bustling virtual commercial city where they could engage with their communities in new ways, interact with their favourite brands in a stunning 3D environment, experience live sport and music events, browse NFT collections in an NFT exhibition hall, or visit the fashionverse district. I was hooked. 

It struck me that, much the same as the art world, the jargon around the metaverse and blockchain revolution was a real sticking point for so many people. People in this space love to use all these acronyms and geek words – even the term ‘blockchain’ or ‘NFT’ made people glaze over.  Having made it my mission to slice through the jargon and barriers in the art world, I knew I could do the same and add huge value in the Web3 space. So, I boarded Lightycle as its CMO to help drive and realise its vision. 

Pivoting my skillset and black book of contacts, I got to work forming strategic partnerships that would take LightCycle to the next level. I realised that the key mistake brands were making was to focus only on Web3 natives. Yet for the metaverse to really take off, we need mass scale adoption. The real potential lies in brands leveraging the Web3 technology to engage with their existing audience in addressing current business challenges and capitalising on new opportunities. I knew that we needed to stop focussing only on the crypto natives because that wasn’t where this market was going to take us.  We needed to retrofit it, looking at what the problems were and what this new technology solves. Because blockchain technology and NFTs really do solve a lot of real life problems.

It was through this exact ethos that I was able to secure partnership with British singer-songwriter, Robbie Williams, for whom we recently announced his 2024 metaverse debut with LightCycle. I’ve also brought in some more really exciting household names and big brand live events soon to be announced. These artists and events will feature in LightCycle so that their fans, new and old, can enjoy next-level interaction and engagement. We’re just elevating their entertainment experience in a virtually enhanced way. 

I believe it’s really important to differentiate yourself in this market and to have a specialist USP. This is why, with LightCycle, we position ourselves as the metaverse for music, sport, and entertainment. People know that we specialise in music, art, entertainment and that gives mores impetus for them to come to us. 

I think the possibilities for the metaverse really are limitless. The future is where technology and creativity intersect to create new paradigms for cultural expression and human connection in an increasingly digital world. Another big opportunity for brands is the ability to overcome authenticity issues, particularly for the secondary resale marketplace. Once it’s on the blockchain, it can’t be changed or tampered with, it can’t be reproduced. Whatever is on the blockchain is factual and truthful. That’s it, you can’t mess with it. So, it overcomes the problem of authentication. It will also speed processes up. For example, if you buy a house through today’s traditional model, you have to wait for around six weeks for all the due diligence to be reviewed and completed. If that was on the blockchain, anyone can access that immediately. 

No one yet knows the impact the metaverse will have on our everyday lives. It depends on the power of computing and network abilities and the adoption rate of users. It won’t be an all at once moment, but rather a gradual collection of digital experiences that improve the way we live and work. As well as usage and adoption, it will depend on how much support and enthusiasm governments provide. Early data shows much higher metaverse adoption rates in Asia, MENA, and Europe than the United States. Which indicates that people in these regions have better access to the devices needed to use the metaverse, which makes it a favorable environment for the development and adoption of metaverse-related applications.

People say to me, ‘oh you work in crypto?’ ‘Well no, I don’t’, I say. Crypto is just the currency. Blockchain is a secure, digital ledger, like transparent record-keeping of transactions without the need for a intermediary.  NFTs are a digital transfer of ownership and the metaverse is the just the next phase of the internet. It’s a conversation I never tire of. It’s definitely worked to my advantage that I’m not a tech native in this industry and I hope, in some small way, it encourages us to change the narrative on gender bias in the tech world.  

-ENDS-

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About Vertex Labs 

Vertex Labs is a Metaverse, Web3 and AI infrastructure provider, powered by decentralised, real-time edge rendering engine. Its cutting-edge technology includes: A metaverse graph consensus mechanism enabling large-scale parallel processing that outmatches traditional Layer 1 protocols; a real-time edge rendering engine with flexible distributed real-time rendering technology delivering improved efficiency and lower costs for all users; interactive metaverse technology with extensive device and devkit support, enabling seamless creation and experience of immersive 3D models and environments. 

About LightCycle 

LightCycle is a realistic virtual commercial city, created using Unreal Engine 5 and real-time edge rendering technology. With powerful editor and AI generation technology, both users and merchants can effortlessly bring their content to life, offering a seamless and secure experience powered by blockchain technology. LightCycle offers a convergence that spans multiple industries, including art, film, gaming, music, fashion, sports, real estate, retail, and more. It provides an immersive cultural experience within a virtual commercial city that is bustling with activity.

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The rebranding of Facebook to Meta on 28th October 2021 marked the beginning of an era. The Metaverse allows us to fuse digital and physical realities through the use of a variety of technologies, such as AR, VR, AI, and social media, in order to create a collective virtual reality space.

For businesses, the Metaverse is the golden key to unlocking the fullest potential of worldwide talent.

For job seekers, it is an opportunity to expand their portfolios and skillsets by collaborating with renowned global companies in a setting which is on the cutting edge of technology.

And it all starts with the hiring process.

What is the Metaverse?

The biggest advantage of the Metaverse is that it facilitates a collaborative experience that isn’t bound to geographical and physical restrictions.

Imagine it as a network of continuously available virtual environments that resembles the real world. There, you can interact with other people and with digital objects and engage in a number of activities, such as constructing virtual homes, shopping via immersive commerce, and joining virtual classrooms. All of these activities can be enabled by digital currencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

In an interview with the Verge, Mark Zuckerburg explained: “But you can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it.”

Automating the applicant selection process

The Metaverse is creating new opportunities for organizations to augment their digital businesses. A major part of the success of any company is in the recruitment and onboarding processes.

In the past few years, we’ve seen a move toward AI job interviews. A specifically designed program can interview and assess candidates to determine which applicants are the most suitable before a human interview panel takes over.

This process has been implemented as a response to the increased interest in job roles. According to Glassdoor, each corporate job receives an average of 250 CVs. Four to six of those candidates will be called for an interview and only one will be selected for the job.

Instead of manually reviewing all 250 applications, AI job interviews automate the process and make it more efficient until the human interview panel steps in.

During this pre-selection process, some companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to scan resumes. Such is the case with 98.8% of Fortune 500 companies, including Nike, Apple, and United Airlines.

Other companies use virtual video interviews, where a robot acting as an interviewer asks about four questions, and the applicant has a minute or two to answer them verbally and record their answer. 

The Metaverse is about to streamline that recruitment stage too.

What would job interviews in the Metaverse look like?

In the Metaverse, an employer and a candidate will be able to meet without the need to travel to the head office. The interview can be conducted using 3D technology and VR goggles.

The Metaverse interview’s purpose isn’t to just save time to travel. Instead of simply providing another remote video interview platform like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, the Metaverse opens new doors to interactive communication. This way, both the employer and the candidate can examine each other to decide if they’re a good fit for each other. Moreover, they can gather in spaces that look and feel real, thus making the experience more comfortable.

In the same interview with The Verge, Zuckerberg explained: “The interactions that we have will be a lot richer, they’ll feel real. In the future, instead of just doing this over a phone call, you’ll be able to sit as a hologram on my couch, or I’ll be able to sit as a hologram on your couch, and it’ll actually feel like we’re in the same place, even if we’re in different states or hundreds of miles apart. So, I think that that is really powerful.”

Alongside behavioural and situational interview questions, a set of tasks can be implemented in the process to evaluate how candidates deal with business-as-usual tasks. As the Metaverse is designed with remote working in mind, a virtual reality interview allows the employer to test how each candidate will work in such an environment.

The applicant is also able to bring to the table a wealth of portfolio, showcasing data, video, and statistics in 3D to better illustrate their experience and skill set.

How to prepare for a job interview in the Metaverse

An interview in the Metaverse is not much different from one in real life, simply because the Metaverse mimics our physical reality. And just as you would prepare well for one in the head office, so should you for one in the virtual space with a few extra steps:

• Make sure that all your virtual reality technology is set up and working and that you have a reliable VR headset. The last thing you want is to have a technical issue that prevents you from carrying out the interview.
• Dress your avatar appropriately. In the Metaverse, you choose an avatar to represent you. While you can design your avatar however you choose, make sure you pick one that is suitable for interviews and job environments. Just like you would wear chic flared pants and a floral blouse matched with black ankle boots in real life, dress your avatar smart.
• Make sure you use security best practices when it comes to your sensitive personal data and internet connection. To avoid malware, update your anti-malware solutions and don’t download data from apps that look suspicious.
• Use traditional interview preparation steps. A metaverse interview is still an interview, so you should arrive prepared with information on your potential job role and details about your employers.

The world is changing rapidly and so is the way we interact with each other. Bridging the gap between physical and virtual reality, we’re stepping into a world of advanced, augmented communication. 

Businesses are seeing the benefits of the Metaverse as a form of remote collaboration, and interviews in that space are the first step to testing not only the candidate’s abilities but also the Metaverse’s capability to act as a next-level working environment.

Sources

https://www.globalnetbit.com/featured/a-basic-introduction-to-metaverse-and-its-advantages/

https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview

https://zety.com/blog/hr-statistics

https://www.jobscan.co/blog/99-percent-fortune-500-ats/

https://www.employmentking.co.uk/interviews/what-will-a-job-interview-in-the-metaverse-look-like/#:~:text=Job%20Interviews%20Conducted%20in%20the%20Metaverse%20It%20is,will%20be%20able%20to%20%E2%80%98show%20off%E2%80%99%20their%20competencies

The post The Future of Recruitment: Immersive Interviews in the Metaverse appeared first on CEO Medium.