Britain’s largest automotive manufacturer, Jaguar Land Rover, has announced it needs 5,000 recruits this year, of which 1,000 will be electronic and software engineers.
To achieve its ambitious aim, Jaguar Land Rover has teamed up with Grammy Award-winning band, Gorillaz, to find the next generation of world-class electronics and software engineering talent.
A code-breaking challenge found in the virtual band’s mixed reality app will test potential future engineers’ skills, with the best performers fast-tracked through the recruitment process.
The app represents a major change in the way the manufacturer looks for candidates, and aims to tackle the engineering skills gap and inspire a diverse range of talent and new thinking.
The Gorillaz App – available at the iTunes App Store or Google Play – today launches a new Jaguar Land Rover recruitment area 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. Users can learn about the vehicle’s performance, battery technology, space, charging and range.
The second and more demanding part of the game, developed to engage and recruit budding electronic talents and coders, will focus on cracking code in Alternate Reality Game format (ARG). The challenge takes them on a series of code breaking puzzles, that will test their curiosity, persistence, lateral thinking and problem solving skills – all real-world attributes of a new generation of software and engineering talent.
Head of electrical engineering at Jaguar Land Rover, Alex Heslop explained: “As the automotive industry transforms over the next decade, fueled by software innovation, we have to attract the best talent and that requires a radical rethink of how we recruit.
“Here we’ve found an engaging way to recruit a diverse talent pool in software systems, cyber systems, app development and graphics performance. It will be the first of its kind.”
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 Ambassador.
