Jaguar Land Rover & Gorillaz Send Potential Employees on a Mixed Reality Mission

Aspiring engineers, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, has been issued by Jaguar Land Rover.

Prove yourself and you can be the next in line for greatness.

— Jaguar

That is the challenge posed by Jaguar as they attempt to find the next generation of the best and brightest of electronic and software engineers. Partnered with Gorillaz, the company is enlisting potential hires to crack a code using Gorillaz' mixed reality app by the same name.

The animated band Gorillaz was created in 1998, popular for their virtual universe and excellent music. The mixed reality app was released by Gorillaz earlier this year as an interactive lead-up to their fifth album, Humanz. The app was created to be a musical, mixed reality scavenger hunt, similar to Pokémon Go. It shows the real world with objects from each band member appearing around the room that leads users to the band members actual rooms, creating an immersive story. Now, the app features an update with the addition of a Jaguar Land Rover recruitment area, where those looking to be hired can go for a two-part test.

First, users must look around at the objects projected into the real world and find the fictional band member, Noodle's, helmet which is featured in the announcement video from Jaguar. The helmet is black and red with eyes and teeth.

Jaguar Land Rover & Gorillaz Send Potential Employees on a Mixed Reality Mission — Screenshots. *Images by Juliet Gallagher/Gadget Hacks*

Clicking on that will take users to Noodle's basement where they must use their phones to look around the room and find the screen with a 90kWh lithium-ion battery projected onto it.

Once users click on the screen, their test with Jaguar begins. They next must locate the lithium-ion battery after reading Jaguar's description of it and then begin to assemble the Jaguar I-PACE Concept, the company's electric sports car. Piece by piece the users must locate different items around the room in order to fully assemble the car. This task is fairly simple and mostly serves as a way for users to learn about the cars they would be helping to build. (Hint: the first item, the battery, is located underneath the screen)

Warning: this challenge requires mondo brain juice and staying-power. A bit lacking? Better get lost now before you embarrass yourself. But if you think you're up to it, big things await.

— Gorillaz App

This is what users are met with once they put together the car. If they choose to accept the mission, they then click on the Jaguar located in the room and begin a game. During this game, they are met with a series of code puzzles that they must crack. If users complete the tasks correctly, and in a timely manner, their results are sent to Jaguar to be recruited.

This app brings a new, innovative way to use mixed reality, and it changes the way that recruitment can work entirely. In a press release, Alex Heslop, Head of Electrical Engineering at Jaguar Land Rover said:

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.

— Alex Heslop, Head of Electrical Engineering

Jaguar says they are looking for 5,000 recruits per year. The challenge is available on the Gorillaz App, which can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.