Lloyds Enticing Graduates with Virtual Reality

Every year, over 20,000 applications are received from recent graduates wanting to join one of the 14 Graduate Leadership Programmes at Lloyds Banking Group, and for those interested in the Digital and IT schemes, the assessment process is about to get a lot more interesting.

Lloyds Banking Group is now introducing Virtual Reality technology to assess its graduates for its 2017 intake – the first time this has been done in the banking industry.

This will allow the Group to present situations to candidates that would otherwise be unfeasible in the conventional assessment, ensuring the Group is able to find the most digitally-minded individuals.

But what is Virtual Reality?

The Virtual Reality Society explains this in more detail:

“Our entire experience of reality is simply a combination of sensory information and our brains sense-making mechanisms for that information. It stands to reason then, that if you can present your senses with made-up information, your perception of reality would also change in response to it. You would be presented with a version of reality that isn’t really there, but from your perspective it would be perceived as real. Something we would refer to as a virtual reality.”

In other words, virtual reality presents our senses with a computer generated virtual environment for us to explore.

By using Virtual Reality the assessor will be able to present situations to candidates that would otherwise be unfeasible in the conventional assessment process. The candidate will have complete freedom of movement within a 360 degree virtual world and will be able to move virtual objects using tracked motion controls. Although the Group cannot disclose what potential graduates can expect to do in the assessment centre, so as to not provide candidates with an advantage, the puzzles they will be tasked with will be designed to demonstrate the strengths and capabilities required of the Group’s future leaders.

This innovative addition to the graduate recruitment process demonstrates the Group’s investment in future talent and in hiring the digital leaders of the future.

Chris Jackson, Performance, Talent & Development Director (interim) said, “Adopting Virtual Reality into the assessment process demonstrates the Group’s commitment to digital transformation as part of the Helping Britain Prosper Plan. We are the first organisation to use this pioneering technology to assess the strengths of potential future leaders of our organisation.”

If you are interested in being part of the team, visit the Graduate Careers page for more information.

[i] http://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/what-is-virtual-reality.html