Implementing Virtual Reality Application as a Job Interview Practice Tool for Business Students and Beyond

The present project aims to break the physical [imitation of job interview practices for students in LABU2060 Effective Communication in Business, the last required CLE course of the Business School's program. Conventionally, job interview practices are, largely, in-class. Students are encouraged to find time to practise with their peers outside class but the job interview lessons are scheduled in Phase I of the course where students just began to know each other. It might be difficult for the students to find a partner to practise together. And, this is even more so during the times of a pandemic. In this light, the use of emerging technologies, e.g., virtual reality (VR), would come in handy, as human involvement would be minimal. In the industries, more and more companies and big operations resort to the use of software in the recruiting process to save time and costs, but the major trend of recruiting still remains face-to-face interviews, which a lot of students find daunting and stressful. Therefore, students would benefit from the use of VR (They will see 3D human-like interviewers through a designated eye wear) in their practices. Comments received from the SFQ post-course evaluation exercise have often revealed that LABU2060 students found Phase I (Job-seeking) most useful for them. They seem to have valued the mock job interview and the practices that come with it a lot. And some teachers, during the focus group meetings for post-course reviews, have expressed that LABU2060 was very packed and often not everything in the curriculum could be covered, let alone giving students enough time to practise what they have learnt. Therefore, the project hopes to investigate the use of a Virtually Reality job interview application, designed by a consultant or an external vendor, in LABU2060 to increase job interview practice time for students and hopefully when the application is mature enough, it could be used as a university-wide solution because not only business students need to find jobs or apply for internships