Virtual Reality for Career Development and Exploration: The CareProfSys Profiler System Case

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative use case of virtual reality (VR) for career development and exploration, within the context of the CareProfSys recommendation system for professions. The recommender users receive recommendations not only in textual format but as WebVR gamified scenarios as well, having thus the possibility to try activities specific to the suggested professions and decide whether they are suitable for them or not. This paper describes, from a functional and technical point of view, scenarios for six different jobs: computer network specialists, civil engineers, web and multimedia developers, chemical engineers, project managers, and university professors. Extended experiments were performed, using an internal protocol, with 47 students enrolled in engineering studies. The results of the experiments were measured with the aid of four instruments: two questionnaires, one unstructured interview, and the VR simulation performance recording module. Positive results were obtained: the users admitted that such a tool was useful when choosing one’s career and that it was entertaining. Most of the students considered the VR scenarios as learning or testing experiences, too. Thus, we claim that a VR form of providing job recommendations is more appealing to young people and brings value to career development initiatives.