Abstract
Organizational recruitment efforts represent a sizable, multilayered process, and high attrition rates make that process even more significant. Large institutions, like the Department of Defense (DOD), require a steady influx of young recruits to meet operational requirements. While traditional recruitment approaches are still practiced, it is necessary to innovate and create a new generation of recruitment tools with an extensive reach while being cost-effective, engaging, and responsive to the needs of new audiences. Our research effort involved designing and developing a new recruitment tool that uses inexpensive infrastructure and offers an immersive, multimodal, interactive experience that can be delivered on a massive scale; we call it “Soldier Sight.” The emphasis was on the recruitment needs of the U.S. Army, and the same approach can be used for any DOD service or civilian organization. The primary approach was to use interactive storytelling, virtual reality (VR), and immersive technology (head-mounted display) to introduce compelling stories about the Army’s military occupational specialties through several interactive tasks, educate prospective recruits about career opportunities and benefits, and effectively expand the recruitment reach. The elements of the system were designed to ensure a cohesive, engaging, informative, and insightful user experience. The resulting tool was tested in a usability study that investigated the ability of VR-supported interactive storytelling to engage prospective military enlistees and increase their interest in the U.S. Army. The study involved 32 individuals and collected a comprehensive set of objective and subjective data that reflect user performance and individual responses about their VR experience. The results indicate that the tool represented a valuable recruitment tool with the potential to enrich current efforts and offer an experience lacking in contemporary recruitment tools.