Launched at the end of last year, Jobs in XR is a British venture that is entirely focused on recruitment in the VR, AR and MR sector.
We caught up with founder, Toby Allen, to find out why he decided to launch a recruitment portal dedicated to VR, AR and MR - and why he thinks XR will change our lives forever.
Q: What does your company do?
A: Jobs in XR is a unique and 100% focused jobs portal for the AR/VR/MR/XR industry. At its core, we want to help grow this industry by removing the pain of finding the best candidates out there.
Companies in this space are growing massively and need experienced talent, which is hard to find as there’s no one single place to find them, so Jobs in XR.com was born.
I’ve built teams and I’ve built XR projects, so I know how hard it is at both ends and this pain is felt across our industry, so I thought I would proactively help foster the industry by creating a way to connect talent and amazing companies.
Q: What have been your highest profile projects or biggest achievements?
A: So far the reception to the site has been exceptional! We’ve got so many great candidates looking on the platform and 6k+ monthly visits.
Q: What’s your Unique Selling Point as a business?
A: The business is 100% focused on growing the unique industry that is XR.
Q: Why did you decide to get into XR commercially?
A: Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality is exploding! I know this not only because of the fact that I work in Mixed Reality today, but also I’ve spoken to hundreds of companies implementing MR into their companies, or a mixture of AR/VR/MR. We are changing the world and how people are going to be working in the future, so this is a game changer.
We have gone from pixels powering videogames in the 80s to fully immersive Virtual Reality, all in the space of 25 years. What’s next is only going to be mind-blowing.
Q: Is there one key lesson you’ve learned since working in XR?
A: It’s going to change everything - I keep coming back to this as it’s just such a fundamental shift in the world that it’s going to change the way we work, play, love, entertain and consume.
We’re only at the start right now, but if you’d seen the things I have, you will know that what’s coming is just going to make shift the world forward. Remember that we have gone from pixels powering videogames in the 80s to fully immersive Virtual Reality, all in the space of 25 years. What’s next is only going to be mind-blowing.
Q: What are the biggest challenges to businesses in XR? And how have you overcome them?
A: Understanding. Many businesses are only starting their digital transformation today, so adding layers of AR, VR or MR to this creates a lot of complexity that isn’t fully understood. This ranges from the base technology and its current applications to future uses and what’s coming up next. This will take time, yet just like everyone got used to the iPhone, people will be buying XR devices very soon and everything will change.
Q: What projects are you working on now?
A: We are also building two projects; the first is WomenInXR.com, which will launch very soon to share great leadership and advocacy of women in XR. Hopefully, this will help to bring people into this space. Secondly, we're building RealityHunt.com which is collecting all the best experiences and products in AR/VR/MR so that you can find the best of the resources for all creators and developers.
Q: What makes you most excited for XR as whole?
A: I think that overall there’s some very exciting places to be right now: Firstly, Microsoft is just developing some amazing work and research in this field. I would say that Apple is the next one to watch; they tend to learn from everyone’s mistakes and create a product whose fit is near perfect. I’m super excited about volumetric capture and how companies are going to change the way films are being made and enjoyed is just going to be amazing.
Companies are seeing double to triple digit growth in this space as major corporations are now starting to use AR/VR or MR. Hiring requirements are very high right now.
Q: Has the XR industry grown as you’d expected in the last 12 months?
A: Massively! Companies are seeing double to triple digit growth in this space as major corporations are now starting to use AR/VR or MR. Let alone hiring requirements, which are often very high right now in terms of being to develop, build and create in AR/VR/MR.
The adoption of AR and MR in first-line workers has been tremendous and a great showcase of how companies are leading the first implementations of the technology, ahead of consumer experiences. This will lead to better products in the long run and ultimately great new realities to explore.
Q: What do you see as the growth areas for XR?
A: There are three key areas of growth in XR. Primarily, first-line workers. These are the everyday people that work in the field and not behind a computer. XR is empowering this workforce to be safer, smarter and learn in amazing new ways.
Secondly, volumetric capture will change the way we see passive entertainment. When you watch a TV show like Game of Thrones being acted out in front of you in your living room, that’s just the stuff of dreams.
And lastly, hardware vision is going to explode to link IR to finger tracking to full body tracking to machine learning and AI. This stack will create a depth of experience and interaction never felt before, it will tap into our emotions and that will be a game changer - literally.
