AT&T runs several development programs it uses to recruit early-career talent: the B2B Sales Development Program, the Finance Leadership Development Program, the Technology Development Program, and the Leadership Development Program. To bring these programs to life for candidates, AT&T’s College Recruiting team had been producing individual 360° videos, “day in the life” pieces shot at various AT&T locations and used at career fairs and info sessions around the country.

The videos worked on their own, but they lived apart from each other. A recruiter at a career fair had a folder of separate experiences, not a single thing to hand a candidate. AT&T wanted one VR application that pulled all of that video content into a single virtual theater, so a student could step in once and choose the program that mattered to them, rather than being walked through a fixed sequence.

It also had to work outside a headset. Not every candidate at every event would have VR hardware in front of them, so the same content needed to be reachable from a desktop or phone.

Groove Jones designed an interactive video hub environment modeled on AT&T’s Discovery District, the company’s own campus in downtown Dallas, so the VR environment would feel like an extension of AT&T’s real headquarters rather than a generic template.

Content is also accessible via the web so users can view online via a desktop or mobile device.

The AT&T VR HUB

Inside the hub, users select videos by gaze: looking at a play icon launches that video, no controller click required. Scattered through the environment are interactive “Easter egg” elements tied to AT&T’s eight value pillars, giving candidates something to discover beyond the video menu itself.

The hub combined two kinds of content:

• Original 360° video, shot by Groove Jones, featuring “day in the life” experiences at AT&T locations across the company.
• Existing 2D video, including pieces for the Leadership Development Program, the Finance Leadership Development Program, and location-specific videos for the Technology Development Program, which spotlight the culture of individual teams around the country.

For the Technology Development Program specifically, Groove Jones built an interactive map of AT&T’s hub locations. A candidate looks at a location on the map and launches that location’s video directly, so someone interested in, say, the Atlanta team can go straight to Atlanta’s story instead of browsing everything.

The whole experience was also built to run outside VR, on desktop and mobile, so the same hub could reach a candidate who only had a laptop or phone at the career fair table.

The Results

AT&T’s College Recruiting team deployed the HUB at career fairs, information sessions, and other campus recruitment events across the country, giving recruiters one consistent, on-brand tool instead of a loose set of video files.

Development Programs highlighted in the App.

• B2B Sales Development Program
• Finance Leadership Development Program
• Technology Development Program
• Leadership Development Program

Taking design cues from the new Discovery District at the AT&T headquarters in downtown Dallas, Groove Jones designed an interactive video hub environment for users to explore and watch videos.

In this super futuristic hub environment, users can select one of the many videos to play simply by gazing at the play icon. Included in the environment are some “Easter egg” interactive elements that display AT&T’s 8 value pillars.

AT&T Locations Map

Inside the Technology Development Program, the experience is an interactive map of all the hub locations candidates can be placed. By looking at a location the viewer can launch videos from that location. Each local team created a video to highlight their unique culture and work environment.

The People

The program was built in partnership with AT&T University, which owns AT&T’s recruiting content strategy at att.jobs.