Business Process Modeling

Who are we?

We are a group composed of Rutgers students who have a passion for technology and its power to create solutions. Our project began with an idea, to develop a startup VR recruitment app designed to streamline the recruitment process for both students and organizations. Our own personal experiences during recruitment seasons helped us come up with this idea as we wished for a way to experience workplaces and desired a deeper connection with companies. As a result, we assembled EZRecruit to address this challenge. After our Kickoff meeting, we each evaluated our skills and assigned roles that aligned with them.

Additionally, we are a dynamic team of students dedicated to revolutionizing the recruitment industry. Nataliyah, our Team Leader, steers our collective efforts, ensuring strategic decisions align with project objectives. Edson, as Documentation Manager, meticulously organizes project information, enhancing accessibility and comprehension. The Project Managers, Nataliyah and Ayman, expertly coordinate project phases, keeping timelines intact. The Business Analysis Sub-Team, led by Ahmed, Aryan, Suhail, and Ayman, scrutinizes business, financial, and technological aspects, essential for a comprehensive understanding. Meanwhile, Connor diligently ensures the project's security. Lastly, in Solution Design and Prototype Development, Nataliyah, Emre, and Nicholas craft an architecturally sound and user-friendly solution through meticulous planning and development, ensuring a seamless recruitment process. Together, we blend expertise and dedication, defining the innovative spirit of EZ Recruit.

Breaking the above down our roles are as followed:

Team Leadership and Management

· Team Leader: Nataliyah Gordon

· Documentation Manager: Edson Hidalgo

· Project Managers: Nataliyah Gordon and Ayman Khalil

Business Analysis Sub-Team Functions

· Business Analyst: Ahmed Hayat

· Financial Analyst: Aryan Jalli

· Technology Analysts: Suhail Haque

· Market Researcher: Ayman Khalil

· Security Analyst: Connor Lounsbury

Solution Design and Prototype Development

· Solution Architect: Nataliyah Gordon

· UI/UX Design: Mucahid Kahraman

· Prototype Developer: Nicholas Lonconsolo

Project Description

We want to improve the recruitment of prospective employees by providing immersive insights into workplaces, helping businesses secure top talent and achieve alignment.

Problem Statement/Idea

To us at EZ Recruit, it was clear that something needed to change in the job application process. The uncertainty around the recruitment process has led to challenges for both students and recruiters. Students having to send out mass applications only to get few replies leaves them feeling demoralized as they struggle to stand out amongst the pool of applicants. This problem only worsens after graduation, with it taking three to six months on average for students to secure employment post-graduation. Even if a student can find work, it doesn't necessarily mean their new position fulfills their career goals. One 2020 study found that 73% of graduates did not feel their current job matched their career goals[footnoteRef:0] . If these students had the opportunity to experience different roles during college, it could have aided them in their job searches. For this reason, students must have access to the means necessary to expose themselves to professional experiences during college. A lack of visibility in the recruiting process also inconveniences recruiters at hiring businesses, as the sheer volume of applications makes it difficult to sort, going through countless applications in hopes of finding the diamond in the rough. Organizational pressures may also lead to recruiters overlooking applications in pursuit of filling positions as soon as possible. We believed the recruitment process needed to be revolutionized from the ground up, creating an innovative solution that leans on the strengths of virtual reality to provide a more interactive experience for the student.  [0: Korpar, Lora. “How Hard Is It to Find a Job after College?” LinkedIn, Get Hired by LinkedIn News, 29 July 2022, www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-hard-find-job-after-college-get-hired-by-linkedin-news. ]

The innovative features proposed by EZ Recruit will alleviate some of the uncertainty in the recruiting process, giving students a chance to see a day in the life of their potential employers. Having this early impression of a role will help them more accurately align their career goals with their interests. Our interactive experience is much more valuable to the student than an online video as they get to be actively engaged in the work process rather than passive spectators. Likewise, hiring businesses can ensure their simulation represents their company values and draws in the candidates they're looking for. Giving the students this unique opportunity can make them feel more closely attached to the company from the simulation exposure. If a company were to recreate a real-life office in a virtual environment, students would have a sense of familiarity when they go on to work for the employer after the recruiting process. We believe these improvements to the recruiting process will provide Rutgers students with a unique advantage for hiring success. We hope that upon the success of this project, EZ Recruit will expand to other colleges and expose more students to the possibilities of virtual reality.

Mission Statement

At EZ Recruit, we leverage VR to innovate recruitment, seamlessly connecting employers with top talent, ensuring immersive and empowering hiring experiences for all.

Preliminary Secondary Market Research

After the Covid-19 pandemic, much of our lives became transformed to using technology for daily activities. One of these ways included the workforce, and new workers were being introduced to the company completely remotely. This was a huge change for many companies and people, and therefore was difficult for some companies to adjust to. Several issues have occurred, which is why using virtual reality is imperative. Virtual reality eases employees into a completely remote setting.

Specifically, one company that uses virtual reality is Accenture, that uses an i4cp toolkit. Their use of Virtual Reality gave new hires an immersive and powerful introduction to the organization. By incorporating a more global and collaborative experience through the use of virtual reality, there was a 31% reduction in turnover1[footnoteRef:1]. By less people leaving the job, there is an increase in productivity and less time will be wasted in rehiring and reteaching. In addition, using virtual reality in the job market/ recruitment process allows the company to build community and provide omni-connected experiences. Even in a remote setting, people can find community and relate to others through virtual reality. Loneliness and lack of social life is a large issue that plagues companies when working remotely. By creating a community through virtual reality, you can be working from anywhere in the world and still be able to connect with you coworkers and form relationships[footnoteRef:2]. Next, virtual reality can help improve the collaboration process as well as make learning easier and more efficient. With virtual reality learning, there is a 40% reduction in training time compared to traditional training as well as 75% reduction in training resource costs. For example, “Walmart has used virtual reality to train associates on how to use the company’s pickup towers...The first or next time an employee experiences something similar on the job, their responses will be faster and better in terms of how they react to the customer”[footnoteRef:3]. VR can help with learning hard skills as well as soft skills. [1: Accenture Virtual Experience Solution. (n.d.). https://www.accenture.com/us-en/services/public-service/caseworker-virtual-reality] [2: Heaslip, E. (2022, May 31). Virtual reality recruitment - impacts & best examples. Vervoe. https://vervoe.com/virtual-reality-recruitment/] [3: McDonald, C. (2019, February 13). Accenture to use virtual reality for inclusive hiring practices: Computer Weekly. ComputerWeekly.com. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252457613/Accenture-to-use-virtual-reality-for-inclusive-hiring-practices]

Stakeholders

The atmosphere of Rutgers University campus, a dedicated project team had come together with a common goal, to transform the student recruitment process at Rutgers University. The terrifying hurdles that prospective students encountered had fired their determination to embark on this project. They fully understood the vital significance of stakeholders in realizing their vision of a more efficient and user-friendly recruitment process, driven by the power of Virtual Reality. Prospective students, at the start of this project, were the brave souls navigating the application forms, program choices, and scholarship opportunities. For them, this project represented the promise of a more straightforward path to their dreams of higher education and career paths. As well as the admissions team, they understood the project's end goal and long-term success. The adoption of Virtual Reality was their ticket to providing immersive experiences, virtual campus tours, and an interactive approach to recruitment. The team believed this would not only simplify work but also create a lasting impression on potential incoming students. Alongside, faculty members and academic departments were stakeholders who saw great promise in this project. They were eager to welcome students who would thrive in their programs and contribute to the academic community at Rutgers University. Streamlining the recruitment process meant they could spend more time on academic mentoring and less on administrative staff. Next, the IT/Technology team viewed Virtual Reality as a transformative force in education and believed that integrating VR into recruitment was the future of learning. Securing the necessary resources to implement the VR technology was another aspect. This included the university’s budget, Government grants and scholarships, corporate partnerships, and sponsorship from companies who provide VR technology; these are stakeholders with a financial interest in the project's success and long-term goal. Stakeholders collaborated, each bringing their unique perspectives. They understood that this project was not just about solving a problem, but it was about reshaping the future of student recruitment at Rutgers University. Together, they were ready to create a recruitment process that was not only simpler but also more engaging, accessible, and aligned with many dreams and incoming students.

Customers/Targets

By approaching our customer/target market through a multifaceted and streamlined approach, we will be tailoring the needs into three separate domains: Prospective students, educational facilities, and corporate entities.

By servicing these three domains, we will be enhancing the process of student recruitment by making it more well-rounded and efficient thus increasing the rate of satisfactory results for all our stakeholders and affiliates combined. The methods that are involved with each domain is as follows:

Educational Facilities: By integrating EZ Recruit’s innovative recruitment process, we will allow students to have an immersive experience by simulating a to-be recruitment process by different companies. Through an in-depth collaboration with different stakeholders and volunteers, we were able to have a highly accurate experience output by mimicking different interviews, assessment exercises, and scenarios that are involved within interview processes. By allowing this refined process of simulated virtual reality, EZ Recruit becomes a paramount and necessary tool for both prospective employees and students.

Corporate Entities: EZ Recruit’s mission statement has inspired the company DNA that offers a collaborative ecosystem for the mission of an improved workforce for now and the future. Thus, we have a dedicated team that allows companies to create their own VR simulations through our own technology that would allow them to showcase their specific responsibilities, tasks, and roles. These simulations will eventually be presented to the student demographic and will allow the companies to view each student’s progress in real-time.

Prospective Students: EZ Recruit’s technology will allow a more tailored and specific simulation for each student based on their goals and needs rather than having a standard or general approach. By integrating this personalized simulation, students from different disciplines will allow themselves to gain an insight on their desired careers thus increasing their own confidence and knowledge about their career paths.

EZ Recruit’s collaborative engagement towards the target market/customer of exploring new possibilities through network, knowledge, and innovative solutions shaping a brighter future and highlighting the EZ Recruit ecosystem.

Scope

To define the scope of this project, we will define the goal of the project, who’s in/out, what’s in/out, the deliverables, and constraints.

The goal of this project is to give employers a platform to host an immersive experience for prospective employees to develop a deep and detailed understanding of what it is like to work at the given organization.

Our project will be targeting organizations, higher education facilities, and prospective employees. We will only be working with a limited number of organizations and higher education institutions within the United States to test our application and later fine-tune it for the public market. These companies will need to create a tour that depicts their organization the way they desire along with any additional content they would like to showcase. The content sent will be in a “day in the life” structure to provide prospective employees with a comprehensive understanding of their choice of organization. Organizations will then send us the content they want to be showcased for us to upload into our application. Along with prospective employees being able to view these tours on their personal VR systems, there will also be physical stations located at the higher education institutions to provide an immersive experience for those who do not have a VR system.

We will be delivering a fully functional prototype for this project, and eventually we will have our application listed within the Quest Store and Viveport marketplaces after the business process improvement. To successfully deliver this prototype application, we need to design the user interface of a VR application to suit the needs of organizations, higher education institutions, and prospective employees. Within the user interface, there must be two separate interfaces, one for organizations and another for prospective employees. Organizations will have a dashboard to view data relating to the use of their submitted content. Prospective employees will be presented with a “For You” page format, similar to YouTube, where they can easily search and click through different employer content.

Constraints we may encounter in the creation and delivery of this project are staying within budget, finishing the project by the deadline, scope creep, and lack of adoption by users. Budgets and deadlines can be difficult to stand by as there are almost always unexpected costs and tasks that must be completed. One example is underestimating the level of difficulty and resources a project requires. An example of scope creep in regard to our project is adding an option for realtors to showcase content within houses they are selling. This would be an entirely new project to develop in addition to the current one, causing a major case of scope creep. A cause of lack of adoption may occur because owning a VR system is not as widely adopted as owning a cell phone for instance. They are a less necessary technology for everyday life. There could be a lack of at-home users due to this. There could also be a lack of adoption by organizations. If we are unable to provide substantial data proving this software is beneficial to organizations after the trial phase, then there will be a lack of adoption by organizations.

Our business process improvement will be developed by carrying out trials with our limited selection of partner organizations and higher education institutions. The trials will take place within the institutions at events such as a career fair. The partnered organizations will have a physical VR station for prospective employees (in this case only students). While VR is being used, we will monitor and record a number of criteria. We will be watching the expression of the students using the devices and rank their visible enjoyability of the experience and document how long they use the VR. Then after they are finished, we will ask them to take a short survey to gain further insight into their experience. After the event is over, we will then ask the company to provide feedback on their experience utilizing the software as a recruitment tool. With all of these data points, we will be able to draw solid conclusions on what needs to be improved with EZ Recruit.

We are assisting the business improvement process of employees by creating a recruitment tool. A goal of ours is to improve the recruitment process within organizations. Some improvements include a more detailed and immersive experience for prospective employees through showcased content and the use of job simulations. This will aid recruiters in being more productive by allowing them to show instead of telling.

Preliminary Plan

During Stage 1, our group was assigned and formed. After our first in-person meeting we established GroupMe as our primary communication channel, and to ensure that we are staying on task, our Team Leader arranged weekly Zoom meetings that aligned with the group's schedule. Our Team Leader also created meeting notes and set up weekly check-ins on GroupMe for those who cannot attend certain meetings. During our Kickoff Meeting, each team member collaborated on finalizing our project idea, defined team roles, and our Project Managers got to work on creating agendas for meetings as well as our Gantt Chart and work breakdown structure. Our Documentation Manager formed a shared folder for collaborative documents. In a collaborative effort, we drafted our elevator pitch and sent it out for review. Upon review, as a team we made edits to the pitch and finalized our elevator pitch and project description. Our Project Managers then assigned team members to work on a section of the Narrative and PowerPoint that pertained to their role, and we began working on the Stage 1 Pitch Presentation.

The top five long-term tasks we have defined for this project include developing and managing our VR platform, User engagement and UX, Machine learning, scaling the project to different regions, and content expansion. These tasks will take a minimum of a year or two to complete but will be very beneficial as it will help EZ Recruit establish itself as a sustainable, efficient, and standout firm. Developing and managing our VR platform is the first and most important long-term task, as it is the backbone for the success of our VR platform. The correct management systems must be put in place to make sure tasks are completed efficiently and on time. User engagement and UX are another vital task that must be implemented, as it will help us learn more about how our product is perceived by our customers. The feedback is necessary to make essential decisions about what can be improved in our product or what must be changed. Machine learning and data analysis is needed for the success of our platform as the data can help us understand how our product is doing in the market. Collecting data and understanding the data through data analysis can help us find out if we have an underlying problem in our product and through that we can make improvements to our product. It is crucial for the success of our company to reach out to as many high school students as possible. That's why scaling our project out to different colleges and states in the US is essential. It is important for the success of our platform that we have constant updates and new content rolling out to give our customers (high school students) the best experience.

The top five short-term tasks that we have defined for the project include our initial business partnerships, basic development of the prototype, marketing, legal considerations, and user testing/feedback. These are essentials to the success of our short-term plan and tasks. It is important that we have initial partnerships with businesses as it can help us collaborate and test our platform. The partnerships can team up with us and help create the best VR environment that can be used by high school students for recruitment to RU. The basic development and prototype of the platform is an essential goal for the short-term plan as it will allow us to get a backbone of the VR platform and will help us understand how our platform will operate. Marketing is crucial to the success of our product as it can help advertise our product to high school students who are frustrated with the current system and want a new immersive experience for college experience. Legal consideration is an important short-term task, as it will help us define our platform rules, regulations, and ethical principles. Our platform will always make sure that our customer's privacy is put first, and that personal information is stored and managed with proper data protection laws. User feedback and testing are important to understand how our product is being perceived by our customers and the feedback can help us make improvements.

Version 1.0 Work Breakdown Structure

Gantt Chart

Appendixes

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Our project idea was formulated based on principles about the recruitment process. Studies have indicated that the way an organization recruits can influence the type of employees it hires, how they perform, and their retention rate[footnoteRef:4]. Because of this fact, we prioritized looking for data that support the idea that using VR technology can greatly improve an organization's performance as well as retention rate. One of the key features of our technology include the ability for prospective employees to engage with company assessments in which that data is then sent back to the hiring managers for hiring purposes. The Society for Human Resources reports that the evaluation in the metaverse allows employers to get a better assessment of a candidate's ability to perform critical job functions. Notable companies such as BMW and Johnson & Johnson are two companies that have already adopted virtual reality to create realistic online simulations in which candidates can explore their work and interact with staff [footnoteRef:5]. Looking at more data, it is reported that 49% percent of candidates said they had rejected a job offer because of a bad recruiting experience, according to a 2019 Future of Recruiting survey by PwC [footnoteRef:6]. This report shows that there is room for improvement in the recruiting process as many are indicating that they are not having good experiences which can be detrimental to an organization’s hiring efforts. One of the many concerns that many have about utilizing VR is that it may not be easily accessible to a diverse population, however, it is reported that About 14.19 million AR/VR devices will ship in 2022, up from 9.86 million in 2021 and 5.01 million in 2020, according to TrendForce, a market intelligence firm. TrendForce also predicted strong growth, projecting that 18.81 million will ship in 2023, a 32% year-over-year increase from 2022[footnoteRef:7]. [4: Breaugh, James A. Employee Recruitment | Annual Review of Psychology, www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143757. Accessed 23 Oct. 2023. ] [5: Grensing-Pophal, Lin. “Using Virtual Reality for Remote Hiring.” SHRM, SHRM, 2 Feb. 2022, www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/using-virtual-reality-remote-hiring.aspx. ] [6: Pratt, Mary K. “VR in Recruiting, Hiring: Current Adoption, Future Potential: TechTarget.” HR Software, TechTarget, 15 Apr. 2022, www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/feature/VR-in-recruiting-hiring-Current-adoption-future-potential. ] [7: Pratt, Mary K. “VR in Recruiting, Hiring: Current Adoption, Future Potential: TechTarget.” HR Software, TechTarget, 15 Apr. 2022, www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/feature/VR-in-recruiting-hiring-Current-adoption-future-potential. ]

What and how our secondary market research findings influenced or changed in Stage 2 from Stage 1

a. Pitch - One of the most pivotal moments of moving forward towards our team’s vision was when evaluating secondary market research which led us to deepening our understanding of not just the recruitment industry, but also made us become aware of how impactful the VR platform is. During stage 1, our pitch revolved on our product having the ability to revolutionize the recruitment industry through a new and innovative technology. While its approach was focused on a particular issue, it left out some considerations that we took into consideration. An example of this would be how the potential of the technology’s ability was somewhat limited during “Stage 1”. A lot of these considerations were found through evaluating the needs and pain points of our market demographic as well as from our stakeholders. The need to address these concerns such as data privacy, insights from our deployed “user journeys” such as complex navigation, compatibility issues, and technical glitches all contributed to a redefined pitch and vision for our company allowing us to have a more effective effect on the recruitment process.

b. Stakeholders - By having a more comprehensive insight into the virtual reality sector, we have realized that by limiting ourselves to just prospective students, educational facilities, and corporate entities, we were limiting the potential of EZ Recruit’s success. We extended our reach by considering different scopes from a legal and development standpoint in order to ensure we are facilitating products that not only aligns with our values and vision, but also aligns with the wants and needs of our stakeholders. One that has been emphasized by our target demographic is the concerns revolving around data collection and harvesting. Therefore, we have embraced the idea of seeking out legal consultants in order to comply with industry and legal standards in order to ensure customer and stakeholder safety and satisfaction.

c. Customers - Entering “Stage 2”, we were reminded on the importance of not only being a company that is focused on elevating the recruitment process, but also on the importance of maintaining a customer-centric culture. During “Stage 2”, there was a great emphasis on the functionality of EZ Recruit’s technology and how it would be able to combat the issues revolving around the recruitment ecosystem, but through extensive user testing while also collecting feedback from customers and stakeholders, we felt that it would be more effective if we held tailored focus groups led by an external non-biased company that specializes in customer experience and research. Moving forward with this approach, the results were transformative in our understanding of the wants and needs of all stakeholders and customers involved. While the information gathered was invaluable, we felt that there would be more considerations at play in order to fulfill and improve the expectations of customers. Consequently, we have decided to collaborate with educational experts as a result of this.

d. Scope - The data and insights gathered during stage 2 allowed us to refine our scope through secondary market research. Through this secondary market research, we were able to have a more deeper understanding of not only customer and stakeholder expectations, but the VR landscape as a whole through various fundamentals which allowed us become aware of how else we can elevate the recruitment process through enhanced refinements ultimately leading into a scope with a broader scale in “Stage 2” compared to “Stage 1”. We understood that technology should not just be technologically strong or innovative, but it should also have the benefit of catering to a wide range of specific needs within a target customer or market group.

Primary Market Research Plan

We at EZRecruit are looking to create a positive impact in the technological space for students in pursuit of internship/employment opportunities and the recruiting officers looking to fill those roles. In-depth market research is an essential component of our development process, addressing one or several of the 4Ps in marketing, which are promotion, price, place, and product[footnoteRef:8]. Through our primary market research, we will gain a greater understanding of the needs of our audience and the features that would make our VR experience beneficial. We plan to use both qualitative and quantitative research strategies to achieve this goal. The first method involves using a survey to gauge student familiarity with virtual reality and the interest level in simulated virtual environments. Surveys are a simple way to get a clear snapshot of the consumers interested in our market with potential interest in our product[footnoteRef:9]. We will create the survey through SurveyMonkey, as it is a free platform with analytic support for survey creators. For the best results, we want this survey to reach a wide audience and encourage a diverse pool of participants. We plan to distribute the survey to all current Rutgers students via their school inbox. Participating students will be automatically entered into a raffle for the chance to win a $100 Visa gift card as an incentive to take the survey. This survey will also only be eight questions long to ensure our survey does not inconvenience students with excessive length. The questions will be simple, with some yes/no answers and a one to five scale of most negative to most positive. This introductory quantitative data is essential to understand how receptive our target audience would be to this product. [8: Kumar, V., & Nidugala, G. K. (2020). Impact of primary market on total factor productivity: A cross-country analysis. Cogent Economics & Finance, 8(1), 1786293. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2020.1786293] [9: Fallon-O’Leary, Danielle. “Importance of Survey Data in Small Business Marketing.” Business.Com, 31 July 2023, www.business.com/articles/the-importance-of-survey-data-in-marketing/. ]

Following the initial survey, we plan to interview students and recruiters, listening to their personal experiences with recruitment processes and what they like/dislike. These interviews would take place remotely in short sessions over Zoom. This qualitative approach will give us insight into our audience's thoughts, enabling us to create a product more accurately suited to their needs, as interviews enable us to ask them directly[footnoteRef:10]. After building our consumer knowledge, we plan to give them hands-on experience with an early test of our EZRecruit on Virtual Reality equipment. We will work alongside participating companies at career fairs to host trial runs of our virtual simulations. Students and recruiters at the fair can volunteer to participate in a short task-driven simulation lasting only five minutes. With their permission, we would collect biometric data to see their eye and facial movement throughout the simulation. Biometric data is integral to enhancing the user experience, as “analyzing facial expressions and eye movements, developers can gain insights into what elements of the VR content are most engaging or enjoyable for the users,” which would inform us of engagement levels throughout the simulation and the effectiveness of our user interface[footnoteRef:11]. An EZRecruit representative would proctor this trial run, responding to participant questions and ensuring they have an enjoyable experience. Upon completion of the simulation, participants will be asked to complete a physical form rating their experiences on a scale of one to five (one being the most negative reaction and five being the most positive), informing us on potential improvement areas. We want EZRecruit to become an essential part of a college/university student’s toolkit, aligning their trajectory with future careers. Consistent feedback and simulation data will inform our decisions to refine EZRecruit into an exceptional product for students and recruiters. [10: Murphy, Anthony. “Why and How to Conduct Customer Interviews.” LogRocket Blog, 24 Apr. 2023, https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/why-how-conduct-customer-interviews/] [11: “Metaverse Example Patent for Use of Biometric Data for Virtual Reality Content Enhancement and User Response.” PatentPC, @PatentPC, 4 Oct. 2023, www.patentpc.com/blog/invention-for-use-of-biometric-data-for-virtual-reality-content-enhancement-and-user-response-us10171858b2#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20key%20advantages,emotional%20state%20and%20engagement%20level.]

Needed Data

· Student acceptance of VR

· Student and Recruiter recruitment experience and improvement areas

· User interaction in trial simulation

· Student and Recruiter thoughts on trial simulation

The needed data for EZRecruit will provide an overview of the student/recruiter climate toward current recruitment processes. This information, the real-time data from simulation trials, and post-trial feedback will be an invaluable guide toward the evolution of EZRecruit.

Initial Survey Questions - Assorted Questions

· Do you have experience with virtual reality technology? (Y/N)

· Have you ever owned a virtual reality headset? (Y/N)

· How interested are you in virtual reality technology? (1-5 scale)

· How likely are you to use virtual reality for simulations? (1-5 scale)

· Can you see yourself using virtual reality for professional purposes? (Y/N)

· How accessible is virtual reality to the public? (1-5 scale)

· Are you concerned about privacy in virtual reality? (Y/N)

· How important is immersion in virtual reality? (1-5 scale)

Virtual Interview

· Goal: Collect information from student and recruiter experiences to identify potential areas of opportunity for EZRecruit.

· Questions:

· How has the recruitment process positively impacted you?

· What would you change about the recruitment process?

· How would you feel about the use of VR in recruitment?

Post-Trial Survey Questions - (All are 1 to 5 scale)

· How interactive was this experience?

· How immersive was this experience?

· How accurate was this simulation to the job role?

· How would you rate your overall experience?

· How likely are you to use this technology in the future?

Strengths

Beginning with the strengths, EZ Recruit excels at providing a new, unique way to view workplace environments without the need to be present. In EZ Recruit, users have the ability to freely walk and interact in an immersive environment. This defeats virtual content showcased by YouTube because they are only capable of providing underwhelming 360° videos.

Eyes and ears will be drawn to the table with a VR headset at events such as career fairs. This provides us with a foundational base to work with towards generating positive cash flow.

A final strength is EZ Recruit will alleviate organization resources by hosting their content on a state of the art user interface. Organizations will no longer need to rely within their organization regarding the maximization of talent recruitment exposure with the use of EZ Recruit.

Opportunities

Opportunities are abundant amongst the successful adoption of EZ Recruit. One route is providing immersive content to EZ Recruit users for more than only organizations. Some potential patrons include educational institutions, realtors, dog kennels, independent creators, and the list goes on.

Another avenue that can be explored is the sale of consumer data. By collecting and selling data such as consumer use times (how long they use the app, when they use the app), consumer demographics, what the consumer views, etc. we will be able to generate additional revenue.

Weaknesses

LinkedIn: LinkedIn Talent Solutions, owned by Microsoft, is all about connecting professionals. They've got a strong presence in recruiting and talent solutions. With tools for job posting, candidate search, and networking, they're a solid choice for finding top talent, hence putting them in the leaders Quadrant.

Indeed: Indeed is an extremely popular job search engine and job posting platform with a massive user base. They cover a lot of ground in job searches and postings, which also puts them in a strong position on the Magic Quadrant.

CareerBuilder: CareerBuilder has been in the recruiting and HR solutions game for a long time. While they've faced some challenges in their ability to execute, they have had good vision, putting them in the Visionaries quadrant.

ZipRecruiter: ZipRecruiter is known for keeping things simple and having a wide reach in the job posting and recruiting scene. They might be seen as a "Niche Player" due to their lack of completeness of Vision and their ability to execute.

EZRECRUIT: EZRECRUIT is a challenger in the recruiting game. We're all about shaking up the hiring process with cool VR job tours and interviews. It's not just about solving old problems; we're all about creating fresh opportunities. In short, we're your go-to option for a new and exciting recruiting experience. We are certainly disruptors in the hiring industry, with our unique integration of Virtual Reality into the process, therefore making us challengers in the market.

EZ Recruit has conducted a financial analysis to calculate the cash inflows and the profit for this project. A financial analysis was done to calculate our total inflows for the next ten years, annually and monthly. First, it is important to understand the difference between cash flow and profit. The net cash flow consists of all the money moving in and out of the company at a specific point. On the other hand, net profit consists of the remaining revenue that is left after subtracting the total cost of expenses from it. Sales is one of the most important revenue for cash inflows, which is the money coming inside the company. This simple profit formula is revenue minus the cost used for production has helped us calculate our net profit for the next ten years. The gross profit that was calculated for 2032, was $26,281. This total profit for ten years for calculated by adding up the profit for each year. The type of cash inflow includes discounted cash flow (DCF), operating income, and rate of investment(ROI) which determines the fair value of an investment, by taking the discount rate into account. In our project, the DCF was calculated to be $5,634, after taking into account our discount rate. As a startup having a positive DFC is a great sign as it means that investment has the potential to generate return. Another important benefit that has brought money to our company includes operating costs. Operating costs over the ten years were calculated to be $24,456. Operating costs are the cost that is made by our company before paying for the taxes and interest. This is our cash inflow for the project, as this is all the cash that is entering into our company. Our startup has generated profit from sales, advertisement, e-commerce, and licensing.

Cost:

The cost components that are taken into account for this project include development expenses, capital equipment, operating expenses, cost of goods sold, and interest expense. These are the big factors that will cost the company money but will be used to create products that will generate more revenue. The cost of the goods is the most costly expense as we would have to gather resources to build this new product that has not been implemented yet in the market. To get into the numbers, it was calculated that the total cost of the goods sold is $46,723. However, it is important to note that the sales outweigh the cost of the goods sold, and that profit was made after ten years. Another cost component includes operating costs as it includes office rent, taxes, basic utilities, and that employees are paid their salaries. These are all worthy investments that would pay off in the future. Development expenses is an important expense that we make as it helps us understand the process of making new products and improving the existing ones. Most of these expenses only come from the first two years, where a lot of resources are being bought and gathered. For example in the first year, we spent a total of $2,820 on the initial development expense and then $500 the next year. These are the only two expenses in the development cost over the span of ten years. On the other hand, capital equipment is bought over the span of ten years to increase the efficiency of manufacturing the production. This is due to the fact that as sales increase, we would also have to increase the speed of production to keep up with the sales. The cash out flow is one of the most fundamental terms to understand relating to cost, as it tells us all the money that is exiting the company. It was calculated that the cash out flow for ten years was $7,839. The net cash flow for the ten years was calculated to be $17,068 and this number was computed through the formula cash inflow-cash outflow. This is a net positive cash flow over the ten years, meaning that our company is headed in the right direction and is assured there is always more money entering the company.

Rate of Investment and Data Over Ten Years:

EZ recruit calculated the rate of investment(ROI) to be 51.83% over ten years. Before I go into further analysis, it is important to understand why calculating the ROI is so important for businesses, especially startups. ROI helps us understand the measure of the profitability of the investment in the business. It helps us get a better overview of whether our start is making money or not. Therefore, since our ROI was 51.83% shows that we have made a significant return and that our investment is worth a lot more now.

This data stored in the excel sheet calculated to figure out the cash inflow, cash outflow, cash flow, and ROI based on the the components behind the production and sales of the project.

Graphs:

These barcharts were created using excel spreadsheets, showing a visualization of the total cash flow that was calculated over ten years and monthly. Through visualization we can see that there is a substantial amount of cash flow from year to year, meaning that our company is making profit. This is good to understand and see a trend that our company is headed in the right direction.

Team Roles and Responsibilities

From Stage 1 the team roles as well as responsibilities have remained unchanged for the most part, however there is a slight change with the project manager role as it has transitioned from Nataliyah and Ayman to Nataliyah due to schedule conflicts. Referencing back to Stage 1 the roles are now as followed:

Team Leadership and Management

· Team Leader: Nataliyah Gordon

· Documentation Manager: Edson Hidalgo

· Project Manager: Nataliyah Gordon

Business Analysis Sub-Team Functions

· Business Analyst: Ahmed Hayat

· Financial Analyst: Aryan Jalli

· Technology Analyst: Suhail Haque

· Market Researcher: Ayman Khalil

· Security Analyst: Connor Lounsbury

Solution Design and Prototype Development

· Solution Architect: Nataliyah Gordon

· UI/UX Design: Mucahid Kahraman

· Prototype Developer: Nicholas Lonconsolo

Stage 2 Assignments

For Stage 2, assignments were given based on the above roles and responsibilities. As the Documentation Manager Edson was tasked with overseeing both the Stage 2 narrative as well as presentation, and making sure they are structured according to rubric requirements. Breaking down the other assignments for Stage 2, Ayman and Suhail were tasked with conducting secondary market research to present to our team. Each team member was also encouraged to conduct their own research to obtain a better understanding of the data that is available to support our project idea. Edson was also tasked with describing the changes from Stage 1 to Stage 2 based on the secondary market research. Nick and Mucahid were tasked with consulting with each other to formulate a primary market research plan. Additionally, as the security and business analyst, Connor and Ahmed were tasked with creating the SWOT Analysis and Magic Quadrant to present to the team. Aryan was in charge pinpointing the costs necessary for executing the project and as a team we decided if this cost was tangible. Finally, Nataliyah our project manager made sure to allocate tasks to team members and update the existing work breakdown structure as well as Gantt Chart. Everyone on the team was given a deadline of Friday 10/20 to finish up their assignments in order to review all content and practice for the Stage 2 Presentation on Monday 10/23. There were also drop-in meetings with our project manager throughout the week if any member had questions about their tasks or had other inquiries.

Updated Gantt Chart

The Gantt Chart experienced a slight change, preparation for the Stage 2 presentation practice was included in the Stage 2 tasks with a start date of October 19th and end date of October 22th. This should give team members enough time to complete their assignments and practice staying within the allotted time of ten minutes for the presentation.

Updated Work Breakdown Structure

Version 2.0 of the Work Breakdown Structure has remained unchanged as clearly it outlines the tasks assigned for Stage 2. Here is Version 2.0 of the Work Breakdown Structure: