Applications are open for Ikea’s store in Roblox, which opens in the virtual platform later this month.

The gaming experience, called The Co-Worker, promises to show the range of roles available at Ikea, from the store to head office, and the ease with which people can supposedly move between them. The idea is to show how career progression works at the real-world Ikea by allowing people to switch between departments and roles in the game without losing any of the experience they have built up.

Recruitment will be driven through social media and in-store activity, and forms the first part of its new Careers Done Different campaign by Mother, which aims to advertise Ikea as a desirable place to work, not just to shop.

“When we say careers done different, we mean it,” says Kemi Anthony, marketing communications manager at Ikea UK and Ireland. “To bring career progression at Ikea to life, it made sense to demonstrate the co-worker journey in a less traditional way, by ‘recruiting’ people to try it out for themselves at Ikea on Roblox.”

Those ‘hired’ to work in Ikea’s Roblox store will be paid, but it’s currently unclear how much or in what form. They will need to be 18 or over to be rewarded, despite Roblox broadly being associated with children and teenagers. While the experience isn’t officially affiliated with the gaming platform, it seems to align with Roblox’s own ambitions to appeal to adult audiences.

People often turn to games to escape from daily realities like work, rather than be followed by it. However, there’s an argument that Ikea’s experience falls into the category of simulation games involving organisation and routines, which remain surprisingly popular.

The Co-Worker opens in Roblox on June 24; thecoworker.co.uk