You play World of Warcraft? You’re hired! is a pretty famous piece explaining how having WoW on the CV helped one applicant land the job of his dreams. I’ve quoted this in some of my own presentations in the past – but always with a pinch of salt, noting that the article does point out that the applicant had other reasons for landing the plum role.
Now reports just in (from f13.net forums, via Raph Koster’s blog) of recruiters being told to AVOID applicants that mention WoW on their CV’s:
…employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc. … He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.
December 17, 2008 at 9:46 am
Possibly a bit of a generalisation by the employers, but probably very wise nonetheless!
December 17, 2008 at 11:37 am
I see their point with that, i’m one of those people who play it way too much at the moment. And to be honest, my sleeping patterns are a bit all over place and i focus on it a little too much.
However it really doesn’t effect me when i’m at work, if i don’t have access to WoW then i can’t really focus on it much. So generally when i’m at work i am only thinking about my job. That could be a little different in IT based jobs, but i’m sure they have blocking systems in place to ensure their employee’s are not playing WoW on the PCs! :p
On a bit of a side-topic, i read this blog recently from a WoW player who was in one of the top guilds in the world and part of the merge between two of these guilds. He kicked-aside a little bit when it comes to his position on the guild, so he got a little angry and decided to reveal all – a quite interesting look into the world of “Sponsored guilds” – http://serbandsteel.dingblog.com/blog.php?loadblog=524&cm=
December 17, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Richard, that is a whole side of WOW that I didn’t know about. So idle rich are bankrolling top guilds to have ‘the’ top guild – an alternative (or addition) to owning a football team.
wow.
December 18, 2008 at 12:08 am
At first I thought this would be about game design, because I have it on the brain. I’ve read blog posts saying that WoW is a detriment to the progress of MMO designs, and I agree. Seems like everything is compared to WoW, and I’ve been in design discussions where I asked if we were just going to make a WoW clone.
I don’t play, and won’t play, WoW. Partially this is because of preference, and partially because the game isn’t well designed. I, for one, will be glad when MMOs get past WoWness.
January 1, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Dude, congrats on your blog’s selection by time-honored democratic vote to be featured in the resident RSS feed display object at the Blogger’s Hut on ISTE Island in Second Life for the entire month of January 2009. I’ll be blogging the announcement at Oh! Virtual Learning! (http://scottsecondlife.blogspot.com) any day now (it’s the holidays, dontcha know) and I hope its selection and the minor brew-ha-ha that generates will help lead new readers to your valuable, informative, and fun blog!
There’ll be a “Blog-o-the-Month” button in the post that you may feel free to copy and display as you will.
Cheers, and Happy New Year!
January 2, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Cheers Scott,
I’ve been afk a few days myself, but will lookout the button, and try to be extra erudite, wise and witty for January.
Happy new year!
January 13, 2009 at 5:40 am
[...] this tired gaming stereotype needs to be taken out back and shot. This kind of thinking is exactly why some employers are explicitly telling their recruiters to avoid gamers.To be clear, gaming doesn’t lead to increased aptitude in business due to pushing pixels around a [...]