Tuesday, February 12, 2008

What would you say your weaknesses are?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/397921/have_a_job_interview_in_second_life.html

This is a short article, but I found it interesting. It is about having a job interview in SL, not RL. Just like in RL, the article claims, your appearance can determine if you get the job or not. Also if you choose to be half-human and half-animal it could also have a negative impact. I have just started playing WOW this week and am interested in the whole avatar creation process.

http://www.datenform.de/woweng.html

What would happen if you had your name above your head all the time (like your WOW avatar)? This is a project that does just that. The article is short but it also has a video that I would check out; it is something you don't see every day.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

These articles are very interesting. I hadn't thought about job interviews in SL before--then again, I haven't really gotten into SL, so the thought never occurred to me. I like the last sentence about an avatar revealing more about a job candidate than that candidate realizes. In a game with a lot of avatar customization, there are many things a person can infer from another person by the appearance of the avatar. Whether or not it's all right to judge someone by their avatar might be related to the mentalizing in Steve's post.

The second article reminds me of when I used to wonder what it would be like if, upon entering a room, people had their theme song play.

Michael said...

You wouldn't think that what avatar you choose matters. It also doesn't matter what your resume looks like. These judgements people make of your avatar's appearance are the same judgements they make of your actual appearance. I know from personal experience, both in my business studies and from actual interviews, that the feelings people get from you are all subjective. Power red may be "great," but what if your interviewers parents were hit and killed by a "power red" truck. There's no science to this, but even your avatar should be as professional as you would be. Like the good doctor said, you wouldn't want to schlep your avatar to the interview wearing pajamas, lingerie, or deer antlers.

The second article is a pretty fun project. I would be very interested to read their results.

Steve said...

I'd be curious to see which companies are using SL for interviews. I think I wouldn't want to work at a place that didn't have a pretty good sense of humor, but then again, my avatar is essentially a G-Man. That's basically the definition of straight-laced and respectable.

Regarding the second one: We have to do this.

@lo - we talked about doing the song bit in the mobileLab class last semester