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“No Need to Show Up for this Job Interview”

Filed under Interviewing, Job Search Process, What's New
Posted by Libraries, June 27, 2007
View all posts for June 2007

Anjali Athavaley, CollegeJournal (from The Wall Street Journal Online), June 21, 2007.
http://www.collegejournal.com/jobhunting/usingnet/20070621-athavaley.html

Typically, the morning of a job interview is spent rushing around, putting on your best suit, gathering your resume and other paperwork, and rushing out the door while you cross your fingers that you won’t get lost on the way to the interview. But this Wall Street Journal article reports that typical routine may be a thing of the past thanks to Second Life. Some companies are experimenting with holding recruitment activities virtually, rather than in person, on Second Life.com, an online virtual community. You still sit down with a company representative, but instead of it being you sitting down, it’s an avatar representing you, and questions are conducted via chat sessions.

There are some problems that come with Second Life that you won’t typically find in an in-person interview, such as creating an appropriate avatar (without wild hair colors or inappropriate clothing, just like in a real interview) and figuring out how to “move” your avatar around the virtual building, and having them sit in their seat, rather than float above it.

While Second Life interviews are being experimented with, they are not going to be replacing the in-person interview anytime soon. Nevertheless, this may signal a wave of the future and new things to come. Employers are also recruiting more via YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. Websites you use for fun can also be great job searching tools.

—Deborah Borsuk