Employers want to hire WoW players

in the IT world, it doesn’t matter if your CV includes a certificate of being terminally bright from the University for the Super Gifted. According to Wired magazine, IT employers want to know how you do playing World of Warcraft.

The mag quotes the story of Stephen Gillett who was aiming for a senior management position in engineering at Yahoo. Gillett had built CNet’s huge wobbly backend and had helped launch a number of successful startups. According to him the reason he was hired was he played WoW.

the Inquirer - Employers want to hire WoW players

The process of becoming an effective World of Warcraft guild master amounts to a total-immersion course in leadership. A guild is a collection of players who come together to share knowledge, resources, and manpower. To run a large one, a guild master must be adept at many skills: attracting, evaluating, and recruiting new members; creating apprenticeship programs; orchestrating group strategy; and adjudicating disputes. Guilds routinely splinter over petty squabbles and other basic failures of management; the master must resolve them without losing valuable members, who can easily quit and join a rival guild.

Never mind the virtual surroundings; these conditions provide real-world training a manager can apply directly in the workplace.

Wired - You Play World of Warcraft? You’re Hired!