Recruiter told not to hire WoW players

[Bunk]

Roughly one third of our tech support department plays WoW. The company Operations Manager is the guild leader.

I think it's hard for the guys who do the interviews to hold it against potential employees when they all play it themselves. I can't imagine how much of the hiring pool of software tech support candidates would be reduced if you ruled out MMoG players.

[tazelbain]

This is mostly crap.  There are tons of unemployable people.  A friend told me about a nuclear engineer that would come in late read the Bible for a few hours and go home early.  Should we not hire anyone who does any activity that people can become obsessed with?  It won't take WoW players long to realized they need to keep it to themselves.

[schild]

It won't take WoW players long to realized they need to keep it to themselves.

I don't know what made them think it was OK to ever ever ever bring up in an interview outside of the gaming industry anyway. I wouldn't want my employer to know my personal habits.

What next? Recruiter tells you to stay away from folks who are into "anal fisting with foreign objects."

Me thinks we're sharing too much.

[BitWarrior]

It won't take WoW players long to realized they need to keep it to themselves.

It also won't take long for WoW players to spill the beans - likely before their probationary period is up. A hardcore WoW player when asked, "What did you do last night" would either need to be a consistently good lair or just not be a hardcore WoW player. That or take a look at the browsing history loaded with WoW forums, guild and fansites.

If the foreseen problem "worsens", clients of recruiters might ask them to specifically weed out WoW players (ie: going beyond asking what a person's hobbies and interests are and asking if they play WoW, just as someone might be asked the token addiction questions). In the end, it looks like (rightly) the industry has decided bringing a WoW addiction to the table isn't in their best interests.

[Merusk]

Poor Tale, everyone seems to think you were interviewing and said "Oh I play WoW, hire me."

Reading comprehension is hard.

[Slyfeind]

This is weird. Honestly when I'm being interviewed, I want to talk about my Crohn's disease. I want to tell people that my immune system occasionally fucks with my intestines. But...I honestly can't find a way to bring it up without grossing people out. It just doesn't seem appropriate to me. So I wait till after I get hired, and after it acts up, if it does indeed act up while I'm on the job.

This is a chronic disorder that is incurable, and typically makes me miss a couple weeks a year. Sure, people call in sick, but I guarantee I will be sick at least ten days per year because of crazy gut activity. That's not counting the occasional unrelated sniffles, or a bad reaction to my yearly flu shot. And also bear in mind that Crohn's disease is not specifically recognized as a disability to anybody but the people who live with it.

And the reaction? "Oh it's okay, I know someone with Crohn's, do what you gotta do, blah blah blah, we all get sick from time to time, etc etc etc."

So, like, okay, tons and tons of diarrhea is more acceptable than playing a video game. Really? How about I crap in a bowl and make you smell it, then make you smell my WoW CDs, and see which one you like better?!?!?!

I don't know what my point is. Maybe I just like to talk about bowls full of poop. ^-^

[tazelbain]

And now that you shared that all the people linked in from other sites now know now about your poo issues. GratS!

[schild]

And now that you shared that all the people linked in from other sites now know now about your poo issues. GratS!

[K9]

This is weird. Honestly when I'm being interviewed, I want to talk about my Crohn's disease. I want to tell people that my immune system occasionally fucks with my intestines. But...I honestly can't find a way to bring it up without grossing people out. It just doesn't seem appropriate to me. So I wait till after I get hired, and after it acts up, if it does indeed act up while I'm on the job.

This is a chronic disorder that is incurable, and typically makes me miss a couple weeks a year. Sure, people call in sick, but I guarantee I will be sick at least ten days per year because of crazy gut activity. That's not counting the occasional unrelated sniffles, or a bad reaction to my yearly flu shot. And also bear in mind that Crohn's disease is not specifically recognized as a disability to anybody but the people who live with it.

And the reaction? "Oh it's okay, I know someone with Crohn's, do what you gotta do, blah blah blah, we all get sick from time to time, etc etc etc."

So, like, okay, tons and tons of diarrhea is more acceptable than playing a video game. Really? How about I crap in a bowl and make you smell it, then make you smell my WoW CDs, and see which one you like better?!?!?!

I don't know what my point is. Maybe I just like to talk about bowls full of poop. ^-^

I get your point, but then I also have Crohn's, albeit with a different presentation.

[Ratman_tf]

Shit! Now we're linked from rpg.net. Now they're going to figure out where I steal get all my video game news from! 

[Samprimary]

So, like, okay, tons and tons of diarrhea is more acceptable than playing a video game. Really? How about I crap in a bowl and make you smell it, then make you smell my WoW CDs, and see which one you like better?!?!?!

I think there is something of a more, uh, subtle distinction between WoW and Crohn's, and that's that Crohn's is not a voluntary activity, but if you want to crap in bowls for your recruiters I guess you could feel free.

[Slyfeind]

So, like, okay, tons and tons of diarrhea is more acceptable than playing a video game. Really? How about I crap in a bowl and make you smell it, then make you smell my WoW CDs, and see which one you like better?!?!?!

I think there is something of a more, uh, subtle distinction between WoW and Crohn's, and that's that Crohn's is not a voluntary activity, but if you want to crap in bowls for your recruiters I guess you could feel free.

HOORAY!

[UnSub]

I generally don't talk much about my gaming habits at work (apart from with my boss who wanted to network some FPS play on laptops that won't support anything new - we have talked Xbox 360 though). Given that no-one cares, I don't need to talk about it.

To be fair, I don't care about their hobbies either.

If I went to an interview and went on and on about how great MMO gaming was, I wouldn't expect to get the job either (unless it was for a MMO developer and they are unlikely to hire me anyway).

[Furiously]

I just wanted to say, I'm posting furiously.

[schild]

Google Translation provides a funny article returned from 17173.com.

Recently, a foreign Warcraft players in the job when a strange encounter, the recruiters told him that he did not explicitly admit the "World of Warcraft (Area Video)," the player said this is the employer's instructions. The players are depressed, go to the Web site of the game f13.NET forum to describe their experiences.

"I and a recent recruitment (online media industry) met in the course of conversation I do not want to mention in the early 20th century, I spent a lot of time playing online games, mainly the" World of Warcraft "early Game. At that time I was EQ1, "Star Wars: Galaxies," and then "World of Warcraft" and crazy. But in 2006, I spent online in the few hours I fell in love with the beginning of the bike ride .

The recruiters said that employers in particular his instructions not to recruit players of Warcraft. He said that they can not be 100% of Warcraft players to work because they are more concerned about something else. Their sleep quality is not good, and so on. I replied that a person has the network of leadership experience as a favorable factor in career development or project management experience of learning channels. He shook his head to right, he has received clear instructions not to recruit players of Warcraft. ” "

In fact, playing "World of Warcraft" and in the field of career success has a lot of people, of whom Obama is the best-known public relations consultant Kevin Werbach, and basketball fans are familiar with the Yao Ming is "World of Warcraft," the faithful support Persons. And professional performance to say the game does not necessarily linked to the poor players have been dealt with, we can say now in the severe employment situation, the requirements of employers do more and more harsh. (文/17173 阿树) (/ Ashu 17173)

Tee-hee.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, I can't see bringing it up either.  I think I mentioned playing MUDs to my boss once, and only in the context of "this program is written worse than my MUD's spaghetti code" or such.  Even then only because he would understand how bad I thought the code was.

[schild]

The players are depressed, go to the Web site of the game f13.NET forum to describe their experiences.

[stu]

My best friend from high school recently stayed up all night playing Abandoned Realms (a MUD). He slept through his daughter's birthday party the next day. He and his baby's mama don't live together. Probly a good thing she has the kid.

When a potential employer asks me about my hobbies, I say, "Reading, writing, and playing sports."

[Ratman_tf]

My best friend from high school recently stayed up all night playing Abandoned Realms (a MUD). He slept through his daughter's birthday party the next day. He and his baby's mama don't live together. Probly a good thing she has the kid.

Gub'mint took mah bay-bee!

[Ghambit]

Shoulda done the smart thing and taught his kid how to play the game.

[apocrypha]

We had 2 WoW players (one of them me) in the last university department I worked in. Him and I were actually amongst the better workers in that place. Sure, we'd spend a certain amount of time each day talking about WoW and looking at WoW-related websites, but all the non-gamers spent an equal or greater amount of time looking at YouTube or horse riding websites or sport news sites, etc.

It's discrimination, pure and simple, it's the person that matters, not their hobbies. If they're going to be a useless fuck they're going to be a useless fuck irregardless of what their hobbies are.

[schild]

Anyone know Danish? http://pc.boomtown.net/da_dk/articles/art.view.php?id=75238

Active use of World of Warcraft gives you not only sleep deprivation and a vocabulary of good turns, such as "gank" and "roflcopter". According to studies do you a better leader with more organizational overview.

It is however not all companies that look just positively to the WoW gaming. It tells a story about a man who was refused a job solely because of an active WoW account.

The story comes from f13.net Forum, where the user Speaking the other day genfortalte his last job.

Speech was to meet with a recruiting agent in the 'media industry'. The conversation slid curiously into the World of Warcraft. Here told the agent that he had received specific orders to weed out all applicants who are playing World of Warcraft. The attitude of the company was that WoW gamers rarely gives 100% of the work because they lack both the concentration and ... sleep. As the Voice reported on studies that showed positive aspects of playing MMORPG titles, the agent shook your head. Speech got no job.

It's like playing telephone with the internet.

[Phildo]

all the non-gamers spent an equal or greater amount of time looking at YouTube or horse riding websites or sport news sites, etc.

People who ride horses must be stopped.

[schild]

We had 2 WoW players (one of them me) in the last university department I worked in. Him and I were actually amongst the better workers in that place. Sure, we'd spend a certain amount of time each day talking about WoW and looking at WoW-related websites, but all the non-gamers spent an equal or greater amount of time looking at YouTube or horse riding websites or sport news sites, etc.

It's discrimination, pure and simple, it's the person that matters, not their hobbies. If they're going to be a useless fuck they're going to be a useless fuck irregardless of what their hobbies are.

Some hobbies very easily make people more useless than others. Sure, some people are functionally useful and they happen to play MMORPGs, but more often than not, if you're in a job where WoW-Types are going to be applying, it's probably best to find out the extent of their catassery. Of course it's unfair, and of course it's discrimination, but in most cases I'd say it's worthwhile to expect a certain amount of functional work out of employees.

[Tale]

Taking 5 minutes to repeat the context:

* It wasn't a job interview. We were just doing lunch. I have a job already.
* We chatted about dozens of things ... I thought his brief games comment would interest others, so I posted it.
* Except for a couple of rainy days in nearly two years, I'm not a WoW player.
* Except for a burst of Conan at launch, the only thing I've played lately is Tabula Rasa to level 23 (one character, bursts of play, months apart). I wish they weren't shutting it down, because I might have reached level 50 by the year 2027.

Nowadays I need to stay fit, eat well and be at my mental peak every day, and I find that incompatible with MMO playing. So I see his point. Cycling is now a much better hobby for me. But I've nothing against WoW players and I'm still fascinated by the future of MMOs, and the intelligent crowd on f13.net is great to chat with, so I hang out here ... or in the politics forum 

[IainC]

To be fair, some WoW guilds won't accept anyone with a full time job so I guess it's just some quid pro quo...

[Sunbury]

Speaking of WoW guilds, I've read rumors of some rich guy in Abu Dhabi forming/paying members of some guild just to be first to beat all the new content.  Forget where I read that, maybe FoH.

[DraconianOne]

Speaking of WoW guilds, I've read rumors of some rich guy in Abu Dhabi forming/paying members of some guild just to be first to beat all the new content.  Forget where I read that, maybe FoH.

"some rich guy" = son of the Crown Prince of Dubai
"Abu Dhabi" = "Dubai"
"some guild" = Ensidia, formerly Nihilum and SK-Gaming

They've never been quiet about their backing either - apart from keeping it anonymous.  From their website:

Ensidia is a joint effort by members of two of the top guilds in World of Warcraft, with the support and endorsement of a private entity based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Our guilds have made being at the forefront of PVE progression our modus operandi since the first installment of this game and, as Ensidia, we will continue to do so.

So - recruited precisely because they were WoW players.

[Triforcer]

This is fun!!  My turn...

I heard that Blagojevich was going to trade Obama's Senate seat for a fully decked out Death Knight with T8 epics. 

[Edenfall]

Playing WoW helped me learn a lot about people, management, sincerity, given situations, the world and myself (++ etc.).

Just like drugs, it is not the drug, but the person, that is the problem.

• Person finds drug
• Person becomes obsessed with drug
• Person deals with the obsession in some kind of way
• Person, depending on intelligence, learns something

Generally, what I see is that a person obsessed with something most probably will handle prioritization in a poor way, unless that person just gets it or has learned from previous experiences of obsession or something somewhat similar.

Intelligent people (ie. people who posess the ability to learn and profit from experience) will be more capable in general after such experience.
Guild Masters reflect long-term leaders. Raid Leaders reflect short-term leaders (ie. project leaders). Raiders reflect regular employees. PvPers reflect one-man-army people (ie. company founders, overpriced consultants)
They all learn a little or a lot about the world and their place in it. Playing WoW doesn't isolate you from the world - it's just like going on vacation to Thailand - you still live in the same world.

I, personally, have been in all these roles; learned what I am good/bad at, like to do and what to improve. Along the road I have severely increased my skills in such as: Oral English, General Management, Conflict-handling, Judging Applications, Creating Applications, Constructive Criticism, Practical Mathematics, Analyzing Multi-Factor situations, Group-Work aka. Cooperation, Socializing (with different kinds of people), Different People Categories (and what to expect from whom)... the list goes on. I can't say it was a bad experience, or a waste of time, but that I feel I want to move on.
And still I know I have much to learn - I do not think I am a superhero - and I have just above basic experience in many fields of life.

Intelligent and determined people playing MMO's like WoW may, in theory, increase their mental age faster since MMO's is a reflection of Real-Life just with faster cycles of things. Increasing your mental age basically means you gain a higher IQ (average Mental Age / Chronological Age times 100, of people at your chronological age).

Declining an application from an intelligent and determined person on the basis of his previous MMO experiences is the exact opposite of what one should do. Although this topic was about people currently playing WoW (or MMO's), I still want to say: Evaluate the person. If he plays WoW, you should ask him what he does in the game and what his role is like and whether or not he is prepared for cutting down on the dedication, if, say he is a Guild Master or a hardcore raider.

Based on my experiences so far, though, I would think twice before hiring someone currently engaged in raiding. And thinking twice means I'd evaluate the person - have him tell me a story or something, then schedule a meeting later in the week so both myself and the applicant could think of whatever might need to be thought of.



That said; some posts here made me realize that even though everyone take 5min at work to surf news or whatever, just to take a break, I should consider skipping forum-talk and such at work from now on.

[UnSub]

Playing MMOs has taught me to touch type at a decent speed.

The rest of it: I'm a bit more friendly online to get over the impersonality of text. But I'm still me. While in theory you might learn organisational skills from running raids or something, this isn't particularly like to carry over to the real world unless your co-workers love hearing "Where's my fucking heal?" or "DPS NOW BITCHES!" screamed repeatedly at them. And then they can see you dive in, grab the report off the printer while yelling "LEEEEERRRROOOOYYY!!!" as you then sprint for the door.

Can MMOs teach you things? Sure. But what they teach you most is how to play that particular MMO. The rest is unintended and mostly unproven gravy that varies greatly depending on the MMO and the individual.

[JWIV]

Once upon a time, my former boss saw I had monkly-business up and exclaimed that he used to play a monk in EQ as well!  We exchanged the sekrit we pulled for a fucking living and fuck you <insert other class here> for stealing our jorbs fist jab followed by the What the Fuck Were We Thinking Playing the Online Equivalent of Roshambo face palm and went about our day.

[Nevermore]

Taking 5 minutes to repeat the context:

* It wasn't a job interview. We were just doing lunch. I have a job already.
* We chatted about dozens of things ... I thought his brief games comment would interest others, so I posted it.
* Except for a couple of rainy days in nearly two years, I'm not a WoW player.
* Except for a burst of Conan at launch, the only thing I've played lately is Tabula Rasa to level 23 (one character, bursts of play, months apart). I wish they weren't shutting it down, because I might have reached level 50 by the year 2027.

Nowadays I need to stay fit, eat well and be at my mental peak every day, and I find that incompatible with MMO playing. So I see his point. Cycling is now a much better hobby for me. But I've nothing against WoW players and I'm still fascinated by the future of MMOs, and the intelligent crowd on f13.net is great to chat with, so I hang out here ... or in the politics forum 

I play WoW obsessively!  Please hire me!

Unfortunately, this is what all the outsiders looking for a sensationalistic story will see.

By the way, how many people here a posting from work? 

[Mrbloodworth]

Taking 5 minutes to repeat the context:

* It wasn't a job interview. We were just doing lunch. I have a job already.
* We chatted about dozens of things ... I thought his brief games comment would interest others, so I posted it.
* Except for a couple of rainy days in nearly two years, I'm not a WoW player.
* Except for a burst of Conan at launch, the only thing I've played lately is Tabula Rasa to level 23 (one character, bursts of play, months apart). I wish they weren't shutting it down, because I might have reached level 50 by the year 2027.

Nowadays I need to stay fit, eat well and be at my mental peak every day, and I find that incompatible with MMO playing. So I see his point. Cycling is now a much better hobby for me. But I've nothing against WoW players and I'm still fascinated by the future of MMOs, and the intelligent crowd on f13.net is great to chat with, so I hang out here ... or in the politics forum 

I play WoW obsessively!  Please hire me!

Unfortunately, this is what all the outsiders looking for a sensationalistic story will see.

By the way, how many people here a posting from work? 

All.

[Draegan]

I'm posting from work!

I once said I was a bartender at a job interview.  After some joking I think they thought I was an alcoholic.

The might of been right.