From
www.egamefo.com
http://beyond-summit.blogspot.com/2006/ ... esume.html
Would You Put WoW On Your Resume?
If you saw the following on a resume, you would probably be impressed, especially if this person is a recent college graduate:
Roles and responsibilities include:
* Leading an organization of over 200 active members.
* Organizing and leading groups of 40 people 4 nights a week on specific jobs.
* Managing resource collection to accomplish jobs.
* Keeping organization website up to date and moderating forums.
* Actively recruiting new members.
* Researching new challenges and formulating strategies to progress forward.
Now I'll make it a little more accurate and even add a few accomplishments:
Roles and responsibilities include:
* Leading the #1 guild (with over 200 active members) on World Of Warcraft's Dalaran server.
* Organizing 40-person raid groups 4 nights a week to conquer the most challenging dungeons in record time.
* Organizing the guild to collect necessary resources for each raid, including health/mana potions, herbs, and other special items.
* Keeping guild site up to date and moderating forums.
* Also designed a custom raid points tracker.
* Actively recruiting new members.
* Researching new dungeons and formulating strategies for defeating bosses.
Ok, now it's a little silly, right? But why should it be? Leading the #1 guild on any server in almost any game is very challenging and takes a lot of work. It shows strong leadership and organizational skills to manage a guild of 200+ people, as well as leading 4 raids per week. You don't even need to be the #1 guild; managing any guild is difficult and requires the same set of organizational and leadership qualities.
Of course, if you've been in a guild or especially if you've led one, you know this already. So, would you put it on your resume? When you are asked what is your greatest accomplishment in an interview, will you say, "I led my guild to the first Nefarian kill in World Of Warcraft."?
Probably not, but why? More than likely it is because MMORPGs are video games, and people associate video games with lazy people (and addicts). So, if somebody tells an employer that they spend the majority of their time playing a video game, they are going to envision that person as a lazy do-nothing. Yet, if you were the president of your school's martial arts club of 30 members, you would put that on your resume, because it shows that you did something and you did that something well enough to make it to the top. It is even likely that being president of your 30 person martial arts club is much easier than running a guild, so why put that on your resume and not the fact that you lead a guild?
An employer who has never heard of an MMORPG probably wouldn't understand the skills necessary for running a guild, but what about somebody who has played one before and been in a guild? Imagine you were an employer and a resume comes across your desk and you see that the candidate has been leading one of World Of Warcraft's finest guilds. Would you laugh at it or would you see some possible talent in this individual?