Using my WoW experience to get a job

[Disciple]

Hi,

I was thinking. I'm currently applying for a job that uses competencies as part of the assessment process. One of those questions was involving race and diversity, to describe a situation where you've dealt with people who are different from you in any way.

I was racking my brain for an example to answer this question. I grew up somewhere with an almost entirely white, single language rural community. I've had very few dealings with people with any sort of disability, never had any situations where gender was an issue. My professional life has been fairly simple in that respect.

Then it hit me. WoW! I was a GM for nearly three years with over 150 people, male and female, spread across the whole of Europe. Nowhere else in my life have I had to manage a group of people so different from me and each other effectively. Add the safety of internet anonymity allowing people to be whatever they want, as well as language barriers and the inevitable arguments that ensure in gchat that I had to deal with in a neutral and constructive manner, and soon enough I've realised that successful GMs build up a competency skillset that's actually massively applicable to a management or responsible role.

Basically, if you can run a successful community and raiding guild on EU servers, you're using exactly the same skills as you would in a management environment.

Trouble is, I'm taking that competency from a computer game, and I still think despite coming leaps and bounds from assuming games are for nerds and kids, that they're still not a justified way of building life skills. Ultimately what I'm worried about is if I stick this on my application form, people who've never played WoW, or MMORPGS, or oldschool thinkers, will look at it, write off my experience as completely irrelevant and I'll screw my chances of getting the job.

Should I answer the question citing the three year long, multinational, multilingual, multiracial and mixed gender/age team management work I did for five nights a week, or sack it off and go with 'Plan B' and just make something up?

[Katarinea]

I think, provided you call it the right thing, it'll be okay. Don't call it "guild master of a multi-ethnicity guild in World of Warcraft", call it "leader of a multi-ethnicity organization in virtual time". You can make anything sound good with a few words.

Honestly, WoW gives a lot of life experience. It's where I learned a lot of my social skills, and it actually makes me want to do math, which I HATE. If you can lead something ingame, you can lead something outside the game.

[Deleted]

With respect, I think you are out of your mind.

The 'oldskool' thinkers, as you put it, are the ones that had a firm grip on reality. Managing a bunch of whining kids or whining 50 year olds, 10, 100, 150 fold in a computer game guild scattered across Europe has NOTHING to do with real life, or real management/responsibility situations in the work place. I would seriously reconsider if you are going down that route.

[tilgare]

If you can lead something ingame, you can lead something outside the game.

Absolutely right, exactly what I was going to say. You simply need to be clever about how you phrase it... While it may sound odd from the outside, you really do have to lead and learn to interact with often a VERY wide variety of people from all over the world. Depending on your phrasing may alter just how odd it might sound from outside.

---------- Post added 2011-02-09 at 09:39 AM ----------

With respect, I think you are out of your mind.

The 'oldskool' thinkers, as you put it, are the ones that had a firm grip on reality. Managing a bunch of whining kids or whining 50 year olds, 10, 100, 150 fold in a computer game guild scattered across Europe has NOTHING to do with real life, or real management/responsibility situations in the work place. I would seriously reconsider if you are going down that route.

Times are changing and the fact is that it DOES take a certain level of leadership qualities to run a successful guild - granted, the leveling guild you created with silver donations from charter members when you were level 12 probably wouldn't; but, for instance, a successful raiding guild most certainly does. Whether he should use it as a reference... well that's totally up to him. Just use caution.

[Deleted]

You'll basically write: "Hello, I tend to spend way more time in a game than is healthy and I consider it way more than a game, our guild is more like a company. Can you give me a job?"

For a company, "the will to raid in a game" doesn't translate to "real-life ambition".

[barker]

Our HR department has had a few resumes come across their desks with notes regarding being a GM. Sorry to say (at least at my job) it doesn't hold any weight. They just ignore those lines, it doesn't help or hurt. A buddy of mine actually does the reviewing and sits in on the interviews for positions ranging from supervisors/network admins to level 1 techs. I doubt that any interviewer would lead any candidate into a discussion about a video game, even if it does qualify them with leadership roles.

[Sazzabi]

Honestly, WoW gives a lot of life experience. It's where I learned a lot of my social skills, and it actually makes me want to do math, which I HATE. If you can lead something ingame, you can lead something outside the game.

This completely untrue. Managing a raid where there is no fear of reprise from your employees (IE Guildmates) due to time and distance, does not compare in any way. Benching, reprimanding, sitting out a guildmate for standing in fire is easy when they are 1000 miles away, Doing that when you are face to face is a whole nother story. Raid leading, leading a guild, has no relevance in the real world.

[Jaerin]

With respect, I think you are out of your mind.

The 'oldskool' thinkers, as you put it, are the ones that had a firm grip on reality. Managing a bunch of whining kids or whining 50 year olds, 10, 100, 150 fold in a computer game guild scattered across Europe has NOTHING to do with real life, or real management/responsibility situations in the work place. I would seriously reconsider if you are going down that route.

You obviously are not an officer or GM of an active guild then. Especially in Vanilla when you had to fill a raid with 40 people and some guilds were running multiple 40 man groups simultaneously. You are crazy to think that it doesn't take some serious real life skills to coordinate and organize 25-40 people to complete a singular task like perform a set of fairly precise steps of timing and attentiveness then you're delusional.

Now the catch is there is no way to demonstrate that you performed those tasks other than to tell someone you did. With no evidence you might as well just make a story up that isn't so hard to explain.

It's not that gaming doesn't give you real life skills, its that it's not automatically translated for you. You have to figure out how the scheduling and organizing that you've been doing in your guild relates to your job. Some management type positions probably would benefit from this type of experience, but not all positions would. So I would recommend that *IF* you decide to try and use your experience in WoW as an answer on an application that you generalize it and translate the skills into actual real world examples of the skills that you possess. Otherwise they might as well be stories, as much as they are the truth.

[Pshaw]

This completely untrue. Managing a raid where there is no fear of reprise from your employees (IE Guildmates) due to time and distance, does not compare in any way. Benching, reprimanding, sitting out a guildmate for standing in fire is easy when they are 1000 miles away, Doing that when you are face to face is a whole nother story. Raid leading, leading a guild, has no relevance in the real world.

Yeaaaah, it's also way easier to lead people in a job situation where they have to listen to you because your paycheck depends on it. At work you can be a poor leader but because you affect peoples salary and or promotions and or them keeping their job they put up with you and do as you say while hating you all the while. In WoW people just quit the guild if you're a poor leader, they have no real incentive to stay and go look someplace else since not raiding while you find something new isn't exactly equal to not eating or nor paying your bills. Doing something face to face is also taken more seriously. If you bitch somebody out in person they're less likely to brush it off and say 'whatever noob' and go out their day like nothing happened cause it would get them fired. As such learning to control people over a distance in a place with no real consequence and where every person you're leading is entitled to play however they want (their 15 bucks a month why should they listen to you?) is harder than doing it on a corporate face to face setting.

WoW leadership experience is still leadership experience. If you're a good leader there than you have the potential to be a good leader elsewhere. Just be careful how you phrase it during your interview and be prepared to answer questions about it without any WoW terms like tanks, dps, raid and so forth. Simply say you were the leader of a hobby group that had well over 100 members and regularly organized X times per week involving 25 people (or more if you did more than raid at once) and that you successfully dealt with conflict resolution over Y years and so on.

[Sazzabi]

Yeaaaah, it's also way easier to lead people in a job situation where they have to listen to you because your paycheck depends on it. At work you can be a poor leader but because you affect peoples salary and or promotions and or them keeping their job they put up with you and do as you say while hating you all the while. In WoW people just quit the guild if you're a poor leader, they have no real incentive to stay and go look someplace else since not raiding while you find something new isn't exactly equal to not eating or nor paying your bills. Doing something face to face is also taken more seriously. If you bitch somebody out in person they're less likely to brush it off and say 'whatever noob' and go out their day like nothing happened cause it would get them fired. As such learning to control people over a distance in a place with no real consequence and where every person you're leading is entitled to play however they want (their 15 bucks a month why should they listen to you?) is harder than doing it on a corporate face to face setting.

WoW leadership experience is still leadership experience. If you're a good leader there than you have the potential to be a good leader elsewhere. Just be careful how you phrase it during your interview and be prepared to answer questions about it without any WoW terms like tanks, dps, raid and so forth. Simply say you were the leader of a hobby group that had well over 100 members and regularly organized X times per week involving 25 people (or more if you did more than raid at once) and that you successfully dealt with conflict resolution over Y years and so on.

If you think for one second that leading a guild is more difficult then magaing real life people in a proffesional setting, then you have zero real world experience, period. I cant believe this is even a discussion.. There are teenagers succefully running guilds in this game, you gonna let a 16 year old high schooler run your company, i think not.

[Nefarious Tea]

Sazzabi, you're an idiot. You clearly have never stepped foot into a competent raid if you don't think it's comparable. I've been in a guild whose US ranking is two digits; I, as a manager where I work, have fired people. And I can tell you that leading people in WoW is actually harder. Because unlike the real world you seem to think you know so much about, people have no incentive to listen in WoW. No job security, no paycheck, no possible bad review for their next job application, no nothing.

Second, - unlike the real world - the boss needs to be competent. You can't just have a blathering idiot who understands how to maximize profit. A guild leader in a proper raiding guild needs to understand ten classes times as many viable raiding specs as there are (which is one for pure DPS and exactly two for hybrids (excluding druid and paladin who are capable of all three roles).

Third, and to actually be on-topic.

Do. Not. Mention. WoW. You will be denied simply because you play it. The stigma will never leave this game as far as employers are concerned. And if you have Facebook, triple check to make sure there's no way to connect you with WoW.

[Felya]

Anyone who thinks leading a guild is even remotely close to leading at work, you need to get a job.

The only way to use this to your advantage is to call it social networking instead of WoW and to focus on your ability to get along and relate to people with different background. If your only example is from a game, it's very bad. If you even remotely imply that leading in a game is similar to work, it would be horrible. If you have a neighbor who has a dog and you don't, you can use that as an example. It is not possible that no one around you has any differences from you. If you cannot notice them, than perhaps what would be implied by using wow as an example is true.

[Yuziku]

While being a GM in WoW will help you with being in a management role in real life, it will not help you get the job at all unless you're very lucky and get interviewed by someone that has experience with the game.

I'm manager of my department and thanks to WoW I find it a lot easier to read and talk to people on different levels and in different ways so they understand where I am coming from, thats very important. However the companies manager will never employee someone that says they played a game for experience, any CV that has it on, and we get a lot, will just automatically get thrown in the bin. It basically translates to "I play a very addictive game and I won't be devoting my main time to the company" since unless they have played the game and understand it, the only view point they have is all the bad reviews on how mmos steal your life and ruin your children.

[calendor]

As someone who interviews for my company. I cannot stress enough to NOT mention being a GM in WoW on your CV. It will NOT go down well. trust me, its not what we want to see for that particular question.

I see people doing exactly what you want to do all the time, and those CV's rarely get the othe interview stage unless the rest of the CV is outstanding.

As sad as it is, people will just laugh at your CV, i know my fellow interviewer's do. Even i cringe when i see people using it, and i play the game!

[Aknot]

Anyone who thinks leading a guild is even remotely close to leading at work, you need to get a job.

The only way to use this to your advantage is to call it social networking instead of WoW and to focus on your ability to get along and relate to people with different background. If your only example is from a game, it's very bad. If you even remotely imply that leading in a game is similar to work, it would be horrible. If you have a neighbor who has a dog and you don't, you can use that as an example. It is not possible that no one around you has any differences from you. If you cannot notice them, than perhaps what would be implied by using wow as an example is true.

Then you might be barking up the wrong tree in looking for work.

As for the "If you can lead something ingame, you can lead something outside the game." and the people that support that you need to rethink it. Billy online is a great leader, can explain and help people in all things..... yet get him in a meeting or a face to face to explain something and he passes out.

I can turn things into a rabbit online, kite a dragon and create a bubble to protect me.... doesnt mean I can do it in real life....

NOT THAT IM SAYING THE OP CANT.... Just be careful for what you do and say. First Impressions are VERY important.

[Mammoth]

With respect, I think you are out of your mind.

The 'oldskool' thinkers, as you put it, are the ones that had a firm grip on reality. Managing a bunch of whining kids or whining 50 year olds, 10, 100, 150 fold in a computer game guild scattered across Europe has NOTHING to do with real life, or real management/responsibility situations in the work place. I would seriously reconsider if you are going down that route.

Leading a guild does have great experiences that can be used in a work environment.

However, in WoW there are leaders and leaders . Anyone can be a GM. You can even be a complete ass and still manage to lead if you have motivated people to back you up. Just being a leader in WoW isn't enough to say you have the leadership skills, you need to be able to back it up with specific examples of choices you had to make, during an interview.

Unlike previous experence in business, there's no superior actually judging your performance in WoW, whether it being a boss or just financial results. A RL example will always be superior, but if you need something to fill space or want to use it as a point of conversation in the interview, use it.

[Deleted]

Sazzabi, you're an idiot. You clearly have never stepped foot into a competent raid if you don't think it's comparable. I've been in a guild whose US ranking is two digits; I, as a manager where I work, have fired people. And I can tell you that leading people in WoW is actually harder. Because unlike the real world you seem to think you know so much about, people have no incentive to listen in WoW. No job security, no paycheck, no possible bad review for their next job application, no nothing.

Second, - unlike the real world - the boss needs to be competent. You can't just have a blathering idiot who understands how to maximize profit. A guild leader in a proper raiding guild needs to understand ten classes times as many viable raiding specs as there are (which is one for pure DPS and exactly two for hybrids (excluding druid and paladin who are capable of all three roles).

Third, and to actually be on-topic.

Do. Not. Mention. WoW. You will be denied simply because you play it. The stigma will never leave this game as far as employers are concerned. And if you have Facebook, triple check to make sure there's no way to connect you with WoW.

He's absolutely right. Talking about difference between RL Hierarchic Structures and WoW is nonsense, because there are no differences. As a leader you have to deal with different personalities, bad workers/good workers, broken relationships, envy etc. I often get to hear about the working situation of my mother and I am often surprised how similar the real business is to a raid/guild. Talking about slacking co-workers, not enough workers to succeed in accomplish set up tasks, people that dislike each other have to work side by side. Like said before if you get up a working raid/guild under that circumstances it is harder to do, when the employees life earning isnt depended on it.

I think, that in future terms, this will deal a large impact because then this "wow-generation" is in charge and knows about these qualities. All I see in the moment is just stupid persons in charge, who do a lot worse then every raid leader I've seen. I also got some lectures about managing people and accounting and still wonder why these highly paid c.e.o.s and managers seem to do the contrary to what they should have heard too, in their position.

So like advised before, put it in other words and you'll be fine... If you have to, just plain lie, like "I was the trainer of our local duck hunt group" ( maybe not the best example ) make it something not easy traceable, because these guys just hear what they want to hear, no matter what brilliant arguments you have.

[Sazzabi]

Sazzabi, you're an idiot. You clearly have never stepped foot into a competent raid if you don't think it's comparable. I've been in a guild whose US ranking is two digits; I, as a manager where I work, have fired people. And I can tell you that leading people in WoW is actually harder. Because unlike the real world you seem to think you know so much about, people have no incentive to listen in WoW. No job security, no paycheck, no possible bad review for their next job application, no nothing.

Second, - unlike the real world - the boss needs to be competent. You can't just have a blathering idiot who understands how to maximize profit. A guild leader in a proper raiding guild needs to understand ten classes times as many viable raiding specs as there are (which is one for pure DPS and exactly two for hybrids (excluding druid and paladin who are capable of all three roles).

Third, and to actually be on-topic.

Do. Not. Mention. WoW. You will be denied simply because you play it. The stigma will never leave this game as far as employers are concerned. And if you have Facebook, triple check to make sure there's no way to connect you with WoW.

Unfortunetly calling me names does not validate your arguement, Leading a guild in WOW is a valuable experience, i agree 100%, but for anyone to say it is more difficult then managing real people in a real workplace is incorrect, and probably lacks the experience to properly make that assumption.

[Fogkin]

Maybe someone should try out for the apprentice, just tell the Don that you lead a hardcore raiding guild in WoW... see how far that gets you. Don't think it'd go far.

[Phearoids]

Research the hiring official for that company, if they seem to be up with current events and stuff like that.

I'd mention maybe as a hobby, and not as a business level pre-req.

Now if you were a GM, game master, and assisted people with customer service issues and that then yes add that.

Or maybe spin it as if you were an online consultant and helped people with their issues, for a co-operative agreement
Perhaps get some phone #s of people from the guild, and list them as contacts, give them the run down on what you have decided.