Virtual job interviews do they work

The MTSG
View

On business, the workplace
and employee relations

June, 2007

Get a (Second)
Life

What is the point of a virtual job interview? Is it
better to have two "avatars" speaking to each other in place of two real people?
Doesn't it seem a little silly to represent yourself or your company through an
animated character when you could do it in flesh and blood?

Tell that to companies such as eBay Inc,
Hewlett-Packard Co, Microsoft Corp and Sodexho, who held what has been called
the world's first virtual job fair last month The forum was the social
networking space Second
Life, a 3-D virtual world where Internet users can create an avatar or 3-D
figure of oneself, interact with other avatars, buy land, join communities and
have online experiences For three days it was also a place where employers and
job seekers met to talk about work in the physical world Some prescreening took
place, so recruiters for the companies knew the people behind the avatar, but
otherwise the interview occurred online through instant messaging and the
avatars

The Second Life job fair was revealing in many ways
Obviously places such as Second Life and competitor sites including There and
Entropia Universe, are populated by a unique group of people - tech savvy and
comfortable in social networking forums Companies are willing to meet those
individuals in whatever forum that works because the competition for employees
with unique skills is so intense

At the same time employers may learn something about
the job applicants in the virtual world that they might not see in an office
People design their own avatars to represent themselves in Second Life The
features they choose certainly say something about their personalities

Finally, in some cases the online world can test the
ability of people to recognize opportunities, offering a hint of how they would
handle their jobs Second Life and similar sites provide obvious business
opportunities for graphic designers, for example, who create avatars and sell
them to users (Second Life has more than 6 million registered) But there are
also individuals and corporations acquiring virtual real estate, setting up
storefronts and joining organizations with the intention of making real money in
that virtual world To employers those are people who could have creative ideas
for their companies For job seekers, those are companies that might welcome
their initiative

2007 Job Growth - New England
Style

The New England Economic Project held its spring
meeting last month and economists representing six New England states agreed
that in nearly all the major sectors of the economy, employment growth in the
region will be below the national average during the next five years Only New
England's information sector will outperform

But that doesn't mean businesses in the Northeast won't
be creating jobs The employment growth among information companies and high
technology firms, slightly above 1 percent annually, will feel like an explosion
compared to the average annual declines of nearly 4 percent from 2001 through
2005

New Hampshire is expected to lead the region in
education and health services employment percentage growth In particular many
of the state's hospitals have begun expansion projects, which will result in
more jobs In Massachusetts, the relatively strong growth in the Professional
and Business Services sector of 15 percent per year is an indication of the
demand for the state's highly educated and skilled knowledge workers in fields
such as consulting, engineering, and scientific research and development

But for companies creating jobs in these sectors and
others, such as light industrial manufacturing or assembling, the region's slow
population growth will contribute to a continued labor shortage Our firm
recruits qualified workers year-round, to ensure that we can meet our clients
needs when they arise

Golden Oldies
Not!

Longevity is the hot buzzword in financial planning
these days, with financial advisors pointing out that people are living longer
and in danger of outliving their money Social Security will replace only a
small portion of household earnings and beyond modest savings in 401(k) plans
people aren't socking enough away One obvious strategy - work longer But that
assumes a willingness of companies to keep older workers on the payroll

In a recent survey by the Center for Retirement
Research at Boston College, 400 private sector for-profit and non-profit
employers were asked if they would create opportunities for a "significant
number" of workers to remain on the job two-to-four years longer than workers
have in the past A "significant number" was defined as at least half who want
to stay On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "highly unlikely" and 10 being
"highly likely," the median answer was a 6 - which the Center characterizes as a
"lukewarm" willingness to retain older employees

Not surprisingly, the study found that companies are
more likely to oblige older workers if they expect a need for expanding their
payrolls or if they recognize that experienced employees hold useful
institutional knowledge But companies that view older workers as high salaried
and costly said they weren't inclined to accommodate their desire to continue
working Click here to see the full report

 

Perhaps in Georgia

On the other hand, the interest in older workers could
get closer to simmering than lukewarm in Georgia According to the AARP and the
Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, between 2005 and 2025 Georgia's population
of residents age 65 and older will increase rapidly while its under-24 cohort
will be shrink All this while the state's economy is in Sun Belt expansion
mode For seniors that means opportunity as savvy employers turn to mature
workers to staff their firms

The AARP/GBPI study says that the trends in Georgia offer chances
for older workers to transfer their skill sets in one occupation to a job in
related field where openings are more abundant

 

To Get A Good Job

It's a saying that's as old as dirt: "To get a good
job, you need a good education" The labor situation in Massachusetts in 2006
bears that out According to the monthly Current Population Surveys, the state's
jobless level ranged from 83 percent for those with less than a high school
education to 28 percent for those with a BA degree or higher

 

Reading The Economic Tea
Leaves

HR managers and other corporate execs who follow
leading indicators of how the economy will behave, might consider the current
slowdown in staffing industry growth as ominous Temporary employment is often
considered a harbinger of things to come In the first quarter of this year,
America's staffing industry companies employed an average of 28 million
temporary and contract workers per day, down 18 percent from the same period in
2006, according to the American Staffing Association That follows a similar
year-to-year decline in the fourth quarter and little growth in the third
quarter of last year

So are we headed for a national recession? Not this
year or next, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's/Economycom
Speaking in Boston last month Zandi said that corporate profits have doubled
during the past five years and profit growth precedes job growth by about a
year In other words, because companies have seen their bottom lines improve,
they're more confident about hiring people

Richard Wahlquist, president of the ASA, says the
staffing industry slowdown is due to a "slowed economy and a tight labor
market" We don't disagree