World of Warcraft and Your Resume

Well, maybe not yours, but there's a piece in The Washington Post today by Darren Gladstone from PC World that discusses the transferable skills from World of Warcraft (WoW) and other multiplayer online video games. At last year's NACE, I heard a story about a guy applying for a job at Yahoo who had a terrible resume, but included his rank in WoW. A sympathetic hiring manager brought him in for an interview and he got the job.

Organized and led my 50-member guild through three successful back-to-back Nexus runs." You don't see that written on anyone's résumé, but apparently some folks do list the level and class of their World of Warcraft characters. This might seem a little far-fetched, but associate professor--and director of MIT's Education Arcade Program--Eric Klopfer says that a number of recent studies have examined what practical skills a person can pick up by playing electronic games. Can you legitimately learn something from WoW besides efficient techniques for slinging fireballs at foes? Klopfer points to Constance Steinkeuhler's work at UW Wisconsin. She is "showing that people are developing and applying all kinds of useful skills in World of Warcraft--data collection and analysis, collaboration, planning, resource management and even team management." Remove the "WoW" identification from the place of employment, and all of these accomplishments look fantastic on a résumé.

Transferable skills are transferable skills!

Photo by Christian Labarca.