'Evolution,' Not 'Revolution' To Employee Focus For Biz VWs
A recent ECT Tech News piece talks with Louis Vong, VP of strategy for recruitment firm TMP Worldwide, about the efforts of enterprise in and outside the tech sector to enter virtual worlds for their recruitment activities.
Several recruitment agencies have held recruitment events in Second Life, or opened offices there, and TMP also consults with such agencies to help employers get up to speed on networking with potential new hires in virtual spaces. This is important, says Vong, because of future generations' steadily-increasing engagement with these kids of worlds.
At the same time, it's not necessarily entirely new ground, as the article explains:
Despite the press these high-profile recruiting events receive, though, the move to virtual worlds for workforce activities is part of an evolution, not necessarily a revolution. Employers have used social networking sites like MySpace Latest News about MySpace and Facebook Latest News about Facebook to meet and learn about prospective employees for years, Vong explained. "Some enterprise recruiters are looking at social networking sites as part of their research on potential job candidates," he said. Then, he added the admonition almost everyone will make about those sites: "Job candidates have to be very cognizant of what they post online, as a potential employer could be reviewing it."What is making a difference today, Vong noted, is the fact that several major social networking sites have opened their APIs (application programming interfaces). This allows third-party developers -- such as those working for recruiting firms or large employers -- to create applications built to be used on a specific sites. "Within Facebook," Vong noted, "there are quite a few applications created specifically for employment-related content. TMP recently launched an application for Facebook called 'Work with Me,' which is an employee referral program tool that employees can attach to their profile."
The article's overall message is that development in this direction, as regards staffing, will be more "evolution" than "revolution," and other experts note that how quickly enterprise focus will shift from using virtual worlds for consumers to using virtual worlds for employees remains to be seen.
