Recruiters Not Hiring Gamers?

[Stephen of Borg 2]

Putting a bullet-point-friendly spin on your leisure activities is a time-honored resume-writing tradition. All that time playing Diner Dash? "Experience in working in a fast-paced environment." A Solitaire addict? "Focused and goal-oriented." Lead a raid party in World of Warcraft? "Managed a 40-strong team of experts." A 20,000 Gamerscore on Xbox Live? "Demonstrated track record of success."

 

But in the future, you might want to think twice about being too up front about your Bejeweled skills on job applications, as some recruiters are actively avoiding gamers.

 

Over to Tale, a poster on gaming site f13.net's forums, who claims he was told by a recruiter that "employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players."

 

According to the unnamed recruiter, "...there is a belief that [World of Warcraft] players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc."

 

We'd be lying if we said we hadn't had the odd bleary-eyed work morning after a long night's gaming. But what about those media reports about game leadership experience teaching management skills? Tale reports the recruiter just shook his head.

 

You may or may not put much stock in the words of a mostly-anonymous forum poster, but true or not, he's got a point. As the job market gets tighter, anything that might hint at a candidate's shortcomings just doesn't belong on a resume. And on that note, if you'll excuse us, we have some rewriting to do.