An unlikely employer has started using Second Life for recruiting purposes: the Vancouver Police Department. The approach was modeled on a school recruiting initiative from the Great Northern Way Campus in BC, which has built a replica of their college campuses in Second Life as a student recruiting initiative. From the Vancouver Sun:
The rationale for the sci-fi approach to recruitment is simple, says Insp. Kevin McQuiggin, head of the department's tech crimes division: If people are on Second Life, they're likely to be web-savvy, a quality the police department is looking for in new recruits.
This kind of reminds me of a call center recruiting campaign I worked on years ago in the beginning days of the Internet. The employer I worked with needed computer skills, and we figured that if someone could use the Internet they would already be demonstrating these skills. The return was huge, and the technology created a sort of hiring bar that ensured that only minimally qualified people came to them.
Yet there's an even more important set of reasons for VPD's foray into Second Life: getting ahead of cyber crime. While they're not quite ready to police avatar behavior, the VPD wants to better understand the ways new technologies might be used one day to commit or warn of crimes in the real world before they happen.
"Any new media that comes out, any new form of communication, crime is going to migrate there." That's where the virtual recruitment seminar will help, he says."As we move into the future, we're going to need people who understand technology -- that are conversant with it, that understand the impact of it and understand how to use it," McQuiggin says.
Even if you're not planning to recruit in the metaverse any time soon, it would be wise to at least understand it.
It's cool to see police departments out innovating other orgs; even if it is innovation for innovation's sake.
The LAPD has a pretty cool site as well..
http://www.jobsearchmarketing.com/2007/01/want_more_recru.html
Posted by: Matt Martone | July 09, 2007 at 06:35 AM
I don't know if I'd say it's innovation for innovation's sake. For a recruiting event once a month - a few hours of time - I'm sure they get some great, very targeted candidates. Plus the PR boost is significant, which is pretty much free advertising.
Posted by: Dave Lefkow | July 11, 2007 at 05:04 PM