Dr. Darren Nicholson, assistant professor of management information systems (MIS) at Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J., said that such interviews are growing more prevalent as screening tools before companies bring candidates in for final, face-to-face interviews. But, he added, candidates should not see the virtual reality settings as an opportunity to slack off. Interviewers are judging those avatar alter egos on their dress and actions just as surely as they would the actual people behind them in a real-world meeting.
"Basically, senior executives in large organizations have embraced virtual world technologies, which include Second Life, as new paradigms or ways for social networking, collaborating, and interviewing," said Nicholson, who earned his Ph. D. in MIS and B.A. in business administration from Washington State University.
Some firms are holding second and third interviews in Second Life and related locations, where, Nicholson said, the environment mimics real life.
"You can have expressional relationships in Second Life that can say a lot about you. Are you wearing power red? Are you rearing dark blue? There are so many social indicators that we use in real life that are being transported into virtual universes," Nicholson said. "As such, you can tell a lot about people by their avatars' physical attributes because what they're doing — maybe unbeknownst to themselves — is creating characters with a lot of social cues and signals."
Second Life, he said, is a great proxy for filtering out social, as well as behavioral, characteristics that might closely relate to what firms are looking for or not looking for in an individual whom they already know has the necessary qualifications on paper. "People may be more prone to let down their guard in a virtual environment than in real life. I think you can learn a lot about people by the avatar they create and the way it acts," Nicholson said.
But, he cautioned, Second Life interviews may not be suitable for every interviewing situation or stage, e.g., final interviews. "They emerge as a virtual filtering process to explore some of the candidates', as well as the employers', personality and behavioral characteristics early on in the candidacy process."
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