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VANCOUVER — When Inspector Kevin McQuiggin held a recent Vancouver police recruitment session, he found himself surrounded by individuals sporting spiky hairdos, wings and mercenary outfits.
But Insp. McQuiggin was not alarmed by his peculiar audience: This was Second Life, not reality.
Any one of those individuals may make an excellent police officer, Insp. McQuiggin said.
Faced with fierce competition for technologically skilled workers, the Vancouver Police Department is now recruiting on Second Life, joining a growing number of organizations turning to the virtual online community to find employees for real-life positions.
Members of the Vancouver Police Department recently created online personas on Second Life for their real-life recruiters.
But companies, such as Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, that are experimenting with recruiting and interviewing candidates in the virtual world are finding they need to adjust to new rules of conduct - and accept that job candidates may look unconventional online.
Recruiters and job seekers on Second Life and other virtual communities create avatars, computer-generated digital characters that interact with each other. Users can tailor their look, dress and even species however they wish.
Insp. McQuiggin, who heads the department's tech crimes unit, says police officers created their own avatars and held an information session on Second Life last month as a way of attracting tech-savvy individuals who can be trained to investigate technology-related crimes.
"We have to look at how technology is pervasive in society, and how it's going to become more so. We have to recruit people that are going to understand that," he says. "The kind of people we get through Second Life are people who have a predisposition to technology."
Major companies are also drawn to recruiting online because it expands their global reach. Second Life is home to more than seven million avatars whose real-life players log on from around the world.
In May, the U.S.-based recruitment and advertising firm TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications held its first virtual job fair, which included Hewlett-Packard and Verizon.
The event attracted hundreds of applicants, and TMP is planning another job fair next month.
Gerri Sinclair, who helped the Vancouver police join Second Life, says virtual reality environments are poised to change how all sectors of society communicate.
"Over time, I think, the entire Internet will look more like Second Life ," says Ms. Sinclair, director of the masters of digital media program at Vancouver's Great Northern Way Campus.
After initial contact online, potential job candidates must still be interviewed in real life, and all the regular hiring procedures apply, Insp. McQuiggin says.
"Certainly, we're not going to hire them just based on Second life contact," he says.
Following June's virtual recruitment session, the Vancouver Police Department received three résumés by e-mail, and granted an interview to one candidate who attended the session online from Italy.
Carlos Krefft, 30, a software developer in Florida, attended TMP's virtual job fair as a female avatar he named Dragon Ritt.
Mr. Krefft says he thinks his interviewers realized he was actually a man, since he revealed his real name upon meeting them. "I'm pretty sure they knew," he says. "They didn't mention it."
Choosing a female character was far from outrageous, he says, especially considering one job-hunting avatar appeared as a teddy bear.
Job interviews on Second Life are much less stressful than in a real setting, Mr. Krefft says, since avatars communicate through instant messaging.
But, as Mr. Krefft discovered, it is still possible to make faux pas during virtual interactions.
Avatars can be tricky to manoeuvre. A click of the wrong key can send an avatar hurtling into a wall, which can be awkward when trying to make a good first impression.
Mr. Krefft says when his avatar reached into his files to hand a Hewlett-Packard representative his résumé, he presented her with a beer instead.
"She had it in her hand for quite some time, before she, you know, detached it from herself," he says, laughing.
Such gaffes, however, can help break the ice, and Hewlett-Packard went on to offer Mr. Krefft another interview. He later withdrew his application when he accepted a job elsewhere.
Most employers are also new to Second Life so they tend to be understanding of candidates' wild costumes and online blunders, says Russell Miyaki, TMP's vice-president of interactive strategy.
But, he says, some rules of etiquette still apply.
Job applicants should make their avatars unique, but elements such as blinking lights can be too distracting.
Recruiters should also ensure their avatars reflect their company's image and dress accordingly, he says.
As with e-mails, a conversation typed in all capital letters means an avatar is shouting, which would be inappropriate.
Mr. Miyaki also suggests both recruiters and candidates should avoid long lulls in online conversation, so as not to appear uninterested.
If one party needs to pause and research something before giving a response, he or she should alert the other person, he says.
Old-fashioned manners, however, go a long way, whether a candidate is speaking to a recruiter online or in person, Insp. McQuiggin says.
And for employers, he adds, the old adage about reserving judgment holds true.
"I think it would be wrong of us to judge [candidates] on initial contact," he says. "It's all about who they are as people."
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