Headhunter: Employers Hate World Of Warcraft Players | Hacker News Reader

Headhunter: Employers Hate World Of Warcraft Players

alleyinsider.com

10 pointsescapade33 comments

No surprise there. I estimate playing WoW is more addictive and harmful to your productivity than smoking marijuana, and certainly you wouldn't mention the latter to a prospective employer. "Hate" is going a little too far though - probably the manager in question had a bad experience in the past. I doubt if you were a productive employee and you mentioned you play WoW if they would start hating you.

Raising my hand as someone who's had a bad experience with an MMORPG addict on a team.

The thing about smoking marijuana is that it's not incompatible with heightened creativity. Some would even say that it helps.

http://www.marijuana-uses.com/essays/002.html

I suspect that WoW can be conducive to creativity, but for hard-core players this is often focused entirely on goals in-game. So in the case of hard-core players, the chances are that an employer will only lose out from decreased productivity. (Lack of sleep.)

Contrast this with interests in music, art, or sports, where employers can often stand to gain indirectly from even an employee's avid participation. Sometimes they gain directly, as in Shigeru Miyamoto.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sect...

I estimate playing WoW is more addictive and harmful to your productivity than smoking marijuana...

Depends on what you're smoking. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=238579

There's 11 million people playing WoW, with different levels of playtime/dedication. It's a bit excessive to try to put all these people in the same can.

I would trust psychological tests rather than just assume all WoW players are irresponsible people just cause you met one silly guy who happened to play WoW.

At my company, around 12 people are WoW players. I play WoW myself and even my boss did until a year ago. Problems with any of us? None.

There's more than 11 million people using drugs, with different levels of use/dedication. It's a bit excessive to try to put all these people in the same can.

I would trust psychological tests rather than just assume all drug users are irresponsible people just cause you met one silly guy who happened to smoke pot.

At my company, around 12 people are drug users. I use drugs myself and even my boss did until a year ago. Problems with any of us? None.

I agree. (I don't think that was effective at making the point you wanted.)

Yeah. Actually, a better analogy would be alcohol use, since drug use is illegal (and WoW playing isn't).

What if a company had a bad experience with an alcoholic employee, so they refused to hire anyone who drinks at all?

Gaming = legal. Drugs = illegal (generally). Although I did meet a couple of people that were really good at their jobs and I later found out were drug users. This is what taught me not to assume or generalise stuff about others before even getting a first impression.

We can play this game and substitute drugs or WoW for anything you want, it will still work, yes. What does that mean? That the problem the object of addiction is not really a problem by itself. The person, who is weak and gets addicted, is the problem. The ones that lose control and become slaves of their desire. Drugs in that sense are more powerful because they create a physical addiction, not just mental. Games are more addicting than e.g. TV because interaction provides more satisfaction than just being a mere spectator.

But some people can still seize control over this and not let it overrun their lives, while others just let themselves go and end up with a huge problem on their hands. I'd say the first group is a very interesting group of people, they show mental strength.

These kind of personal qualities you can find with psychotechnical tests, that's what I meant with my original message. Isn't that what headhunters are supposed to do? Find skilled people and then study their personality to see if they are adequate for their company.

I dunno, yeah, stereotypes tend to have a kernel of truth to them, and I wouldn't hire someone who played WoW 40 hours a week, but I probably wouldn't hire someone who did something innocuous (say, photography) for 40 hours a week. A casual interest/hobby is beneficial to a person.

Then again, I'd have to seriously question the judgment of a person who puts WoW on their resume.

I definitely wouldn't hire someone who played for 40 hours a week, but if it's more reasonable, like 10-15, it essentially becomes a replacement for stuff like watching tv or movies.

The problem is that games like WOW are designed to be addictive, especially at the endgame levels. My college room mate ended up playing for more than 2000 hours before he quit, and it's not been great for him - he's been jobless for two years since graduation.

Seriously. I played a vast amount too -- I just did the math and it was probably around 4000 hours, a number I can barely believe in retrospect. Although I finally quit for good nearly two years ago, I feel as though the game _emptied my life_. I was fortunate to have a support group outside the game who kept me involved in recurring real-life activities, or perhaps it would have been worse.

Lucky for me, I quit the game because I moved to New York to work full time. But I've heard a lot of horror stories of people dropping out of college or life itself due to MMOs.

Would definitely have doubts about anyone who talked about the project management experience they gained from the game.

Let me get this right.

This is an article by a guy who was told by a guy who was told by a headhunter who was told by an employer that WOW players are bad employees?

I wouldn't draw any conclusions from this.

As often happens, the discussion here is better than the article.

I play WoW 10-15 hours a week with the wife, in-laws, and other IRL friends. It's a great family activity and helps me keep in touch with friends from high school that now live hundreds of miles away.

I also put in ~50 hours/week into my job at a startup, and have been told I write good code. I'd wager I'm not a bad employee.

I'd agree that WoW addicts wouldn't make great employees. However, there's a huge difference between a WoW addict and a WoW player, please don't lump us together.

As a level 73 priest, I agree. Nothing wrong with taking the game leisurely. There were some weeks when guildies thought I quit WoW simply because I wasn't around for such a long time, but sometimes work needs the focus. I think you're likely to take the game more leisurely if you play with real-life-friends versus 40 people you've never met.

62 Hunter, here. What server are you on?

And I agree about playing with real-life friends vs. online people. I took a two-year break from the game just because all of my friends dropped out for various reasons. Only just got back into it a few months ago to play with the family.

Ask HN: Who hates WOW players more -- employers or girls?

Employers. Because some WOW players actually get jobs.

</Generalisation>

I think they're implying causation where correlation exists. I'm guessing most WoW addicts (and there are lots of casual players, who can be fine employees) are simply obsessive types who would be attacking some other hobby full force if not for WoW. D&D, building a robot in their garage, whatever.

Except D&D and robot building are creative activities, which WoW doesn't seem to be.

I don't see how WoW is any different than D&D, especially to an employer.

For D&D people often create their own stories, and they display their imagination in acting it out (even with pre-fabricated stories, the options for actions are infinite). WoW only allows you to follow actions that have been written into the game by Blizzard. I think it is very different.

However, you are right, employers might not know the difference.

I've never played, but my perception (from what I've heard) is that in D&D one person does the creating and the rest just sort of play. Is that inaccurate?

I really just meant it as an example of a hobby people obsess about though. I don't doubt it's a little more food for the brain than WoW, which I rank possibly below reality television.

One person creates the story, but playing is really roleplaying. The players can conceive the wildest actions, and the master has to come up with a reasonable continuation of the story, often improvising on the fly. I think it is not uncommon that things go entirely different than originally planned.

Sometimes one might even play a completely improvised story, it all depends on the group.

That definitely sounds more creative then, and actually maybe not a bad thing to look for in employees for certain jobs.

actually while WoW (or even warcraft) can be very addictive, it is very hard to make this prediction in isolation without looking at a candidate's job history or experience...

our team leader (who is very good at his job) is an avid WoW player (with about 6 characters going at a time)... at any point when i turn towards his monitor there is atleast one WoW related page on one of his monitors... while I do find that wierd, his productivity is not affected so what can you say about that??

but having said that I cant see a reason why you would put something like WoW in your resume in the first place... i mean you are trying to get a job here, not show you well you can cast a shrinking spell!

Don't worry - I'll quit WoW as soon as I can get my paws on Starcraft II.

I think RTS games are less addictive because they are broken up into discrete games and are much more intense in terms of mental energy and frantic clicking. Whenever I play a good game of StarCraft or WarCraft III, I usually feel really drained and don't feel at all like playing another game.

I agree. It seems like you never get enough oomph from an engrossing session of WoW - never really satisified, always feeling empty after the latest chapter/quest.

It's kind of like reading a Robert Kiyosaki book - getting to the end and needing to buy the next book right away. The content makes you feel good but it always leaves you feeling a bit undernourished, hoping the next fix will finally complete you - leaving you whole.

The preceding was a bit of self-reflection, perhaps. :)

Your probably better off not working at a company that "doesn't hire Xs".

I don't hire people that "don't hire Xs".

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