In my daily forum hopping, I was inspired by a post that put Warcraft accomplishments into the language of business to write what follows. I've always been searching for a way to convey my accomplishments in Azeroth in a way that I wouldn't sound like a complete nutcase to a potential employer. However, I think this may be a start -
I'm a paladin class subject matter expert specializing in PvE, specificallyWhat do you think? Might this catch an employer's eye? Or would this get my resume flushed/filed in the circular bin?
talent specialization and PvE raiding. I have served in several organizations as
a paladin "team lead," delegating responsibilities for maximum efficiency and
effectiveness and making on-the-fly strategy changes to ensure maximum benefit
to the overall project.
Other skills & accomplishments:
- Coached and trained others in paladin strategy and skill usage, elevating
some to SME knowledge levels.- Participated in cutting edge projects in the local server community which
lead to breakthroughs in gear acquisition and bolstered recruiting efforts.- Served as a guild officer and leader, organizing and leading raid projects
from soup to nuts: managed attendance, delegated compensation "DKP" accrual
tracking, and headed up recruitment efforts across all candidate pipelines
(cross-server, local, and cross-class).- Founding member and ongoing contributor as a part of a paladin subject
matter online community, specifically for specialized paladin advanced tactics
and strategy as well as basic skills training.- Currently publishing a periodical online column devoted to paladin
training and development.
Posts
7 comments:
I think it's nice to see a resume-quality application here and there. Would definitely catch my attention!
I've been experimenting with a few new scoring calculations over at WoW Lemmings, and one of them is based on the "readability" of a person's application/forum post. I ran it against your resume-style post here and determined that:
1) Your Gunning-Fog index is 17+ (writing at the Post-Grad. level)
2) Your Flesch Reasing Ease is 38 (very complex)
For the record, the maximum score someone can get is 17 or over for #1 (you nailed that) and between 60-70 for #2 (which is a score range that is typically aimed for by authors).
Anything above 70 is very simplistic (childish?) and the lower the value below 60, the more complex and difficult it is to read.
I've never actually visited WoW Lemmings, but I've heard of it. I'm intrigued that they're incorporating indexes like the ones you took to my post... kinda want to know how they calculate those sorts of things!
So, ease of reading is too complex? I can dumb it down... I'll see what I can do on that front, if I ever tried to pass this off on my professional resume as extra-professional experience.
Good to know that I am writing at a post-grad level, though. Seeing as, ya know, I am a graduate student...
Binned. It's too game-focused, mentioning specific classes and mechanics.
Honestly, my advice is not to bother with trying to fit WoW experience on a resume. Kind of honestly, businesses really only care about work experience. Even academic, or volunteer work, is accorded less work.
True Rohan, it likely wouldn't be weighted as much by many professionals as "experience." And yes, the version I threw up there had some WoW jargon.
BUT.
If I put it at the end of the resume as a separate section and stripped out the jargon (lose the paladin name-dropping, eliminate references to DKP, etc), put it all in Project Management terminology and further refined it to read like a business engagement... I feel like some employers would take note of that.
It would take some additional refining (I threw that resume description together in about 10 minutes), but I really feel like I could spin my guild administration experience, as well as my paladin class lead experience, as true leadership and project work... just in a non-traditional setting.
I agree though, current state it'd be binned by a majority of employers.
Don't mention specifics: class, level, rank, PvE versus PvP, and so on. To anyone without a casual understanding of the game, that will confuse them. They'll disregard it entirely and then that leads to ignoring more. Instead, leave it very general.
I've had somewhat positive experience when I mention that I've led groups online, whether it's roleplaying groups, forums, or the like. Just make it very basic: manage a group of fifty people, provide insight into mechanics for a smaller group of twenty or so, offer guidance, delegate authority. With how tech-savvy we're supposed to be these days, combining leadership skills with online knowledge looks good.
Hell, it helped me get into a federal military academy eight years ago! However, mine was noting that I managed a group of writers across four continents and in twenty-something countries. Put in those terms, it sounds better than saying that I managed a roleplaying group for Warhammer 40,000!
I've always treated Wow in the Workplace like "fight club".
First 2 rules are you don't talk about it. Most people don't get it. While it is still becoming more and more main stream, there are still many who veiw it with a hint of stigma. I'd wait until after you ae hired for the group to find out you are a wow-nerd. Besides if they know you play wow you can never call in sick on release days with wow-itis b/c they know why you are gone. :)
I think you can actually use text like this in a resume. But do focus on the parts that you can port to the "real world": coaching, recruiting, organizing, problem solving...
It would then be put in the same section as coaching a soccer team.
I do go with Rohan, you should skip the game-specifics.
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