SLENTRE.COM

By Sigmund Leominster, News Editor

On Thursday May 29th, 2008, GAX Technologies will host the second Working Worlds Career Fair in Second Life. The aim is to provide an online venue for job seekers wanting to work in the Benelux countries; Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Some of the biggest corporate employees in Europe will be present to take applications, present their companies, and even interview candidates for the positions available.

In order to participate and have an interview planned in advance, candidates need to leave their CV at www.working-worlds.com anytime from the 15th of September, 2007. Professionals will have their own customized offices or rented spaces – designed by GAX – where they can hold interviews, create new contacts, and hold company presentations. Each participating company can profit from the job-trade market while simultaneously showing off their innovative and creative images worldwide.

GAX’s Managing Director, Cornelia den Hartog – Second Life name GAXDirector Weston – offered her thoughts and comments on the venture during a recent in-world interview at the offices of Wilder Public Relations, Inc.
“Primarily, GAX Technologies is an IT solution company and we work mostly on browser-based software. We have created our own CMS and we create a lot of websites. But last year, we decided that if we can offer a website service, we should also be able to offer a virtual world presence. As a start, we created our own offices. Here in Luxembourg, we were the first and it became a real hit. Our Minister of Economics even did an official opening by planting the Luxembourgish flag.
“Following the opening, we got a lot of demands for Real Life and Second Life jobs. Now in Luxembourg – and some other parts of Europe – there is a big demand for candidates on all levels and branches. So we decided to do something for our clients and that is how we started with the first job fair.”
I asked her how successful the previous fair had been.
“Well, about 2000 people attended and some 300 interviews were done. These were real interviews that took more than 15 minutes. It was a great experience for recruiters as well as for the candidates. It saves a lot of time and travelling fees, and the interviews were very direct. Candidates and recruiters felt freer to go directly to the essential questions. Around 50 people got RL jobs here in Luxembourg, which is huge for such a small country. This year, we have more job offers and a bigger diversity of companies; so I hope to at least double the visitors.”
Cornelia explained that in terms of any return on investment in this venture, current RL profits are limited. “We had to invest a lot – in the islands, in the website, and in the software to handle the profiles of the candidates. In fact, the Working-Worlds website has a whole job-board behind it, which we created ourselves.”
And the future for GAX and Second Life?
“Well, we have the third fair planned for more of Europe in November this year. We are going for Europe because we have already got some demands from outside the Benelux countries. I also think that one of the nice things on SL is that there are no borders and we should honor that. In fact, last time we had 45 different nationalities applying.
“We would also like to keep on using the communication possibilities of Second life, which for me are one of the most important features. We’d also like to promote the SL experience as a learning and convergence tool. We already started giving some language courses by supporting one company with their e-learning courses for financial services. I think this is one of the ways SL can be used as a real business tool. It is an addition, not a replacement, to the standard e-learning model.”

According to Annette Wilder, whose SL PR company is handling the GAX account in-world, “The Working Worlds sim is full of job opportunities in the areas of finance, information technology and telecommunications, industry, and commerce. The Career Fair is the most efficient solution currently available to these companies to reach beyond territorial limits and it does not require prospective employees to travel. You can sit in the comfort of your own home and attend an actual interview for the job of your dreams.”
Cornelia ended by asking me to encourage people to go to the job fair and take a look at what it is all about, even if it is simply to see how such an event takes place. Potential candidates can still register at the Working-Worlds web site.

Date: 29th May, 2008
Time: 10:00 am to 9:00 pm Central European Time (1:00 am to 12:00 noon SLT)
Slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Grand%20Ducale/129/97/22

For more information
GAX Technologies: http://www.gax.com
Working Worlds: http://www.working-worlds.com