With almost five million ëresidentsí spending an equally impressive amount of real money every month, big businesses are taking notice of Second Life, the alternative web based universe where you create and inhabit another you.
Now advertising and communications agency TMP and Yell, the international directories company, are going one step further with a recruitment campaign in Second Life designed to bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds.
It is understood to be the first time a company in the UK has launched a recruitment campaign in Second Life to attract people to roles in the real world.
A team of avatars (the term for the digital characters that real people create online to inhabit Second Life) has been recruited and kitted out in distinctive yellow t-shirts, promoting Yellís career website www.yellcareers.com.
They will wander around busy Second Life areas at key times of the day chatting to other avatars, offering information and answering questions about careers with Yell, whose product range includes the UKís Yellow Pages directories.
The online recruitment team will also direct other avatars to Yell phone boxes, specially-created for the Second Life environment and that provide a direct link to www.yellcareers.com.They will be sited strategically in busy areas so that passing avatars can pop in to the phone box and be transported back to reality ñ courtesy of Yell.
So why are one of the UKís biggest advertising and communication agencies and an international directories business, making their first moves into Second Life? ìItís simple,î explains Dave Runacres, National Account Director at TMP.
ìYell is a brand with its finger on the pulse of new technology and has a track record of utilising it to enhance its business, particularly with regard to the internet and mobile services. So it was natural that they would be amongst the first businesses in the UK to really start exploring the possibilities of Second Life. Itís potentially an excellent, low cost way of reinforcing their brand.î
ìThis approach is perfectly aligned with our brand,î says Isabelle Hung, Head of National Resourcing at Yell in the UK. ìAs a business weíre constantly looking to develop new products to maintain our position at the head of our field. The kind of people who are using Second Life may have just the right blend of creativity and innovation that weíre looking for in our future talent.î
TMP helps Yell take first steps in second life for recruitment drive
It is understood to be the first time a company in the UK has launched a recruitment campaign in Second Life to attract people to roles in the real world
