Crap! I did that too… Moved my furniture, ran a proxy server… But not for fantasy football or WoW… I did it for BoingBoing, Google News, and Slashdot.

Fortunately for me my employer judges me based on what I get done, and not some other random metric. On some days I may not get any work done at all, but in aggregate I accomplish as much or more than my co-workers.

I agree, though, that it’s dumb to put “hobbies” on your resume. Unless the hobbies are directly related to your work.

That said, I would probably not list WoW or sports fantasy leagues as hobbies on my resume (neither of those are actual hobbies of mine, but if they were). I’d list the hobbies that make me sound smart, useful, or cultured, if I was going to list any hobbies at all.

Without WoW, life has no purpose, and work is a mindless drudgery punctuated by the periods of sleep and apathy that is not WoW.

God, how I wish there was a harder drug than WoW.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?
Hey wait that one has a quest!

Diff’rent strokes.

This recruiter sounds like they are working for people who read “some article online” about how “Warcrafting is dangerous”. Let’s hope they don’t read about soccer hooligans.

One of those instances worked directly for me. I was ultimately forced to fire him for absenteeism, but I couldn’t say whether it was related to his gaming habit or his drug use.

I guess that speaks to the addictive personality issue.

SKR: Absolutely not.
Please don’t ask about EVE.
Please don’t ask about EVE.
Please don’t ask about EVE.

Interviewer: Great, when can you start.

SKR: On Monday.
but I have a fleet battle on Friday, so I’m going to take a sick day.

What you do, if you’re any good at resume writing at all, is filter your hobby/interests, and only list the ones that you can ALSO accompany with a short blurb describing what that hobby has taught you that is useful in your prospective work environment, or what quality(ies) it demonstrates that your employer would appreciate.

If you paint watercolours of your cat which you never show to anyone, perhaps don’t list it. But if you paint watercolours and occasionally exhibit or sell them at local craft fairs (especially for charity fundraising), you probably can list it. If you’re going for an IT sector job, you SHOULD list it because it shows you’re a well-rounded person who cares about more than just computers – and therefore should be slightly less insufferable than perhaps the other guy.

If you cycle occasionally, perhaps not. If you’re in a cycling club, list it, and note that you attend regularly and generally have good physical fitness.

I wouldn’t put “WoW Player” on a resume. If I actually served in an officer position for an extended period of time, worked on building raiding team listings and scheduling around raiders availability, that’s a useful management skill and worth commenting on. “Officer for 2 mos (and then burnt out and quit)”, no. “Officer for 2 years”, then yes, but don’t for the love of god list your guilds progression, stress instead the administrative tasks you performed, which are what you actually LEARNED or EXHIBITED that might be relevant to your job.

I’ve known some WoW players who made great coworkers, and who “performed” better than me at work (I don’t play WoW.)

Then again, I’ve seen WoW players for whom the game takes over and it hurts their performance.

I’ve seen how MMORPGs have made some players better managers, but I’ve also seen such games make people skip work, school, etc.

Interviewers and recruiters should already be good enough judges of character to figure out if the person across from them has control over the game, or whether the game has control over them. If they can’t do that, they’re not fit to be recruiters or to work in HR.

I think it’s also worth noting that none of us are TV watchers, and nobody complains about TV causing their employees to stay up too late or be distracted, and yet, many people put more hours into watching TV than I or my sibs do into playing World of Warcraft. There are people who spend more time drinking or watching sports or gambling….you could be addicted to anything, but what happens in the off-hours should stay in the off-hours.

(Everyone in my family plays World of Warcraft, incidentally. Both my parents, all of my sibs, one of my brothers-in-law, my cousins, and my cousins kid. We have a family guild even, although since they are all Alliance, and I am Horde, I tend to play my little draenei when they ask to spend time with me. Here’s how nerdy my family is: They are planning the next family picture to be our avatars riding our war bears.)

I think you should realize it’s bad when you setup vacation time for when the expansion comes out.
(I know people plan vacation time for “fun” activites as well, but there is a fine line between a hobby and when that hobby becomes work.)

However, having been the only non-parent in a department on a couple of occasions, I think I’d be more concerned about parents than WoW players. I have certainly worked more overtime covering for parents than gamers.

Moderation: “Moderation in all things, including moderation.” :Aristotle:

A lot of commenters criticize employers for judging candidates without really getting to know those candidates on an individual level. Unfortunately, this is how the hiring process works. A resume and an interview aren’t adequate substance for an employer to look into a person’s soul.

If only 25% of WoW players make inadequate or downright bad employees, would that make hiring one an acceptable risk? If you were a small company who hires a new employee every 1-2 years, would you be willing to take on the expense of a new hire with a 1 in 4 chance of failing you?

I also didn’t hire the guy who told me that he liked to take windy afternoons off to go sailing.

Nothing wrong with applying a little selectivity to your hiring process, and weeding out the people who say, “I don’t really like to work” is a good start. (Maybe everyone thinks it, but the level of cluelessness it takes to say it to your potential boss is… is… I don’t even know what it is. But I’m not hiring them.)

A lot of commenters criticize employers for judging candidates without really getting to know those candidates on an individual level. Unfortunately, this is how the hiring process works. A resume and an interview aren’t adequate substance for an employer to look into a person’s soul.

If only 25% of WoW players make inadequate or downright bad employees, would that make hiring one an acceptable risk? If you were a small company who hires a new employee every 1-2 years, would you be willing to take on the expense of a new hire with a 1 in 4 chance of failing you?

It definitely can affect peoples job performance.

Occasionally he played other games as well, evidenced by the shouts of “Boom! Headshot!”

Now he has a job testing video cards for either nVidia or ATI, I forget which. Go figure.

He could describe that as “playing WOW,” but he can just as truthfully say “I like spending time with my grandchildren,” which is unexceptionable.

That trick works with a lot of nonstandard interests. SCA: “We go camping a lot.” Online forums: “Just hanging out and chatting with my friends.” Obsessive collector: “We love going to flea markets on weekends.” Neopagan: “I do volunteer work with a group from my church.”

Good names for guilds: Fraternal Organization. Support Group. Local Library. Amway Sales Reps.