By Julie French

The Daily Northwestern

Most career fairs require business attire and a firm handshake.

But students looking to work for some companies can now chat with recruiters from the comfort of their dorm rooms.

From May 15 to 17, six companies will host the first online job fair in the virtual world Second Life, where characters representing candidates and recruiters can interact.

Second Life, a 3-D online world created in 2003, allows users to interact via avatars, or virtual characters. Registration is free, but users pay for avatar accessories and entertainment. More than 6 million registered users frequent the site for business and entertainment.

Companies and individuals continually find innovative uses for the virtual world, such as campaigning for elections and advertising businesses. Some businesses see online recruiting as the next step to attracting technology-savvy employees.

McCormick freshman Nikola Borisov learned about Second Life at an IBM conference, where the company was using the virtual world to hold meetings online. Borisov said he could see the benefits of holding a career fair online.

“I like the idea of being able to meet with people around the world and speak to each other like it’s a conference room,” he said.

He recently interviewed with Microsoft, which required him to travel four hours each way. An interview in Second Life would have saved him time, but “it will never be the same as going to see the real Microsoft,” he said.

Company representatives said this career fair, like others, serves to establish initial contact.

“It’s not a face-to-face event, but there is no difference,” said Tim Holt, project manager for national recruiting for Verizon, another of the fair’s hosts. “We’re going to move forward with those candidates in the same way we normally would.”

Holt said the fair will provide the opportunity to find candidates comfortable with technology, and someone with weak social skills could still do well in the initial online portion of recruiting.

The advantages of a virtual career fair are not just for candidates, he said. Holt’s recruiters will save time on travel, meet applicants from around the world and enhance Verizon’s reputation as a company using cutting-edge technology.

Verizon has received “quite a few” candidates, and Holt said he will consider the fair a success regardless of how many hires it yields. He said he hopes to make it a standard recruiting tool.

Communication senior Jared Kling said he only would consider attending a virtual fair if more companies were involved or if he was looking for a job in technology.

“In other areas, the employers or the applicants aren’t going to have their stuff together to do something like this,” he said.

Other companies involved in the fair include eBay, T-Mobile and Hewlett-Packard.

Recruiters from SodexhoUSA – the only company hosting the virtual fair that does not specialize in technology – were “begging” to be involved, said Arie Ball, Sodexho’s vice president of sourcing and talent acquisition.

Anyone can participate in the fair but must register in advance and be invited by a company.

Reach Julie French at [email protected].