Accenture Careers

How odd? No sooner do I blog about one recruitment site, than another hoves into view. Thanks to Torrid Luna for informing me about this. It seems that the sim - Accenture Careers - opened today. This is actually one of a 6-sim cluster, but the others - if the map is to be believed - are still largely wide open, pastoral spaces. I have been keeping a beady eye on this one for some time, waiting for it to open - or for some news to emerge about it.

I have posted about Accenture before - indeed, I have posted about this 6-sim cluster - so you will forgive me if I don't go over old ground. Instead, I will endeavour to tell you a little about the sim. Most of the sim is there to offer the Accenture Challenge (there's a picture of the trophy in the slideshow below) which appears to consist of a number of fun tests, under 3 categories: Physical, Mental and Team. There are 3 tests in each category.

Can you: remember stuff? Do anagrams? Aim a trebuchet? Solve puzzles? If so, you might enjoy the challenges on offer here. Or you might prefer to watch your mates' pathetic attempts. I don't know when the Challenge comes to a close - if ever - but you at least stand to get your name on the leader board. And before you mention it - I know mine is not present. I might take an alt through these puzzles and tests, but as sure as eggs is eggs, I ain't exposing poor old Al to the rigours of this lot! Elsewhere on the sim there is a chatbot for you to talk to about Life, the Universe and Everything - though don't be surprised if it fails your personal Turing Test. There's also a guided tour of the sim, if you haven't already strolled through it. For those of a more nautical bent, you can grab a paddle and propel a canoe among the creeks and streams that criss-cross the sim. There are places around the sim where you can supply feedback too.

As well as the various challenges - there is a multi-lingual tower of information. Or to put it another way... there is a tower, in which each floor offers the same company information and quiz in a different language (ground floor for English). Hmmm... I'm not sure that explained it any better... oh well. Next door is the interview room (I think).

Rather than being an out-and-out recruitment venue, I get the feeling this site is more a means for engaging with SL residents, and in particular,making contact with those that might be a good fit for a career in Accenture. But all of this in a very relaxed way (a term I would not normally apply to Accenture!) : "Come and have fun in our intellectual playground, and who knows? You might want to know more about us - and vice versa."

The build itself is very enjoyable. It mixes almost ghostly, washed-out or semi-transparent shapes with sharp, crisp ones, giving a gently surreal yet serene air to the place. If you know anything about building with Windlight you are probably familiar with the "glow" setting on textures. I may be wrong, but it looks like this has been used extensively, and may account for the otherworldly lighting effects and soft-focus look. I like to nose about, as you probably know, and by checking "created by" properties on several diverse objects I can conclude that the build has been carried out by a team from The Project Factory, who really should find time to update their website some time!

One final point - possibly already fixed: there is an Orientation Zone on the adjacent Accenture 5 sim that should presumably be open, but is currently closed. Interestingly, the auditorium, which shares the same sim is open to the public.

Well enough of the wordage - here's my extensive slideshow. It's a fairly safe bet with me that the more pictures I've taken, the more impressed I am with the build. There's 19 here - which I reckon is a thumbs up from me:

Spanish Jobs with Infoempleo

I've been meaning to visit the Infoempleo island in Second Life for a couple of weeks now, since discovering that my company's Spanish division had taken part in a recruitment fair there in mid-October. I finally got around to it tonight. It took me a bit of digging to find an English language description of the company, but eventually I found this:

• Infoempleo.com is Spain’s leading employment site for qualified job seekers. With over 15.000 vacancies and more than 1.4 million registered users, Infoempleo is an ideal meeting point for candidates and employers and a comprehensive showcase of the Spanish labour market. Infoempleo is also notable for its specialisation. As well as being a general employment site, we offer nine specialised channels focusing on specific industry sectors. These channels represent an excellent source of information and job opportunities in consulting, finance, construction, auditing, tourism, telecommunications, IT, secretarial and franchising.

They have a rather busy site in Second Life, comprising 4 tall pillars, each supporting a number of interview platforms (each basically a room and some brand information), along with an auditorium at ground level. At the time of writing, it appears to be supporting 19 different Spanish companies. I don't intend to list them, but you can perhaps discern who they are on the sign in the picture set below. Among the list, I spotted several IT consultancies (including the one I work for) and a couple of banks.



The site is perhaps best described as "functional." It is there to do a job, and people will come here because they are interested in the jobs available, rather than to marvel at the architecture. But I was concerned about how close the various platforms were to one another. I'm sure the distances have been calculated (surely!) to avoid "conversational leakage" from one to another. Also, I am not sure whether all of these companies were holding inworld interviews on the same day.

Whatever the truth of the matter, it is encouraging to see Spain taking a role in Second Life. Kzero has some interesting stats (from May'07) on Spanish residents in Second Life, while highlighting in this article (from June'07) the general absence of Spanish companies. Perhaps that imbalance is changing.

Accenture Scales Up

Accenture, one of the world's leading IT consultancies, is taking a well-trodden and reliable route into Second Life. Some months ago (I lose count - 6, maybe?) they established a private island called Accenture Techlabs. This was then followed by a small amount of hullaballoo when Accenture Italia showcased an office on one the Italian sims (reviewed at Kzero). Not long after, this Italian business unit acquired its own island, while the French tried their hand at recruitment in Second Life (covered here).

Now, after all these disparate dabblings, I find that a 6-sim island has appeared on the map, unsurprisingly named Accenture 1-6. At the moment these are closed to ramblers, but this is hardly surprising, as the Map View indicates that they are still in the early stages of development. Indeed, 2 of the islands still look to be in their default, delivered state.

For all I know, there are other islands - not emblazoned with the company name - where they are working with customers. I would be surprised if they weren't.

This approach reminds me very much of another IT company in Second Life. Starting with small, private, regional (or business vertical) sites to test out the feasibility, then ramping up to a significant presence once internal buy-in had been achieved - with a mix of both private and public sites. The boys at eightbar will doubtless recognise this - even if I have over-simplified things. The Accenture build may not (yet) be anything like the same scale - but it does seem to be following a similar track. And very effective it is too.

You have to start small unless you already have top level buy-in - and that would be verging on the miraculous, to put it mildly. The best way to get the necessary buy-in is using a low cost "build and promote" approach. Until your colleagues have actually got their virtual hands on Second Life, they probably will not "get it." So build something privately that gives management or, rather, the key influencers an opportunity to try out the environment. Once they have seen for themselves at first hand, then getting approval for scaling up should be relatively easy. Interest groups with their own agendas spring up, and the build can diversify to encompass a wide range of activities and objectives. However, merely constructing a "field of dreams" is not enough. Internal communication and promotion is vital, in order to spread the word, and to build and maintain the momentum.

Of course, this may not be behind Accenture's ramp-up, but it certainly seems plausible to me.