Almost every news item these days is about job losses, bailouts and stimulus packages…pretty despairing stuff. This past January, 129,000 Canadians lost their jobs; Bombardier announced recently that it was laying off 1,320 employees; Chrysler is thinking of temporarily closing down some of its plants. One of these plants, with over 3,000 employees, is in my city (Brampton). Such news is painful, and if we add that to what’s happening all across the United States, and the rippling effects being felt all around the world, we could very well be experiencing an “economic tsunami”, according to a Microsoft TV ad.

‘Some employers are experimenting with Second Life, the online virtual community owned by San Francisco-based Linden Lab, to screen prospective hires. The program allows job seekers to create a computer-generated image to represent themselves — known as an “avatar” — and communicate with executives of prospective employers as though they were instant-messaging.
A number of big companies put the new medium to a test last month, when recruitment-advertising firm TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications LLC hosted a virtual job fair with employers such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and Sodexho Alliance SA, a food and facilities-management services company. TMP says it will host another virtual job fair in August.”

Read the full article: http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/usingnet/20070621-athavaley.html?cjpos=home_whatsnew_major

Daisy Wright
Career Coach
The Wright Career Solution