The next time you play “World of Warcraft” or another video game, brush up on your Spanish or hit a squash court, you may be unwittingly cultivating skills for your next career.
According to researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology, by playing the “World of Warcraft” game, players develop skills and traits which translate to working on virtual teams at their jobs.
In the online role-playing game, players create avatars and then fight monsters, interact with other players and venture into a limitless virtual world. The study showed that players who were successful in the game working as a team showed the same qualities that are needed to be successful in the real world. Those qualities, which researchers refer to as “The Big Five” are extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism.
[See: 8 Ways Millennials Can Build Leadership Skills.]
Researchers also concluded that computer-mediated communication skills and technology readiness, also present when playing the game, demonstrate adaptability.
So, while communicating with people online during raids may boost one’s score, it can also help boost your confidence and communication skills in the real world of work.
While you may not necessarily highlight solid gaming skills during a job interview or on your resume, think about experiences in your professional life in which you excelled at demonstrating these video gaming traits and then leverage those experiences as talking points.
Here are a few additional hobbies and external interests which my help you become more well-rounded and can be used to boost your career and translate into your next successful job interview.
Pick up a foreign language. If you speak another language, why not start watching online news broadcasts or reading their online local newspapers or other resources to become proficient on a daily basis? Educating yourself will not only sharpen your skills (especially if you want to learn a new language entirely), but it will bode well on an interview if the position requires someone with a specific language.
When I worked in recruiting, occasionally I had hard-to-fill positions like searching for candidates who were fluent in Portuguese. You never know when your interest in a less prevalent language can help give you the edge over others and land you the job!
[See: 10 Ways Social Media Can Help You Land a Job.]
Get game. When you play sports regularly, you’re not only getting fit, you’re honing your interpersonal skills. Whether you’re on an intramural softball team, play in a doubles tennis league or are part of a running club, it’s all useful. You’re interacting with others, improving your social skills, getting out of your own head and, in turn, expanding your network. You never know when your next career lead can come on the golf course or the coffee meetup that happens afterwards.
Boost your cooking chops. Whether you’re a rookie chef or have an impressive Cuisinart collection, learning to ramp up your cooking game not only makes you well-rounded and hopefully more healthy, but social as well. Maybe it’s time to host a dinner party at your home showcasing recipes found on Pinterest. Not only do you get to be social, but you’re likely honing skills without even knowing it, like multi-tasking, event planning and staying on a budget.
Open an eBay or Etsy shop. As you declutter your home in the spirit of spring cleaning and simultaneously earn extra cash, you’re getting an education on the art of marketing and multi-tasking.
How do you position an item in the best light to sell it, along with communicating effectively with customers you’ve never met? You’re probably researching similar items, setting a starting price and writing copy. These skills can easily translate into the workplace when you need to be specific yet friendly, assertive and noncombative.
[See: The 25 Highest-Paying Jobs That Don’t Require a College Degree.]
Travel and create new experiences. While you travel, turn that out-of-office reply on your emails and stick to it by enjoying much-needed time off from work. Among the many benefits of traveling, you’re probably navigating a difficult stressful situation from time to time, such as flight delays and sticking to a budget. Plus, within traveling itself you may revisit a love for photography and posting on social media — these skills translate well into the working world, too!
Also, it’s possible the topic of traveling becomes an incredible connector during small talk in a job interview. Plus, it shows you’re curious about the world — even if you’ve never been somewhere a hiring manager is talking about, you may have read about it or want to know more about it. Plus, who doesn’t like talking about traveling? It’s a great, universal connector not only on job interviews but in your career, as well.
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