Thoughts on Entry Level Jobs

Hello All,

One of the problems I had as a newbie to SL was getting enough linden to do the things I wanted to do. I created a website to connect job seekers with SL employers and am currently working on a section to encourage "small business" development. My intent is to keep the site free to use and I will offer classes and take donations to keep the site running.

Membership, Posting jobs, and Finding jobs are free. Workshops to improve your skills and ways to make Linden$$ are available.

I am currently looking for people to help manage and promote the site. Visit

http://www.secondlifejobs.com for more info, let me know what you think, and spread the word.

Ange Augustus

Are they paying 10 USD an hour or more? If I'm going to work a second job I'm going to get paid for it.

It's not about getting paid, its about contributing to a community you care about. Do it because you want to, not because you have to. Yes the website pays, but in virtual stock for a virtual world.

I contribute by paying my premium fees. I come to SL to play, not work.

Both approaches are equally acceptable. I _like_ making $L in SL, not because I want to make real money but because I like the challenge of finding a business niche. Its the same enjoyment that some people find in playing monopoly.

On the other hand, working should not be a requirement to fully enjoy SL either.

Jonas,

Your absoulutely right and if you're a dues paying member, play and be merry... for the community to truly flourish though, people need to be able to "play" for free as well.... The jobs are more for those SLer's that don't want to pay a monthly fee to play, but still want to be able to enjoy the virtual environment.

In my opinion they should do it with the basic stipend cut off at 5 weeks. Get what you pay for.

The community would suffer becuase most people are tired of monthly fees... we've got cable, sat radio, internet, landline, cell phone, bills bills bills... who wants to pay to play a game.... not enough people.... I do agree with the idea of cutting the stipend off after a certain time period... it would encourage the ones that don't want to pay a monthly fee to do something to create value....

That would be great except for the new signup system (or lack of, which is probably more accurate) meaning you can just start a new account every 5 weeks (or whatever) and farm them to get more stipends.

Lewis

I'd say 7 weeks, tops. Thats about 2 months of a trial period. By then they can know the following:

1. If they want to stay
   
2. If they want premium
   
3. How to make money
   
4. The basic ins and outs
   

Lewis: they can require credit card info to get the stipends. That info can be monitored.

Wisely put Cannae. Working should be something you enjoy doing and want to do in SL not somehing you have to do... for me its photography and image editing in the game... Its more of a hobby than a "business" but allows me to buy stuff like airplanes and chutes....

This conflicts though with what a lot of people in-world will say, which is "you can usually succeed in SL.. but not necassarily at exactly what you want to do".

Doesn't seem to have stopped WoW.

Then again, WoW provides content for free once you've paid the monthly fees, and there are no tiers.

Worked fine in Sims Online as well... you could buy a plot of land to build on from a size 1 to a size 8, which cost the same each month but cost game money to upgrade the plot size - which was reduced if you had room-mates to help you, thus encouraging people to work together and co-operate to achieve common goals.

Something Second Life is sadly missing; community spirit. It's every avatar for themselves, and screw everyone else in the majority of cases.

Lewis

and I notice no one has posted about any jobs and if and when they do good chance they will be tips only or worse..a cut taken from tipsd..what SL needs is PAYING jobs. Anotehr thing I noticed...working the site pays nothing except a rather amiguous intent to pay later.

Hello Dmitri,

http://www.secondlifejobs.com was just created a couple nights ago. I'm going to give it a month and if it does not look like it's doing any good I will sell the website to someone that thinks they can do a better job.... for the cost of the website, no more.

I am not trying to solve the problem of the economy with SL, merely help improve the situation for the people that want to do something different.

The purpose is not to make money, there is no sinister indent. We only want to add value to the experience of being part of the SL community and hopefully reduce the number of people that are not signing back on because they get bored to quickly.

I bet that is true, but that is what so many of us settle for in the real world.... why would we want SL to be the same way when we have so much more control of what we can do.

Because we don't have that much control - the process of learning and applying creative skills in SL has essentially the same limits that it has in RL, with the exception that raw materials and tuition are (usually) free. But SL doesn't - indeed, can't - make it any easier to think of ideas, and it's limited in how much it can make it easier to implement them.

I came into SL hoping to explore something different from what I do IRL but quickly found it very difficult. It isn't a matter of work if the necessary types of inspiration just don't come. So I reverted to what I do have RL experience of and fortunately people seem to like what I do in that regard. It does leave me re-assessing SL as a hobby fairly often, since the main activity in it for me is now so close to RL work.

I too came to SL hoping to explore something different and also found the same to be true... so do what works in RL, create a club and attract like minded people to achieve something that is worth doing. Use your RL skills to do what you want to do in SL....

So the million dollar ?

What do we want from SL? I want a place to express my creativity and share a community with others interested in the same.

How about the idea of a university in SL where we can share ideas? In addition to http://www.secondlifejobs.com I own http://www.secondlifeuniversity.com, (there is no site up yet) what are people's thoughts on creating a place of "higher learning" for SL?

It won't improve at all unles you limit job postings to PAYING jobs.

THANK YOU. I will definitely keep an eye on this web site, and possibly contribute (with job offers) if I can. Please come to the Economic Summit (date to be announced, bug Blook Cork) to talk about this.