EDUISLAND 3: The state of Missouri has arrived in SL. At least, they are using Second Life as a new recruiting tool for State Information Technology (IT) positions. Located on Eduisland 3; it is believed that Missouri is the first state to establish a presence in SL. At present the site is small and simple, but plans are in the works for additional construction.

Jedadiah Juran (Paul Wright, IT Director for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Second Education, Office of the Administration) said, “We are here to recruit for IT professionals. We are doing the regular job fairs, etc., but I wanted to venture out. I had been reading about Fortune 100’s venturing out here, so I thought; why not give it a try?”

State IT jobs are available in Jefferson City, Missouri’s state capital as well as some neighboring communities in Missouri. A number of positions are open: developers, network and database engineers, and user support/help desk workers. Employment is open in areas utilizing .net (VB and C#) on the desktop and Web, Websphere (IBM Java) back to legacy systems using Cobol on mainframes. Databases used are DB2, Oracle and Microsoft’s SQL Server.

People seeking entry level positions as well as those with greater experience are encouraged to apply. Internships are also available. At present, there are no telecommuting positions available, so prospective employees should be in the Jefferson City area.

The state IT staff currently totals about 1500 employees. Fourteen statewide IT agencies were recently consolidated under the state CIO, Dan Ross. Some additional agencies are expected to be merged in the near future.

“I think there is a lot of interest [in SL]. We have shown the site at a gathering of the State IT Directors. Our State CIO has been very supportive,” Juran said.

Juran expects to do in-world job fairs in hopes of attracting SL’s best to Missouri. A special Web site to coordinate with their SL presence is in development. The current informational site for the division of personnel, including information about applying for a position, is at http://oa.mo.gov/pers/applicants.htm or e-mail information can be requested at IT-Careers@oa.mo.gov Jedadiah Juran can also be contacted in-world for further information.