Fair enough - I read the 'primacy' argument into the OP, you are correct. My comment about being careful how to introduce the concept of gaming into an interview, however, I think is pretty important. I wouldn't, for example, mention gaming in an interview my my firm's CEO. He's a crusty 60+ something who can barely use Excel. I would recommend waiting to see if the interviewer looked to be tuned into gaming. Probably likely in many IT sectors, perhaps less so in banking/insurance. It would have to be contextual.
Oh, certainly. I think the point of the OP wasn't to suggest that people should jump straight in with their gaming experience, but more to ask why it is that doing so would obviously be considered a mistake.
I think it's related to the whole issue of gaming, and more generally "geek" culture, being looked down on for no apparent reason. For example, see
this video, which points out that there's no real difference between fans of gaming or comics and sports fans, right down to the cosplay. Yet the latter is considered not only acceptable but outright promoted as being manly, while the former is considered weird.
Similarly, why is it considered a point in my favour if I mention my experience as a kayak leader, but not leader in a game? They're both just hobbies that are ultimately just as pointless, but one is considered a good addition to your CV while the other would get it thrown straight out.
It would be interesting to take a sampling of my next several random groups to see how many I found to be 'good', 'indifferent' or 'rude' and see just how prevalent this LACK of leadership really is. It is possible I only remember the bad experiences because they annoy me, and that is clouding my opinion.
Well, part of the problem can be that random groups that only spend a short time together aren't really one of the places where leadership is hugely important at all. Organising a guild where you have to manage the needs of tens or hundreds (large alliances in Eve can have several thousand people in them) of different people over a long period of time is something that will require rather more leadership than telling a couple of people what to hit first for half an hour.
The point I was making isn't so much the difference between friendly and unfriendly groups, but the difference between random groups and ones with your guild. The former is almost entirely irrelevant to leadership because you're just spending a short time hitting things have generally have no investment in the players. The difference groups from guilds is not the group itself, but the way it comes about in the first place. As Rustypouch says, it's people you spend time with and have a relationship with, and it tends to be leadership that holds that relationship together. Aside from small guilds made up of people who are already friends, you have a whole bunch of people from different places with different personalities and different goals. A badly managed guild will generally suck to be part of and is likely to quickly fall apart. But a well led guild can be great fun to be part of. The leadership isn't in the small group being told to click on things, it's in the management that allows a bunch of people who enjoy playing together to form those groups at all.
