Meet Chef Ray, who joined Sodexo in August 2007 as an Executive Chef with our Senior Services Division. Since that time, he has worked at several accounts in California, including Mt. San Antonio Gardens in Pomona, Lake Park Retirement Community in Oakland, The Sequoias in Portola Valley and the Pacific Regent Towers in Bellevue, Washington, providing him with great opportunities to see Sodexo in action. Although offered a position within a unit, Ray has decided to stay in a resource assignment and continue to travel to different accounts to learn more about the Senior Services Division.

At Sodexo, you can build the career you want, almost anywhere you want. With more than 6000 accounts throughout the U.S., the opportunities are endless! Ray’s goal is to become a General Manager and he has already taken steps to further his knowledge by inquiring about the General Manager online classes through Sodexo University, an internal resource available to employees to help them further their careers.

Ray’s extensive culinary arts background includes a career as a Sergeant and cook in the Marine Corps, and as executive chef for several prestigious Las Vegas resorts and casinos. Not only has Chef Ray experienced an exciting variety of assignments, his path to joining Sodexo was an extraordinary one. Ray was looking for opportunities in California when he was signed up for an interview with a Sodexo recruiter in Second Life, a virtual environment where five major companies participated in a virtual career fair.

Sodexo was one of the first companies to join their media partner, TMP Worldwide, for its first virtual career fair called Network in World (NiW) on Second Life. Second Life, is an Internet-based virtual world developed by San Francisco-based Linden Labs. For the Virtual Career Fair, candidates created an avatar—an on-screen version of themselves. Through their avatars, candidates were able to visit Sodexo’s “virtual” office, learn about our company culture, opportunities and benefits, and talk with our Sodexo recruiters.

Ray, as “BellagioChef” (the name of his Avatar), participated in a virtual interview with a Sodexo recruiter and was then scheduled for a follow-up, real world interview with a District Manager. Ray became Sodexo’s first virtual hire.

While the encounter may sound odd to some, workplace experts say it represents the future of job search. The virtual career fair provides companies a great opportunity to find innovative, creative people, and it provides job seekers direct access to our recruiters. Second Life is fun, but make no mistake—it’s also very real. We are interviewing real candidates for real jobs.

If  your career aspirations include seeking employment opportunities with an innovative, cutting-edge and diverse organization, take Chef Ray's lead watch for our next virtual career fair in SecondLife. If you are not already a Second Life user, just visit www.secondlife.com to create your free Avatar and join us in-world!

For a list of job opportunities available, click here.