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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. —What do video gamers and 911 telecommunicators have in common?
More than you might think.
Hamilton County 911 leaders say some skills gamers develop through hours of playing, including multitasking and situational awareness, can translate surprisingly well to the high-pressure job of answering emergency calls.
Telecommunicators must process information quickly while simultaneously making decisions and coordinating with emergency crews.
“They get this real-time intelligence information, so they’re able to take that information and make decisions on the fly as they need to,” Hamilton County 911 Director of Operations Barbara Loveless said.
And Loveless says gamers can arrive with some of those abilities already developed.
“They would come to the table with some skill sets that they’ve learned through repetition and gaming,” she said.
Dr. Sarah Einstein, an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, says two skills stand out.
“Situational awareness and the ability to multitask are probably the two critical things for a 911 operator,” Einstein said. “And both of those things are important skills for almost every kind of video game.”
Einstein teaches a class called “Read, Write and Respond,” where students study video games as literature and learn to build games themselves.
She says gaming also demands focus and critical thinking.
“The heart of every video game is how do the choices that you make impact your experience in the game,” Einstein said. “And that is all about being able to look at choices that you are writing and know what sort of impact they would have in the world.”
Hamilton County 911 has already seen that connection play out in its own workforce.
“We brought in several gamers into our 911 center,” Loveless said. “And what we have realized is that they tend to have a successful experience transitioning into the world of 911.”
But there is one enormous difference between what happens behind a controller and what happens behind a 911 console.
There is no reset button when the emergency is real.
“In a game, it’s simulated stress and it’s simulated emergencies,” Loveless said. “And at 911, the calls are real. The callers, they’re real. The responders, they’re real. The emergencies, they’re real. And if we get it wrong, there are real-life implications to that.”
That’s why 911 leaders say emotional intelligence and maturity remain critical to succeeding as a telecommunicator, regardless of someone‘s technical skills.
Hamilton County 911 is not hiring right now but tells us it plans to recruit quarterly.
People interested in the job are encouraged to take part in a sit-along with telecommunicators to see firsthand what the work involves.
