Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Cancel the Homing Pigeons

Sarah E. Needleman on why attention-getting stunts might not help job-seekers:

Among the more bizarre gimmicks hiring managers say they've seen: a cut-up resume placed piece by piece inside a Russian stacking doll, a cover letter with an electronic key chain and a note saying, "The only noise you'll hear out of me are the ones generated by this letter," and a case in which a job candidate brought a Rubik's Cube to an interview to demonstrate her quick problem-solving skills.

Ms. Shapiro says a job hunter in a gorilla suit once dropped off his resume at her office at a construction company. Then, she recalls, he burst into a song describing why he would make a strong candidate. "The receptionist said he couldn't come in, but he kept running around with balloons and calling my name," she says. "Everyone thought it was my birthday. The CEO came out. It wasn't cool."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've often suspected as much. I've read about job getting stunts, and they always struck me as too gimmiky to be taken seriously.

Michael Wade said...

Pawnking,

It would have to be something extremely clever and I've yet to hear of one that falls into that category.