Lighter side: Would you hire the subject of this Web site?
April 14, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Online recruiting, Web site
Desperate times call for desperate measures. But do the stunts job-seekers pull actually attract positive attention from employers?
Take the case of Robin: Almost a year after earning an MBA, her husband Mike still hadn’t found a job.
So she took matters into her own hands and started a Web site, www.myhusbandneedsajob.com.
The site is basically a beefed up online resume, with sections like “About Mike,” “Meet Mike” and “Mike’s Resume.” The homepage features a picture of Robin holding a sign that says “Hire my husband.”
Interesting job seeking strategies, both online and off, have become quite popular lately. Some other famous examples include the guy who rented a billboard to post his resume, and the woman who walked around in a shirt listing all her qualifications.
Would any of those tactics convince you to interview someone? Or do they come off as too desperate? Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.
View all the Latest StoriesTags: gimmick, job seekers
April 14th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
We actually just started a company that deals with job seekers like this just recently. At On the Way Resume we specialize in helping job seekers stand out from the crowd. In these economic times, we are finding it is giving hope to those that have been looking for work, and shows potential employers how ambitious and ready the job seeker is to find a job.
I think the most important thing to remember when stepping away from normal job hunting tactics is to be creative yet remain professional. At On the Way Resume we offer a chance for job seekers to place a resume snapshot sticker on their vehicles and has a unique reference number that will take interested parties to their professional online resume.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:04 am
Depends on the job I am hiring for. One that required major creativity and new ways of thinking of solutions… this might be the kind of person I need. However, for many traditional (and yes I hate that word) type of jobs, it may be a turn off. To get hired, you must be noticed. I was interviewed for one job because my resume was on an off-white/beige colored paper. Everyone elses’ was white. The corner of my resume stuck out from the stack and the HR Director pulled mine out and read it. I got the job. She told me the only way I got the interview was the resume’s colored paper stuck out from all the white piled on her desk. Hey, you never know.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I think I’d hire his wife………………..she seems to be the one who thinks outside the box
April 21st, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I would have to say that unless I was hiring someone for a marketing position I would be put off by tactics like these. I would have more respect for someone coming in and applying for a position they are overqualified for and willing to work their way up or at least be willing to take a job until they could find one that meets their education or qualification level.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I spent my lunch time looking over his website. He’s a MARKETING person. Why is his wife marketing him when he’s a marketing person? I’m with Janice….I’d hire the wife. I don’t think this idea is doing him any favors.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Statistically, more views means more chances to get hired.
Additionally, this tactic brings the employer to the job seeker, rather than the traditional path of applying for an open position — hiring managers are finding that many open positions, especially in hard-hit sectors, are resulting in thousands of applicants for a single position. As a job seeker, how do you apply for a job and make it past the screening process, knowing that you’re competing against 999 other people? It makes no sense to even waste the time.
As we all do, I have friends out of work, who have to face the ethical dilemna of padding their resume to get past the filter, or apply continually and repeatedly for positions where they may be qualified (or even overqualified) but never get an interview because someone else looks better on paper.
As a hiring manager, I get a stack of resumes that all look like King Arthur’s knights of the round table — full of virtues, ethics, skills, and even projects that you quickly find just don’t exist except on paper. I have seen candidates literally dissolve during an interview, and admit that they just needed to do “whatever it takes” to get a job.
I think this is where sites like LinkedIn make a huge difference — a hiring manager can get more of a sense of a candidate through additional information such as recommendations than what is displayed on paper. Likewise, whenever I apply for a job, I put my LinkedIn url in my signature block, encouraging HR and possibly the hiring manager to GO LOOK at me there…. Most HR folks that I talk to are using sites like LinkedIn these days.
An additional tactic that I’ve used in the past as a hiring manager is to tell HR to ONLY look at referrals, which means that each candidate has an implied reputation. In early 2002, during the “post-9/11″ economy, I had an open req for a Desktop position, for which I had over 1,500 applicants. We filtered this down to 2 based on referrals and resumes, and selected a final candidate during the initial interview.
This brings in to focus the old adage that: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” that gets you hired.
BTW — I agree with Janice: I’d hire the wife based on her initiative.