If showering potential employers with sweet treats and smooth songs or dressing up as the Easter bunny is your way of setting yourself apart from the job competition, try again.
In a year when hundreds of overqualified and underqualified people are applying for the same openings, more and more are stepping away from bland cover letters and faceless resumes. They all want potential employers to notice them.
Take Tony Steiner, for example. A laid-off account manager, the 24-year- old applied at the Integer Group, a Lakewood-based marketing firm.
Looking for a leg up on the applicant pool — a company spokesman said about 1,500 had put in for the slot in three weeks — Steiner and several of his friends Wednesday hosted a free sidewalk breakfast and lunch right in front of the company’s main office.
The goal: to prove he was a good fit for the marketing job. After all, he had just created a successful campaign that sported a loyal following.
Steiner’s shtick is among a growing trend of job seekers resorting to creative and unusual tactics to capture potential employers’ attention.
According to a recent survey by , 18 percent of hiring managers said they’ve seen applicants rely on gimmickry. That’s up from 12 percent last year.
“People are definitely being more creative because we are in a tight market. So many candidates feel they have to do something unique,” said Libby Felchle, division director of OfficeTeam, a staffing company with an office in Englewood.
Steiner even built brand awareness into his job hunting: “Steiner for Hire.”
To bolster the idea, he had a booth for passers-by to vote on his qualifications for the junior-account-planner position.
“My wife said either I’m crazy or a genius,” Steiner said.
Steiner was certainly noticed, Integer communications supervisor Jennine Friess said.
“We’re all about disruption, and this is a cool way to disrupt the application process,” Friess said. “We haven’t seen anything like this before. It’s impressive.”
About 52 percent of marketing executives and 26 percent of advertising executives said gimmicks were unprofessional and they preferred traditional methods, a 2008 survey by the Creative Group found.
Two percent of marketing executives and 8 percent of advertising executives said it might improve an applicant’s chances.
Gregory Fisher, 23, hoped for the latter as he handed resumes to anyone willing to take one outside Republic Plaza on the 16th Street Mall, a sign around his neck reading: “College grad, need a job, please take my resume.”
“I was kind of embarrassed for the first 10 minutes, and I thought people wouldn’t even make eye contact with me,” said Fisher, who graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in aeronautical management technology. “I’ve had the opposite reaction.”
Sara Castellanos: 303-954-1381 or scastellanos@denverpost.com
Going for a gimmick
The lengths some people have gone to in an attempt to land a job:
• One candidate brought a broom to the interview to “clean up waste and corruption in the office.”
• Another fellow who used the same barber as a company’s board chairman had the barber speak on his behalf.
• One candidate sent a cake designed as a business card with his picture in frosting.
• One man put up posters of himself around an executive’s parking spot.
• Another man stood outside an employer’s building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day for a month until he was hired.
• Someone wrote a news release announcing she had been hired and used it as her cover letter.
Sources: ; the Creative Group; OfficeTeam
