September 2002

"Job seekers take creativity to new level"

By Stephanie Armour

Forget the classifieds. As the job search becomes increasingly competitive, employees are getting far more creative — and desperate — in their search for work.

They're sending cakes and flowers to hiring managers, passing out resumes on street corners, and in some cases, taking jobs for no pay.

The desperate measures are being inspired by the persistent weakness in the job market. Jobless claims rose a worse-than-expected 19,000 to 426,000 last week, the highest since mid-April, the government reported Thursday. The total number of workers receiving state unemployment benefits rose to 3.6 million.

Some workers are making concessions or taking actions that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

• Executives at SeaBridge Software, a provider of customer retention software in San Francisco, posted an ad online offering job candidates stock options — but no pay. More than 500 resumes were received, and six employees were hired.

"Some people told me, 'You won't get anybody who will work for no cash,' but I still get resumes" says founder Jamie Pardi.

• After months of looking for work, Tiffany Fox of Houston made a sign that read "Hire Me" and stood on a busy corner. Fox handed out information with her phone number and background.

It worked: Fox wound up getting a sales job for a telecommunications firm after a manager drove by and asked, "Is this for real?"

"Desperate times call for creative measures," says Fox, who got more than 150 phone calls and 10 interviews. "I got quite a few marriage proposals, too."

• Computer engineer Harold Robinson and product marketer Richard Sanchez made up a 6-by-5-foot sign emblazoned "2 Guys Looking for Work." They donned business suits and stood out at a busy intersection for two weeks in July.

"My wife said, 'You're going to do what?' " says Sanchez, 44, of Aliso Viejo, Calif. "We had people stop and interview us right on the corner. Starbucks came by and gave us free coffee."

But their novel approach failed to land them jobs.

• Job seekers have sent hiring managers such gifts as a singing telegram, lottery tickets and doughnuts, according to a survey of 250 advertising and marketing executives by Menlo Park, Calif.-based staffing services firm The Creative Group.
  

Such tactics are a dramatic change from a few years ago, when employers were the ones taking creative measures, such as renting billboards and banner-flying airplanes to advertise jobs. The tables have turned because the weak economic rebound has been mostly a jobless recovery.