He Really Needs a Job (Friday Humor)
March 28, 2008
Recently, I heard from a guy named Larry, who got a job by putting a cover letter on the back of a T-shirt that had the “Damn I Need a Job” logo you see here on its front.
Now he sells them for $25, customized with your cover letter. (No, I don’t get an affiliate cut — or do I, Larry?)
Here’s his story:
I found myself unemployed. “No big deal” I thought. “I’m a pretty smart guy with some pretty marketable skills and this shouldn’t be a problem,” I told myself.
I got on all the big job boards, feverishly scanned the classifieds, hooked up with employment agencies, called all my contacts and considered moving. I even opened up the Yellow Pages, started with the “A”s and sent resumes to every listing that had an e-mail address or web site.
I couldn’t help but feel like my resume submissions were getting lost in stacks of other applicants and getting “filed” without ever being read. It was totally freaking frustrating and I thought “If I could just get some face time.”
I was walking around downtown one day and realized that everywhere I looked there was someone who was either hiring or knew of someone who was and they might even be looking for someone exactly like me.
So I started thinking about printing a stack of resumes and handing them out like flyers to passers by or putting them on wind shields. Pretty shameless, I agree, and I’d probably have to change my phone number after that. Also no guarantee people would even read it.
But . . . no bones about it, no way to dispute it, if they can read, people WILL read what’s on your shirt!
Put something about yourself on your shirt and not only will they read it, they will strain to see it. They will position themselves for a better look. Stand in line at a fast food joint and at any given moment someone will be checking it out. I’m telling you, people can’t help it.
So how did Larry’s job search end?
He called the local TV news department, and they did a story about Larry and his shirt, spinning it as a story about a guy who “wears his credentials like a badge of courage.” Next thing he knew:
A lady, home sick from work, was watching the noon news when my story aired. She saw it and called the I.T. manager of the company she worked for who she knew was looking for someone like me. Call it Karma or whatever you like, but things fell into place, and I landed a great job.
The TV interview is viewable from Larry’s site. In the same spirit, Larry links to job search engine findafreakingjob.com.
One reason I find Larry’s story quite interesting is that I had just about convinced myself that Americans pretty much ignore whatever we see on someone’s T-shirt, though many T-shirts could be great conversation starters.
My experiment has been wearing a “Blogger” shirt quite regularly throughout the astronomical boom in blogging. At first, when few people even knew what a blog was, I though people might ask “what’s a Blogger?” Nope. Then, as “blog” and “blogger” rapidly became household words, I figured people might ask “so, what’s your blog about?” So far, it’s happened only once.
Anyone have any interesting observations or stories about the T-shirt as a communications device or conversation starter — or about other guerrilla job-hunting techniques?
Related Posts
"Love Litigating Lawyers Day"
Slaying the Monster? Will Vertical Job Search Really Do It?
Nifty new search feature added: Thanks, Blogger!
Great list of job search and interview tips
Guess Which Blog Is #17 in the “Career 100 Global Ranking of Top English-language Career Blogs”?
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
If you want to leave a feedback to this post or to some other user´s comment, simply fill out the form below.
Comment by health and safety training guy
Ha! What a great idea. A friend of mine is job hunting at the moment - I will pass on the tip!
Comment by Jack Payne
I know T-shirts are supposed to
be the source of all wisdom, but
for job search purposes? This
is ridiculous.