The strangest ways applicants have tried to get hired
October 22, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Hiring, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Interviewing, Latest News & Views
Determination and creativity can be good qualities to look for in a new employee. But would you hire anyone who took things this far?
A recent CareerBuilder survey asked HR managers about the strangest things they’ve seen candidates do. Some of the highlights:
- Writing the cover letter in poem form
- Baking a cookie with “Hire Skip” written in frosting
- Promising the interviewer a foot massage
- Showing up at the office every morning with breakfast and asking for a job
- Approaching the hiring manager in the rest room after the interview, and
- Asking a restaurant the interviewer had mentioned to name a menu item after the candidate.
As an HR manager, have you ever witnessed any strange behavior by people who wanted to work for your company? Let us know about it by leaving a comment below.
Tags: candidates, interviews, job search gimmicks
October 24th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I had a candidate wait for me after work and once . The following day my car was detailed in the parking lot and there was a post it on the windshiled saying thank you for the interview and the chance to joing our organization. VERY CREEPY, I drove my wifes car after that for a while.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
We just had a person that walked to the HR office with a big yellow balloon. He approached the receptionist and asked to see the HR Manager by name. The receptionist thought that her fiance had sent her a little something to the office, so she called the HR Manager out. Once the HR Manager steped out to the waiting area, the person gave her the balloon and his resume as he was interested in applying for a position.
The applicant reminded the HR Manager that a while ago he had made a delivery to her. Since business had slowed down he was looking for another job. This is the first for us!
October 24th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
We had a candidate send a fax every week for about 3 months with a picture of a dog begging with the words, “Please please please hire me!”