Job-hunt stunts: how far would you go to get your dream graduate job?

How far would you go to get the job you want? With good graduate positions about as common as an actually-famous person in the Celebrity Big Brother house, it might be time to consider a fresh approach to getting noticed by employers.

Recently, cunning Coventry-graduate Alfred Ajani landed his dream job, following an inventive job search. He held up a sign and handed out his CVs at London’s Waterloo station.

It got Paddington Bear his break all those years ago, and now “Waterloo Ajani” has been snapped up by recruitment agency the Asoria Group.

“The company said they were looking for someone with out-of-the-box ideas and so they were keen to get me in,” said Ajani.

But he’s not the first graduate to benefit from a job-hunting stunt.

Remember media studies graduate Adam Pacitti? The charming viral veteran spent his last £500 on an “Employ Adam” billboard.

It proved a fine investment. Adam was soon given a job with the award-winning production company KEO.

“I’m incredibly humbled that people have seen I’ve thought outside the box,” said Adam.

Maybe Adam took his inspiration from history graduate David Mills who, back in 2009, made the sandwich board his weapon of choice when it came to self-promotion. He soon found himself working for international recruiters Parkhouse Bell.

“I liked the fact he had thought out of the box. I was impressed by that,” said Gavin Walker of Parkhouse Bell.

With all this thinking outside of the box going on, maybe thinking outside the box isn’t enough anymore. Maybe it’s time for graduates to think outside the outside of the box. Maybe it’s time to turn the box into a boxcar racer, drive it into the fourth-dimension, and then think outside of it.

Or why not continue with the tedious metaphor, and focus on the inside of the box? While studying mass communications at the University of Hertfordshire, Katie Oldham cooked herself up a tasty summer internship at Cosmopolitan by sending out boxes of cupcakes with edible QR codes on top – which of course linked to her online CV.

And it’s not just British graduates jumping on the stunt-wagon. This Canadian graduate went so far as to print his CV on a pack of beer that he had brewed himself. Once recipients had sobered up, the interview offers started rolling in and he accepted a job at digital marketing agency Techtone – as creative director.

So what’s the future for job-hunting stunts? Marketing graduate lands job at O2 after flash-mobbing a shop floor? Student genius gets record label work after posting devotional song to company on YouTube? Graduate who turned CV into a paper plane and flew it into the offices of Easyjet given management role?

No doubt we haven’t seen the last of the job-hunt-stunters.

(Source: TheGuardian)