ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff photographer
RUTGERS GRAD Andrew J. O'Malley (above) and La Salle grad Sean Christman, both looking for work, hand out their resumes to passing cars at the Ben Franklin Bridge yesterday. It could work - it did 20 years ago.
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Employing unusual tactics in tight job market
You'd think Sean Christman and Andrew J. O'Malley would have no problem landing prestigious jobs - the two are recent cum-laude graduates from La Salle and Rutgers universities, respectively.
But where panhandlers often beg for money, these young men were out asking for jobs yesterday, sweating in suits and neckties as they handed out resumes to motorists at the foot of the Ben Franklin Bridge.
Such unconventional job-seeking stunts are becoming more common - and more necessary - in this sour economy, with the national unemployment rate at a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, job specialists say.
"It most definitely is a sign of the times," said Rachel Brown, director of Temple University's Career Center. "The advice we give to our students is: 'You need to be visible.' So certainly those [graduates] checked the visibility box."
Eighteen percent of hiring managers report that job hunters are resorting to unusual tactics to land jobs, according to a survey Careerbuilder.com released last month. That's up 6 percent from last year's survey, said Careerbuilder.com Spokeswoman Jennifer Sullivan Grasz.
Some of the wackier stunts job-seekers have pulled to land jobs, according to survey respondents, included an applicant who mailed a shoe with a resume to "get my foot in the door," another who came to an interview dressed as a bunny because it was near Easter, and another who staged a sit-in in the company's lobby to get a meeting with a director.
"We've heard examples in different cities of folks passing out their resumes at traffic stops or train stations," Grasz said. "Some employers may view this as taking initiative and being bold enough to try something different. Others may view it as an unfocused approach to job hunting."
Grasz added: "The important thing to remember [is] that you always want to maintain a level of professionalism and make yourself memorable for the right reasons."
Christman and O'Malley had that concept down. With neatly groomed hair and impeccably tailored suits, they looked more ready to stroll into a boardroom than to navigate the steamy congestion of a summertime morning rush-hour.
Christman came up with the idea to distribute resumes to westbound motorists exiting the Ben Franklin Bridge. The finance and management major has been job-hunting since December, to no avail.
"Last summer, I got two job offers (for an internship) by walking into businesses," the 21-year-old Haddon Township, N.J., resident said. In seeking a permanent post-graduate position, he added, "I knew if it came to the worst, I would do this."
Misery loves company, so Christman called his buddy O'Malley, who needed no persuading.
"This definitely catches people's eye," said O'Malley, 22, a business-management graduate who wore a pin-striped suit and carried a poster proclaiming: "Rutgers and LaSalle graduates/Need work/Take resume."
The pair hit the road at 6:30 a.m. with 150 resumes, water to beat the heat and a radio to play during traffic lulls. By 8:15 a.m., they'd run out of resumes and went hunting for a nearby copy shop to print 150 more.
While they scrambled, a man at a makeshift campsite hidden in the underbrush nearby stretched, naked, in the sun.
With the bridge averaging 110,000 vehicles each weekday, Christman and O'Malley achieved their goal of getting attention.
They got plenty of laughs, smiles, waves, supportive honks and open palms of drivers intrigued enough to take the proffered resumes. And, this being Philadelphia, they also got a few shouts of rage: "Get the hell out of the road!"
While Brown applauds their efforts to stand out from the crowd, she suggests job-hunters find more personal ways to connect with potential employers.
"Young people today grew up in a culture of texting, email, a lack of face-to-face interaction," Brown said. "It really is a paradigm-shift for this generation to think: 'I need to get out there and communicate face-to-face.'"
And while they might not have a job, Brown advises job-hunters to stay busy, because idleness looks bad to a prospective employer.
"Take a risk. Start something on your own. Get creative. Do something productive, even if it's not your dream job," Brown said. *
