Companies are hiring again, but job seekers are up against more competition than ever before. Faced with this reality, people are using unusual tactics to stand out.

Increasingly more employers are beginning to consider hiring. The seasonally adjusted results of the latest quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, released this month, indicate that employers in 30 of 36 countries and territories have stronger hiring plans compared to 12 months ago, and 23 countries reported improved quarter-over-quarter hiring prospects.

However, even as the job market improves, with unemployment still hovering around 9.7 percent, competition for job openings is intense.

“As a result, more candidates are turning to unconventional tactics to attract the attention of hiring managers,” according to Jason Ferrara, senior career adviser at CareerBuilder.com.

For example, since the recession began in December 2007, there have been several stories of laid-off workers hitting the street wearing sandwich boards to advertise their availability. The tactic is consistently the same: attract attention from passersby (likely the media, too) and hand out as many résumés as possible. Finance industry veteran Joshua Peresky and toy company executive Paul Nawrocki are examples of people who have found success with this approach.

Earlier this year, a copywriter from London had a creative idea (though not the first) for standing out while showing off his tech skills (not to mention his willingness to travel): he mapped his CV on Google Maps. Using Google Maps’ “My Maps” feature, Ed Hamilton created a custom map with text posted to personalized place-markers. For example, a digital thumbtack over Florence, Italy, highlights Hamilton’s time spent studying Italian.

“The originality of hosting it on Google maps and the site’s inherent searchability meant that once it found its way onto Twitter and a few key blogs, it spread quickly and globally,” Brave, a creative agency where Hamilton currently works, explains on its blog.

Taking an unusual — or at least unconventional — route on the job hunt has become something of a trend since the onset of the recession, as CareerBuilder surveys of hiring managers and human resources professionals have shown consecutive increases in unique job-seeking methods each year.

In CareerBuilder’s 2010 survey of 2,778 hiring managers and human resource professionals, nearly one-quarter (22 percent) of respondents said they are seeing more job seekers trying unusual tactics to capture their attention in 2010 compared to last year. This is up from 18 percent of hiring managers who said the same in 2009 and 12 percent in 2008.

CareerBuilder’s 2008 findings uncovered a candidate who noticed the employer wrote a blog about a particular restaurant. The candidate persuaded the restaurant to put her name on the menu so the employer would see it the next time he ate there.

In the employment Web site’s 2009 survey, a respondent noted a candidate who told the receptionist he had an interview with the manager. When he met the manager, he confessed that he was driving by and decided to stop in on a whim.

And according to this year’s findings, a candidate applying for a casino table-game position came into the office and started dealing on the desk while pretending to talk to players, showing the candidate’s guest-service skills.

Among the other more memorable methods that job seekers have turned to as a way to stand out from the competition over the past three years:

• Candidate advertised on a billboard;
• Candidate brought a broom to the interview to “clean up the waste and corruption in the office”;
• Candidate showed up with breakfast for the employer every day until hired;
• Candidate sent a giant cookie with “Hire Skip” written in frosting on it;
• Candidate wrote a poem about why she wanted the job in her cover letter;
• Candidate promised to give the employer a foot massage if hired;
• Candidate sent a shoe with a résumé to “get my foot in the door”;
• Candidate staged a sit-in in the lobby to get a meeting with a director;
• Candidate washed cars in the parking lot;
• Candidate sent a résumé wrapped as a present and said his skills were a “gift to the company”;
• Candidate sent a cake designed as a business card with the candidate’s picture;
• Candidate went to the same barber as the board chairman and had the barber speak on his behalf;
• Candidate came dressed in a bunny suit because it was near Easter;
• Candidate brought in a DVD of his former boss giving him a recommendation;
• Candidate for a teaching job brought in a box of props to demonstrate her teaching style; and
• Candidate arrived with business cards already featuring the company’s logo and a self-introduction brochure.

Interestingly, some hiring managers look at candidates with unconventional job-seeking tactics and consider those candidates as a promising hire. Nearly one in 10 (9 percent) said they have hired someone who used an unconventional tactic to get their attention.

However, Ferrara says that candidates would be wise to show what they can offer to an organization when considering an unusual approach. Otherwise, it’s just an empty, attention-grabbing novelty that employers will likely see through immediately.

“While these tactics may work occasionally, they still need to be done with professionalism,” Ferrara cautions. “That way, candidates are remembered for what they can offer an organization and not just for an unusual antic.”

Another recent CareerBuilder survey revealed candidates’ quirky but memorable tactics during job interviews. Among them: wearing a business suit with flip flops; asking if the interviewer wanted to meet for a drink after; looking at the ceiling the entire time; filing fingernails; and citing Dungeons & Dragons as an example of teamwork.

These tactics certainly may have made the candidates stand out, but probably not favorably.

For job-hunting ideas that are a little less crazy than these, check out IMT’s recent two-part series: The Job Hunt, Pt. I: Preparation and The Job Hunt, Pt. II: Action.

Resources

…Strong Hiring Outlook for the Third Quarter of 2010 in India, Brazil, Taiwan and China…
Manpower Inc., June 8, 2010

Joshua Persky on Failure
by Jay Dixit
Psychology Today, July 2, 2009

Paul Nawrocki: The Epilogue
by Rebecca Reisner
BusinessWeek, April 30, 2010

Brave Copywriter’s CV Goes Global!
Brave, March 11, 2010

More Employers Seeing Unusual Tactics from Job Seekers in 2010…
CareerBuilder.com, June 9, 2010

Employers Share the Most Unconventional Tactics Job Seekers Have Used to Get Their Attention…
CareerBuilder.com, June 10, 2009

Employers Share Most Unusual Tactics Job Seekers Have Used to Get Hired…
CareerBuilder.com, Oct. 8, 2008

Employers Reveal the Outrageous and Common Mistakes Candidates Made in Job Interview…
CareerBuilder.com, Feb. 24, 2010