The lengths you’ll go to in order to land a job

Pintrest is the hot new thing in social media, but I have yet to see any really useful uses of it – besides home decor scrapbooking, that is. However, there are others who feel differently about Pintrest, like Jeanne. She really really wants to work there – so she put together a Pintrest page all about it. What a clever way to show that she knows her way around the product! So far she hasn’t had any success yet, but you can follow her results on Tumblr.

What’s the most creative thing you’ve ever done to get a job?

For myself, I was very keen to get a job in a web agency, so I established a tenpin bowling league, where a team from the blog I worked on for fun competed against teams put forward by a bunch of different web agencies from around Wellington. It was a lot of fun, and I met some great people. I didn’t get any immediate job offers, but I did make the connections that helped me a couple of years later when one of those agencies was hiring. Having socialised with many of the staff already, I was in a great position to understand the company mindset, and know it was a good place to work. When I got the job, I found out one of the things that had helped me was that I made myself stand out with my social skills.

Of course, not all job markets are as tightly knit as the web industry in Wellington, so we want to hear stories about the other ways you’ve helped yourself get ahead!