The NY Times this weekend featured the outlandish lengths that job seekers are forced to go in this bad economy.
Desperation appears to be the order of the day, with unemployment at a nine-year high. About 25 percent of the nine million Americans counted as unemployed have been out of work for more than 27 weeks, according to the Department of Labor. In some of the hardest-hit industries, like technology, finance and manufacturing, many white-collar workers have been out of work two years or and more.
"These times are rife with the temptation to do extreme things," said Andrew Sherwood, chairman of the human resources firm Goodrich & Sherwood Associates, which is based in New York. "More and more, necessity is a driver. Job seekers have moved from the cocky 'buy me if you like' approach of the '90's to doing and saying whatever it takes to get a job."
The hard-knocks atmosphere has led DiMassimo Brand Consultancy, a New York City advertising firm, to conjure up a job competition styled after the "Survivor" reality TV show. Starting Sept. 15, 10 contestants, all eager for an entry-level job at the agency, will move into DiMassimo's Madison Avenue office, which will be renamed DiMassimo Island for the occasion.
Over several days, they will compete in a range of advertising-related tasks, including an "all-nighter" to put together an ad proposal and make attempts to get a meeting with the chief executive of a company whose account DiMassimo has been trying to land. DiMassimo executives will vote contestants off the island every night until they have a winner. The last person standing earns the entry-level position, with an initial salary of $25,000 to $30,000.
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Stephan Schiffman did not even have a position open when a Washington man recently showed up without warning at his Manhattan sales training company, the DEI Management Group. Though the man was denied entry, he refused to leave the downstairs lobby, where he waited for the next two hours, even after security was called. In the end, Mr. Schiffman saw the man to appease him.
"He claimed he wanted to talk about a book that I'd written, but he ended up begging for a job," Mr. Schiffman recalled. "He was completely wired, bouncing off the walls. Even if we'd had something available, he wasn't qualified."
Another man, after being turned down for a position at DEI's Huntington Beach, Calif., office, came to work anyway. "He hired himself," Mr. Schiffman said. "Some of the managers were away after the interview and the people just assumed that he'd gotten the job." Like everyone else working there, he came and went from 9 to 5, spending a total of a week or so blending into the ordinary rhythms of office life before he was finally discovered and asked to leave