Applications Unwelcome

I’m a recruiter now working for the most prestigious, world-famous, and quite enormous ad agencies. It’s my duty – no, my calling – to sift through the scraps of humanity for the very best candidates. How does all this help you? In a word: it doesn’t. What would help you get a leg up (or at least an ankle) on the competition comes from knowing what qualities I prioritize. 

There are recruiters who just want the best – copywriters, art directors, the people who know how to operate any coffee machine simply by sight. These are the gifted few who walk among us with pencils in their ears, erasers in their armpits, and staplers hanging off their belt loops. 

So why should I go after people like this? They are spoken for – again and again, at agency after agency. I’m looking for unconventional candidates - the moss-covered people living under rocks, the worm-loving people curling up under leaves and the silt sitters wading in clear brooks that couldn’t be more than an inch or two deep (I don’t know what that is in the metric system for any non-Americans hoping to break into the industry). While my parameters are strict, they are ever-shifting.

My ideal candidate owns a dog. But the dog’s name isn’t a dog name like Spot or Fido, but a real name, a person’s name – like George J. Fredericks or Agatha T. Mackenzie. That to me, says a great deal more about someone than how deftly they can breeze through Photoshop or InDesign. I want people who own lawn chairs – webbed, not wicker. I want someone who says “God Bless You” after they sneeze. A person who hums along to other people whistling. Someone that’s frightened by the squeaky wheel of a defective shopping cart. But someone who bags their groceries not in paper or plastic but in a bindle, as a respectful nod to every hobo that’s come before them. This is a person who wonders aloud and often why air travel didn’t breathe new life into the hobo sub-culture, creating jet-setting nomads, singing Woody Guthrie tunes under the plane in direct violation of the FAA’s ban on stowaways. And is a bindle a regular carry-on or considered more of a purse-like accessory, not counting towards the overall number of bags? These are all good questions. Ones that if you’re not asking, you’re not getting hired by me anytime soon. 

What I’m looking for is someone specific. I’m actually just looking for my friend Barry. He’s been missing and I became a recruiter as a way to find him. Here’s hoping he shows up on a transcontinental flight tucked into the overhead compartment. But he’s allergic to pretzels.