Oklahoma job seekers compete for notice in tight job market

Thursday was Trae McNeely’s day off. But he spent most of it working to find a job in a field he went to school for.

McNeely shined his shoes, donned dress clothes and a tie, and in the rain went door to door to businesses downtown, handing out 40 to 45 resumes and interviewing with one employer on the spot.

The strategy landed McNeely, 25, his current job as a car salesman 14 months ago. He feels blessed to have a job, he said. But, ultimately, he wants to find an opportunity where he can apply his education — an information studies degree from the University of Oklahoma — and have stable income month to month so he can move out of his mother’s house and into a place of his own.

"Most people have been really positive,” McNeely said of his cold-calling tactics. "But I’ve received no follow-up calls to speak of. A handful of companies wouldn’t accept my resume but told me to apply online.

"It may come down to me sitting alongside the highway with a placard: ‘Have degree. Want job,’” McNeely said, only half joking.

A competitive job market has pushed many jobseekers to use similar and more extreme tactics. Based on a recent survey conducted by an independent research firm for OfficeTeam staffing firm, 250 randomly selected senior executives at large U.S. and Canadian companies have received resumes delivered in a pizza boxes, spritzed with perfume, shaped like paper airplanes and wrapped baby shoes to "get their foot in the door.”

One applicant used a press release about her hiring as a cover letter. Another advertised his skills on a sandwich board. Another stood outside a company’s building for a month until he was hired.

Such measures don’t work for Wolf Gugler, president of an executive search firm with offices in Shawnee and Canada.

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