Hunter S. Thompson's brutally honest Canadian job request

I recently needed to bring someone on to take over the basics on a bunch of my web projects, because I'm overcommitted, as usual, and trying not to be. I tried a local resource first, and then I went to Craigslist, which has worked out well for me in the past.

My ad was simple and direct; it spelled out what we were about, what we were looking for, and what we could offer, and then it had instructions: if someone wanted the job, they needed to solve an easy puzzle, not send a resume, and instead send about a paragraph talking about their skills and experience.

It worked out great.

As far as I'm concerned, resumes are next-to-worthless. I don't really care who you've worked for or what you've done for them. I'm not going to call them and see if they say good things about you. I just want to know if you can figure things out and communicate well. During the interview, I'll sort out whether or not you actually know what you're doing.

Although, I don't think it's a question of whether I'm forthright or not, that's too simple. The whole interview process, starting with the initial letter/application is actually a kind of mating ritual. If you get the sequence right back and forth, then you get a chance to get hired. If you don't get the sequence right then you make people feel uncomfortable, and they won't hire you probably.

Basically, by being brash during this process, you make people wonder if you're capable of the mating ritual, and if you aren't, then why not? Are you socially inept? Professionally incompetent?

The off chance that you're perfectly ept and competent, but have just chosen to apply for a job in an unconventional way is too great a risk for most people, so they pass, and look for the next guy who follows the rules of the ritual.

Hemingway was a traditional, fiction, novelist and focused on his characters. Thompson defied (edit: was defined, oops) 100s of years of traditional writing (both novel and newspaper) by inventing so called 'gonzo' journalism. The man openly included his own personal life directly into all of this work, including this letter. He also, never worked in canada.

While I hold both men in high regard, the only parallels between these two men are the facts they both were journalists and authors (and drunks), since that's true for almost every published journalist, it's a thin comparison at best.

I've always included a pdf version, and I don't think I've ever submitted a resume in .doc format

No author can give all the facts and "just the facts". They can't help but shape and spin a story by selecting what they deem important, leaving out the rest. Their choice of words determines how the reader views the subject.

I'd rather know what the person that wrote an article thought and felt - it's another important fact.

You are king among the problems in the United States today. You hold opinions on things where you are grossly ignorant.

Plus, gonzo journalism gives birth to some pretty entertaining articles.

If there's a fundamental difference between the weaselly narratives constructed by Fox News and the psychedelic screeds Thompson put out, it's that most reporters aren't making it explicit that their stories are fully personal, opinionated interpretations of true events -- they record some isolated facts, sample a few quotes and make vague references to public sentiment to back up any narrative they need. But they present all of this as objective information. This was happening well before H.S.T. (see "yellow journalism") and happens outside the U.S. too (see Daily Mail).

Thompson's approach was (1) a veil of entertaining literary showmanship over (2) complete, self-accountable interpretations of the events being covered. He was clear that his stories were subjective, and that freed him to explain exactly why he felt the way he did about Nixon, drug laws, Southern culture, etc.