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Comment by bromagosa | Hacker News Reader

«Write a song about the company and send them a video of you singing or rapping it. Like to bake? Send them a homemade cake decorated with the company’s name and your contact info. Love to run? Use a phone GPS running app to draw your route on a map, then go to a large field and run a path in the shape of the company’s logo. You get the idea – anything goes.»

Seriously? I stopped reading here. What kind of company will hire a programmer, an architect or a lawyer that bakes a cake with their logo in it? I hope none, for the world's sake...

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Now programmers/software engineers are in a quite special position, especially in SV and similar locations, where it is a seller's market.

For most others it is about getting noticed, if a hiring manager has 100 CVs sent to him or her, how will you stand out? Baking a cake will not help you if you don't have a good CV/qualifications but it will help you get noticed and stand out.

Another way, which is just as silly as baking a cake is to buy adwords with the hiring managers name [1]. It is a novel strategy to get noticed.

Point is that it is much easier if you have a network to rely on for introductions, weak ties are very important when job hunting. So if you don't have any network to support you, you have to become creative in order to get noticed.

[1]: http://mashable.com/2010/05/13/job-google-ad-words/

Do people really google themselves that often?

Apparently advertising execs do! ;)

I don't know how often people actually Google themselves, I do sometimes but that is only to see if my 'personal SEO' efforts are paying off. Thinking back, how many times have you Googled your self? Paying for adwords on exec names are a novel strategy, just like the cake baking and song writing. It may work, it may get you noticed but it may also totally fail.

Well I googled myself just now, as a direct result of reading this thread. The last time must be well over a year ago. I don't think I even bothered the last time I looked for a new job.

Other way around :-) When you are looking you a job at a particular company, put up google ads for all relevant executives and hiring managers names, so when they google themselves, they find you. That came out zen.

> especially in SV and similar locations, where it is a seller's market

I keep hearing this, but it's not at all what I experienced last time I went on a job hunt.

What is your background and skills?

My skill set consists mainly of lots of iOS (worked on over 2 dozen apps in the store, including major brands), Mac development, Ruby + Rails (more experience in the backend side of things than the HTML/CSS/JS portion), but I've dabbled in a lot of things over the years.

> What kind of company will hire a programmer, an architect or a lawyer that bakes a cake with their logo in it?

A company that bakes cakes.

> I hope none, for the world's sake...

So you think bakers should be hired without actually seeing if they can bake?

Or are you saying that a programmer, architect, or a lawyer shouldn't be allowed to bake cakes?

Or that they shouldn't be allowed to switch careers and bake cakes?

Or are you saying that if someone well qualified for a job bakes a cake, they shouldn't be hire?

Or maybe, just maybe, you missed the point. Considering you stopped reading, I'd venture a yes. Especially considering some of the things people have done to get jobs. Creating videos and websites specifically targeting companies.

Also giving their website a facelift can be extremely insulting.

"Your website sucks, and I can make a better one, even though I don't know anything that went into making it, or the reasons why it looks like it does".

Maybe not hire the cake-baker, but interview them ... which is required to lead to the former.

Is it the cake-baking you object to, or something else entirely?

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