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Jobs seekers... please restrain your creativity!

It's no secret that finding a job right now is tough. And when times get tough, the tough get creative!  Right?

Today I ran across the results of a survey from CareerBuilder that says 20% of hiring managers are seeing more people try to get their attention in unusual ways.

Some of the things people are trying?

• Sending in a shoe with a resume to "get my foot in the door."


• Staging a sit-in in the lobby to get a meeting with a director.

• Washing cars in the parking lot. (No reason given for this.)


• Sending a resume wrapped as a present and a message that said his skills were a "gift to the company."


• Handing out resumes at stoplights.


• Delivering a cake designed as a business card with the candidate’s picture.


• Going to the same barber as the Chairman of the Board and asking the barber speak on his behalf.


• Arriving at an interview dressed in a bunny suit because it was near Easter.

Some of those ideas are cute... but I wonder if they're actually effective.  And I wonder how many of them actually turned the hiring manager off of the candidate.

Using "creative" tactics in your job search is risky (in my opinion). Unless you're applying for a really innovative company with a reputation for loving those tactics, it could easily tell the interviewer that you're either (a) crazy, (b) not a serious candidate, or (c) desperate.  None of those sound like a good option to me.

Plus, even if you're trying to show that you're extremely creative, it might not work.  A creative job search tactic only works once.  Once people have heard of a tactic, it's no longer creative - and then you're just a copycat.

My advice to job seekers is to stop with the tricks and gimmicks and figure out ways to show your value.  That's not nearly as fun, but it is probably a lot more effective.

There is a time for blatant creativity and a time to tone it down.  If you're looking for a job, you should probably err on the side of not looking ridiculous.

(Unless, of course, you want to send me a cake with your resume on it.  I won't guarantee I'll hire you, but I'll definitely scarf it down!)

There's danger in thinking within the box.

Everyone who talks about creativity goes on and on about "thinking outside the box".  But what does that really mean?  And why is it so important?

Well, learning to think outside the box can really make a huge difference.  Trust me on this.  I know!

A couple years ago, I suffered through a horrible, torturous reminder about how important it is to think outside of the box.

Here's the story!

It was one of my first times visiting Germany, and I understood almost no German.  So, every time we went out to eat, I had to spend a ton of time poring over every single menu item with a dictionary in hand.  Then I'd ask my friends to translate - and of course, forget half of the menu by the time they finished.

It always took forever.

One night, we decided to order pizzas and, rather than spend my normal 30 minutes staring at the available toppings and making my German friends translate everything twice, I decided it would just be easier to order a normal, old-fashioned Pepperoni pizza.

I should have been warned when everyone asked me, "Just pepperoni?"

But no, being a confident American who has successfully ordered pizza hundreds of times in the US, I charged blindly ahead. 

"Just pepperoni!"  I said with a smile (thrilled there was a type of food I could order easily in Germany.)  After all, how hard could it be?

Then the pizzas arrived and boy, was I in for a surprise!

When I opened the boxes... I didn't see any pizzas that looked like mine.  Of course, there was a very simple explanation for that. 

In German, "pepperoni" does not refer to the style of pizza we Americans normally envision.  No, in Germany, a "pepperoni" is the topping you see on the right.

Wikipedia explains the source of my confusion:

Pepperoni is frequently used as a pizza topping in American-style pizzerias. It is the most popular pizza topping in North America....Pepperoni is a corruption of peperoni, the Italian plural of peperone, referring to the bell pepper, so that ordering "peperoni" pizza in Italy is often an unwelcome surprise for North American tourists." (read it here)

Exactly. I was just a little surprised!  It never occurred to me that pizza toppings were different in different countries.  My thinking was so stuck inside the (pizza) box that I couldn't imagine anything else was possible.

This is exactly the sort of thinking that happens in the real world too.  Most people never think beyond what they already know.  If you had asked people what they wanted most in transportation options at the beginning of the 20th century, they probably would have said they wanted a faster horse.

So, while you hopefully won't ever end up in the same situation as me - picking minuscule bits of hot pepper out of your overly-spiced pizza while your "friends" roar with laughter - remember that thinking only inside the box can blind you to the possibilities that are really out there.

(And, if you're ever in a foreign land, and your friends ask "are you sure you want that?"  PAY ATTENTION!)

Have you heard about Starbucks' latest bad idea?

Big news in the world of coffee yesterday.  Starbucks has apparently decided to offer $2 coffees to reward loyal patrons. The Associated Press reports:

Looking to bring more value-seeking consumers through its doors for a late afternoon caffeine fix, Starbucks Corp. said it will now offer its morning customers any iced grande beverage for $2 after 2 p.m.

The price is a big cut from the normal price of most grande-sized iced drinks.... To get the discount, customers must present a receipt from their morning Starbucks visit.

Does this sound like a good idea to you?

To me, Starbucks represents a more exclusive atmosphere - with coffee that costs extra because their branded cup says something about the person carrying it.  It's a group that doesn't welcome all comers - only the ones who are willing to pay for the privilege of using their internet and drinking their coffee.  It's for successful professionals who have the disposable income to go there.

It hasn't been for me, but part of that's due to the fact that I recently spent a long time in college without much disposable income.  I couldn't justify joining their club.

But now, it seems like Starbucks is throwing the doors wide open for all comers.

They're passing out discounts right and left.  In addition to this new promotion, Starbucks offers discounted drinks on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in some cities. 

It even did the newspaper coupon route in NYC, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and Detroit: Customers got a free 12-ounce iced coffee on Wednesdays with a voucher from newspaper inserts.

Granted, the US economy is not doing too great right now, and customers want to get more for their money.  Nor is Starbucks doing too great right now - and they would definitely like to get more of customers' money!

This is what happens when a company stops generating its own ideas and just starts copying what works for everyone else. 

Discounts on coffee work for McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts, right?  And customers also go to McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts in the morning... so it should work, right?

Except it won't.  Because Starbucks sells an experience, not coffee.  People don't pay extra just for what's in the cup. 

Discounts and promotions might give Starbucks a boost for a while, but they risk implying to customers that their coffee isn't worth full price.  And if Starbucks' customers are no longer willing to pay premium prices for their coffee, the chain is in even bigger trouble than before.

Instead of revitalizing their brand, Starbucks could end up completely devaluing it. (And I'm not the only one who thinks so.  Great post on Brand Autopsy about this!)

That's not the kind of thinking they should be doing.  Starbucks should be thinking of ideas that can strengthen their image and attract more customers from their target markets.

It's not that hard.  I'm not a huge coffee drinker, and I immediately had an idea for them.

What are your ideas?  How would you revitalize Starbucks without offering discounts?

(Remember, comment for Kudos this month!)

A Mark of Distinction

On this blog, I work really hard to see the value in each and every idea.  It's far better to look for possibilities in a "bad" idea, than to simply dismiss it outright and walk away.  After all, who knows where a really awful idea might lead.

But sometimes I run across an idea so awful that it makes me cringe.  Not often, but it happens.

Like when the phone rang last night during dinner.  We're on the Do Not Call list, so I assumed that it would be a friend.

Nope.

I picked up the phone to hear a click, and then a mechanical voice.  "Please hold while we connect you to the next available representative."

Sadly, I didn't stick around long enough to get a name that I could point fingers at.  It was dinnertime, after all, and my food was getting cold.

On some levels, I can see what thought process someone used to come up with this marketing system.  After all, it lets them operate with a smaller number of employees, and ensures that they don't have to waste their time calling people who aren't home.

Seriously though!  Why would anyone ever think it was a good idea to combine dinner-interrupting calls, telemarketing, and waiting on hold?

One the other hand, I might be just looking at this the wrong way.  Maybe their goal wasn't to sell, but to come up with an extremely effective way to truly alienate their potential customers.

In that case, well done!

When an idea isn't better pink!

Over at Learned on Women, Andrea reminded her readers that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month--and that it's also the month that companies make everything in pink.

Everything?

Yes. Everything.

That, by the way, is a pink 20-gauge Remington 870 Junior shotgun.  With matching pink hat.

(From the BrandBuilder Blog.)

Products like that come about because a company decides that they want to appeal to women shoppers.   But ideas like that are designed to fail because the only thing new about them is their color.

Cosmetic changes don't get attention from new customers, or inspire renewed loyalty from loyal patrons. 

People, whether they're men or women, want to be impressed by how a new product or service will improve their lives.

Helping someone look cute out hunting is not enough incentive to make a purchase.

Helping someone be more visible (e.g. with the bright orange) so that they're less likely to be mistaken for an animal by another hunter IS a good incentive.

When companies decide cosmetic changes will make a product appeal to a new demographic, they're being lazy. 

It's easy to paint something pink and say it's for women.

It's hard to develop a new product or redesign an old one so that it genuinely benefits a different customer.

But, if creativity were easy, the benefits wouldn't be so great.

(And there would be significantly fewer pink things to buy every October!)

So, please, stop thinking pink when it comes to making things for women.  We know that it's just a layer of paint.

That goes for products for men too.  After all, how many guys want to buy traditionally female-focused products like lotions?

It takes more than a cosmetic color change to interest guys.  They want to see the specific benefits for them too.

So don't be mentally-lazy and think that easy things like changing color will make a great idea.  Start thinking of what would make people actually want to buy a product!

When it's not worth innovating for more features.

One of the posts I wrote in August, What products drive you insane and how could they be improved? had a great comment from Jon Burg that is definitely worth sharing.

Jon, of the Future Visions blog wrote:

I've said this time and time again, more doesn't equal better.  Ultimately we utilize technology to drive towards a goal, for the voice function cell phones it's communication, for digital cameras it's about preserving a moment, for a computer mouse it's about interface and elemental control.

There is a rash of new "2.0" companies offering "more", but few are truly delivering "whatever you're doing now, do it with us better - read: easier and more naturally".

Find yourself wanting to argue with him?

I did at first.  It's easy to be seduced by the lure of flashy new technology and a slew of sexy new features. Every month, the internet is buzzing with the latest gotta-have-it product that does everything anyone could every want it to do.

But does that every-thing-but-the-kitchen-sink purchase actually do what you really wanted it for?

Three weeks ago, a good friend of mine purchased a new cell phone, the Nokia N73.  It has a fantastic zoom on the camera, the ability to edit phots and upload them to Flickr "on the go", a music player, email capabilities, pc back-up functions, online games and even a barcode scanner.

It was pretty impressive.

Fast forward two weeks.  My friend wakes up in the morning to discover that his brand-new phone--that had been sitting untouched on the table all night--won't work.  Why?  The large, formerly-drool-worthy 2.5 inch color screen had cracked overnight.

And, without that fabulously technologically-advanced screen, the phone is completely useless. Not only can't my friend do any of the fancy stuff, he can't even call others.  If the phone rings, he can answer it.  That's it.

This is exactly what Jon was talking about.  My friend was seduced to buy a flashy new phone that "does everything" on top of being a phone. 

But, when Nokia tried to make the phone do "more", they concentrated so much on the additional features that they neglected to make the phone reliable. 

One tiny glitch, and my friend is left with a useless device that cannot fulfill his need for a phone.

Innovation is marvelous, but is it worth adding on so many features that the most important function of a technology--in this case, the phone's ability to send and receive calls--is endangered.

A phone can have all the fancy bells and whistles, but if it doesn't help people communicate, it's still a miserable failure.

Fighting back when a competitor has a better product.

What should a company do when its competitor comes up with an amazing product that everyone wants?

With all  the hype and excitement about the upcoming release of the iPhone, AT&T's competitors appear to be tearing their hair out.

Sprint just issued a list of anti-iPhone talking points (pdf), while Verizon Wireless apparently decided to take the high road with a confidential internal memo telling employees specific ways to trash the iPhone's capabilities.

At this point, there is absolutely nothing Verizon or Sprint can do to stop the iPhone's arrival.  On Friday, no matter what, the iPhone is hitting the stores and certain customers will jump to get their hands on it.

So, Verizon Wireless and other providers have only a few options...

1. Spend a lot of energy personally telling customers everything that is wrong about the iPhone and why it will make their life miserable.
   
   Of course, this could backfire by making Verizon and Sprint look like sore losers.  Plus, with all the hype the iPhone is getting, customers probably won't believe the negative points.  Each conversation will take up a lot of time, tying up service reps and dragging down customer service for other customers.
2. Make it incredibly difficult for existing customers to get out of their phone contracts.
   
   This will keep their customer numbers up in the short term, but make their existing customers hate them.  Once those subscriptions are up... goodbye!
3. Tell customers about all the great options available at their current provider and get customers to upgrade their accounts.
   
   A positive, proactive option that might retain customers.  Done wrong though, this could backfire by making customers feel manipulated (remember the AOL unsubscribe phone call?) and sucked into a more expensive phone plan that still doesn't give them what they really want.
4. Offer irresistable bonuses to customers to lure them back to Verizon/Sprint/etc.
   
   Tempting and proactive, but could be very expensive for the company to lure back customers, and could upset the current customers who aren't getting the same deal.
5. Cut their losses, congratulate AT&T, carefully take note of the successes and failures of the iPhone and then come out with anew phone next year that completely blows the iPhone out of the water!
   
   Verizon and Sprint already know that the iPhone isn't perfect.  Which means that they also know what can be improved.  Instead of pointing fingers at all the iPhone's faults, they should be figuring out how to take advantage of them by coming out with a better phone.

Verizon and Sprint are facing a big choice this summer as the iPhone enters the market and changes customer expectations.  But it's also a big opportunity for them.  As Seth Godin wisely wrote today on his blog:

The iPhone is a gift for every cell phone marketer in the world. Why? Because it creates a problem where there was none before. Now, a cell phone is not just a phone. Now, a phone is worth spending money on. So, since Apple created that 'problem' in my mind, how are you going to solve it?

He has it exactly right.  The iPhone has just completely redefined the cell phone market.

It showed that people want phones that are better, do more, look good and are easy to use.  It is also showing that people will happily pay a lot of money for a new, innovative phone that blows the others out of the water.

It's a great moment for innovation in phones.

So, now the question is, who can come up with the next phone that everyone has to have?

"Verizon is Evil" photo thanks to www.gizmodo.com