Lesson Learned—Be Creative!

• When searching for a job, get inspired and be creative! You want to stand out from the competition and get noticed. If your approach is the same as everyone else’s, how are you going to find a job? There are a lot of fellow job hunters out there. You are looking for the job—it’s not necessarily looking for you.
  
  
• It doesn’t take much. You don’t have to be as creative as Leonardo da Vinci or Thomas Edison. A little ingenuity can go a long way. All I did was put on a $2 sign board and go out to Park Avenue to hand out some resumes, and my life was never the same.
  
  
• When doing the same old thing does not work, don’t give up, but also don’t keep doing the same old thing. Get inspired and do something innovative. Think out-of-the-box, and take a little risk. (One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results.) You might have to overcome your fears and inhibitions, but it may well be worth the effort.
  
  
• Don’t be afraid of embarrassment. When I donned a sign board on the corner of 50th Street and Park Avenue, I felt as awkward and embarrassed as could be, but I went through with it. I do not strive to do one thing that scares me every day, as some people do, but sometimes I consciously go out of my comfort zone. Wearing a sign board on Park Avenue was certainly one of those times.
  
  
• Let your creativity flow. Since my own creative and inspirational act, I have become aware of many other resourceful, inspirational and out of the box approaches to finding a job. One person in California had their resume printed on a t-shirt. Another person in Texas advertised their job search on a billboard. A woman in San Francisco set up a web site to help publicize her husband’s job search. A “copycat” sign board guy even hit the streets of New York City and garnered much publicity.
  
  
• Look to history for inspiration. I did not invent the sign board approach. After my publicity, I was contacted by a several people who had advertised their job search using a sign board months or even years before, and they told me they had eventually been quite successful. In the Great Depression, unemployed people wearing sign boards were a common sight.
  
  
• The main thing is to do something. Preferably it’s something innovative and constructive—and also something that suits your personality and that you can live with. If you want to find a job, you have to get noticed. It does not take much, but you have to show initiative. Add a little color to your approach and resume!
  
  
• If you want to find a job, you have got to reach deep inside yourself and bring out your true colors. You’ve got to do something different to attract the attention that will put you ahead of the competition.