The Southern California Job Market : Making It Work : Finding the Balance Between Wallflower and Wacko

Like most gimmicks, the Kirk Bierley Man of Action Doll won’t get his eponymous creator a job. But the two- foot-high, custom-designed puppet, which wears a suit, tie and Bierley’s face, never fails to dazzle prospective employers when it arrives in the mail, clutching Bierley’s resume in a Dr. Seuss-style book called “All About Me.”

“That doll has opened a lot of doors for me,” says the 27-year-old Bierley, a wry salesman who is shopping for a job in product development or marketing.

Bierley’s doll certainly had the desired effect on Trent Ready, the jaded director of recruitment for Mattel Toys in El Segundo, who has seen every trick known to desperate job hunters.

“This is the most incredibly original thing I have ever received,” says Ready, who was impressed by the imagination of a man “who wanted to work for a toy company so he designed his own toy.”

Unfortunately, Ready says, Mattel doesn’t have a position open that would match Bierley’s talents. But he says the Dayton, Ohio, salesman is on his mind for right-brain jobs that might come open.

As long as too many people chase too few jobs, prospective employees will continue to angle for a way to stand out in a crowd. The more persistent ones will bombard personnel directors with innovative, wacky and sometimes plain annoying pleas that in one way or another say, “Hey, look at me.”

Job recruiters, personnel directors and executives say Bierley’s approach is the right stuff: doing your homework about the company, presenting yourself in a creative manner and being persistent but not annoying about following up.

Many employee wanna-bes send flowers, boxes of candy or notes to thank personnel directors for taking the time to interview them.

Some take the candy motif further. One personnel director received two huge chocolate feet in the past year bearing the inscription “Just trying to get my foot in the door.”

Another who groused about a recruit’s guerrilla tactics in trying to get noticed promptly received a toy gorilla holding a balloon.

A woman who works for TV’s “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” says one man sent a resume with a letter opener that said, “Think of me for your next opening.”

“I use his letter opener all the time, it’s sitting on my desk, but it’s terrible, don’t ask me where his resume is,” says the employer. She wouldn’t give her name, saying that if she did, legions of “Star Trek”-obsessed fans could ask for her when they call looking for work.

Employers say that even the most creative presentation will only get a prospective employee in the door. After that, an applicant is either qualified--or sunk.

Recruiters concur that there is an art to appearing eager but not desperate.

Remember actress Sean Young? Sneaking onto the Warner Bros. lot in a Catwoman costume didn’t persuade director Tim Burton to cast her in the “Batman” sequel’s plum female role; Michelle Pfeiffer landed that spot.

For lesser mortals, making bellicose demands on the phone or waiting all day in the lobby despite being told that no one can see you are two no-nos.

“There’s a fine line, and if you cross over and it’s too far out of the mainstream, it can backfire,” says Pam McCarthy, senior vice president and director of human resources at Saatchi & Saatchi, DFS/Pacific in Torrance.

One who went too far was the job hunter who sent Saatchi & Saatchi a noose with his resume. McCarthy can’t remember the person or the resume, but she keeps the noose in her office for morbid curiosity value.

Two resumes stick in her mind as striking the right note. One man presented his qualifications in a newspaper format, with banner headlines and various articles that described his background, training and extracurricular activities.

A woman looking for a job as an assistant account executive recently submitted a floppy disk containing a multimedia presentation on Hypercard for Macintosh that combined text in Spanish and English with graphics and music.

“This stands out because it’s something new; she wants to show her computer skills, her writing skills and her bilingual abilities,” says McCarthy, who intends to review the resume closely. “My associate wrote me a note saying she looked like a very enterprising young woman.”

Some job hunters assume that applying for work at a creative company gives them license to be wacky. Wrong.

One man who applied for a job at Iwerks, a Burbank company that designs and manufactures high-tech, out-of-home entertainment systems, got tired of waiting when personnel officials told him they had to review all applications submitted for a job he wanted.

Since it was late December, the man dressed up as Santa Claus and appeared at Iwerks corporate headquarters, where he proceeded to hand out gifts to everyone in the human resources department.

“It was a bad thing to do; it was too aggressive,” says Rachelle Lewis, a human resources assistant at the company.

But even the most corporate companies allow room for creativity, within limits. Caroline W. Nahas, managing vice president in the Century City corporate office of Korn/Ferry International, an executive recruiter with many Fortune 500 clients, says people who get jobs usually exhibit “a tremendous amount of perseverance.” Cunning doesn’t hurt, either.

One approach is “getting the direct lines of executives and then calling after hours, so the executive picks up the line,” Nahas says. Often, instead of being annoyed, the executive may be impressed at how dogged the applicant has been, she says.

As for Bierley, if he fails to land that job at Mattel, he can always hire himself out as a creative consultant for other employment seekers.

Bierley garnered two interviews with Toys R Us after sending the company a talking robot doll. He solicited the Big Three auto makers in Detroit by mailing personnel directors his resume embossed on a hubcap. When he applied to Walt Disney World, he customized the Man of Action Doll with a Mickey Mouse wristwatch and tie.

“I come from a classic marketing background, but sometimes you have to go outside the paradigm,” Bierley says. He’s talking to Chrysler. What got him in the door?

“I sent them a 1/18th-scale model of a Viper, with a shrunk-down photo of me waving from the front seat.”