Did you hear the one about the candidate who applied for a job with a beer bottle?

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Did you hear the one about the candidate who applied for a job with a beer bottle?

I took a call recently from my brother in law telling me he heard an interview on RTE radio with an enterprising young jobseeker from Ireland, who applied for a job on beer bottles. Seriously! 

Now the casual observer would think, what a great idea, as my bro-in-law did. He works as a journalist for the Star and saw a story looming. But I’ll tell you what I told him. CREATIVE ideas like that normally only work if you are looking for a job in a CREATIVE industry.

In Hays, our consultants provide recruitment expertise in Accountancy, Administration, Banking, Construction, Engineering, Financial Services, Insurance, IT, Life Sciences and Procurement. So our advice to any of our candidates would be to keep their CV design as plain as possible. The more generic, the easier it is for trained CV readers (such as recruiters and HR professionals) to read it, before they move on to the many other CVs they have in their to-do pile. Anything wacky or CREATIVE is just a pain, as they are not looking to hire someone for their creativity.

We recommend customising your CV for every job you apply for, but only in relation to matching words and phrases with the job specification. It’s not about using the hiring company’s corporate colours or font in your typeset, it’s about making your relevant experience clear on your CV.

However, since I’m a marketer, I applaud this guy for doing something different. I once applied for a university placement year with Liverpool Football Club using a football as my cover letter. It didn’t result in a job offer, but I did receive a nice rejection letter, on the official headed paper. That was the best rejection I’ve ever received (and I’ve still got it!).

I tried something similar, a few years later, in December. I was looking for a job with an advertising agency in Dublin. I researched the top 10 agencies and found the client director in each company and sent them all a ‘Christmas present’ via courier. It was an impressive shiny box with a nice big bow - like the Americans do. Inside, it had ‘treats’ from brands I had worked on with a Belfast agency – Tayto crisps, Vodafone golf balls, etc. Subsequently, I got three interviews in a couple of days and accepted a job with Cawley Nea, TBWA.

But enough about me. The beer boy received what I received from LFC – thanks, but no cigar. He’s probably gutted now, but he’s had some serious PR since the response: the RTE interview and a feature on joe.ie which shows his ‘application’. Reading the joe.ie article I was able to find out he was applying to a drinks company, which was a relief. And he was a marketer, which was a double relief!

He was told he didn't have enough experience. Which reminds me of the previous blog written here by my learned colleague, Mike McDonagh, Business Director. Mike was highlighting how companies are looking for talent, when they should be looking for potential. And believe it or not, it inspired me to an idea for another blog, a follow-up to Mike’s on the value of looking beyond the obvious. But that’s for another day....

I don’t know the full story behind the drinks company's rejection of our plucky applicant, but in fairness to the firm behind the rejection, they might be under pressure to deliver on this project i.e. hiring a marketer to a specific high standard. Subsequently, it’s difficult for them to go out on a whim and take a risk.

One thing’s for sure, this guy will have a great story to tell in his next interview. It will leave a lasting, positive, impression on the interviewer. And that is something we definitely recommend in ANY job interview.

Stephen Flanagan is Senior Marketing Manager and is currently looking for a marketing intern to join his team. Apply here.

Graduates - how to catch a break!

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Like many young graduates out there, finding a job - when just out of college - is a road filled with turbulence, trial and error. You discover that ‘oh so awful’ catch-22; to get a job you need experience, but how can you get experience when you can’t get a job?!? I think when you’re a marketing graduate, it’s even harder. I was doing interview after interview and getting increasingly frustrated. Then, I came across an unexpected solution…..

While completing my marketing degree I always had a part-time job and got some degree-related experience, but not enough for prospective employers to be swept off their feet and offer me the job of my dreams. Finding a job in what you are qualified for can be a long road. The job search learning curve is steep and with every rejection you just have to stand straight back up and go again. And from where I am working now, I realise that it’s not always down to your interview performance, whether you get the job. I also learned that you’ll never know what success really feels like until you’ve failed a few times. 

After months of applying for permanent jobs to no avail, I was made aware of an internship with a recruitment company called Hays. I’d never considered an internship, I have to admit this wasn’t the road I thought I’d have to go down. Although I knew I didn’t have the experience, I had the passion and drive to succeed and always thought of myself as a fast learner so naively I thought I would be a working women in the world of marketing within a couple of months of finishing my degree. I was wrong. But I really wanted to work in marketing, so I went for the interview and beat off a load of other candidates to get on the internship!

I started in early November in their marketing department in Dublin and was very excited. I was told I would get to work on a wide range of marketing activities including social media, advertising, events and P.R., I was keen to find out if the practice was much different to the theory.

My experience as an intern for the past 6 months has been amazing for the most part, it’s given me the opportunity to grow and learn like never before and invokes a feeling of real worth; a sense of achievement that I’ve mastered something I’ve never done before. My reward is the abundance of new skills I’ve acquired and the increasing confidence in my ability to be the best that I can be.


As I said, amazing for the most part, but there was still a part of me that felt a little lost in the big bad world of business. Through no fault of anyone I work with, when I needed help, I felt like a small kid nagging my parents. In my head I was thinking, all these people have real responsibility so my qualms may seem trivial or time consuming. This is something I soon got over because the point of an internship is that you learn and if you don’t get help and guidance, you won’t learn. Looking back now, I can see it was silly, but it’s natural when you haven’t worked in a corporate office before.



The best advice I could give to anyone embarking on an internship is be bold, be confident and be brave. You may be entering a world where nothing seems familiar but you do find your feet and you learn like you’ve never learnt before. When I was looking for a job, I thought I only wanted to work in social media. But this internship gave me exposure to parts of marketing I’d never considered before and to develop more skills. Most of all, it gave me the confidence to go forth with my skills to look again for a permanent job, due to the lack of current permanent openings in the Hays marketing team.

I am lucky in the fact that I got to work with a great bunch of people that really convey what it means to be a team in everything they do. Their passion for their job has inspired me. I couldn’t be happier that I broke through the ‘oh so awful’ catch-22 and that Hays gave me my opportunity!!! I’ve learnt that it’s not as easy as just walking into your perfect job without experience. Learning what you can and can’t do and most importantly what you’re really interested in, will definitely be a major step in planning the career you want.

And most of all, it helped me get that job I couldn’t get six months ago. In a few weeks I will be a marketing assistant with Wholefoods. So if you ever wanted evidence that internships work, you’re reading it!

Sally Conway