The Art of Self-Promotion

By: Shawna Wright

Last night I was at the 49^th Annual Hatch Awards, hosted by the Boston Ad Club. This Boston-centric version of the Clio Awards attracted the area’s best and brightest in the Greater Boston creative and marketing space, including: Arnold World Wide Advertising, Hill Holliday, Mullen Advertising, 451 Marketing, Cramer, The Via Group and many more.

These awards celebrate the passion and talents of the area’s most innovative marketing professionals. They also provide a chance to meet and mingle with some of the most creative forces in the industry. For one Art Director in particular, last night’s Hatch Awards ceremony presented the opportunity to unabashedly sell himself.

Craig Grant is an Art Director/Designer who understands the importance of making an impression. He worked his way through the crowds, handing out business cards to everyone he could find. But they weren’t traditional business cards; they were small pieces of cardboard printed to look like a panhandler’s sign. The pieces presented a humorous approach to his job search, offering to do lunch—providing you pay.  

At one point in the night, Craig surprised the audience when he approached the stage and handed one of his homemade business cards to an award recipient from Mullen Advertising.  It only seemed fitting to Craig, as the speaker was telling a story about a writer who won Best of Show at the Hatch Awards years ago for a personal job search campaign. Needless to say, by the end of last night many knew about Craig, his job search and his ability to reinvent a traditional business tool.  

Craig’s effort is an example of mixing traditional Boston Job seeking methods with out-of-the-box thinking.  In today’s economy, Craig is not alone in his unique approach to the job search. Judy Schultz, a graphic designer, reproduced a company’s logo on a cake and sent it with her resume in response to a  job posting. A recent graduate from Boston University placed a pay-per-click ad on Facebook to spice up his job search efforts. Everyday HR professionals are bombarded with resumes and interviews of potential candidates all clamoring for a Boston Job in the competitive creative space. 

We are interested in comments/feedback from local HR professionals as to whether or not you think these creative tactics are effective. We are also interested in hearing from you if you have seen other unique self promotion job search campaigns(please make comments below).

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