Over at Capulet, we get a few job-related enquiries each month. Most of them are random resume submissions. Yesterday, I received the most original employment query that I’ve seen in a long time. With Lori’s permission, I’m reposting it here:
Which is why you need someone like me working for you. I’m an administrative and planning genious. I have a resume and references to this effect, but your little text box here doesn’t allow me the needed space for that. I love the kind of work your company does, I love your location, and if I have to work “for the man” being a part of the projects you create and dealing with the kind of clients you have is something that I would love to be a part of.
I’ve been a lot of things in my adult life, and finding the right kind of enviroment to use my skills to the fullest is difficult. Your company seems to be the right balance. I’m an event planner, researcher, information and referral resource person, legal assistant, fundraiser, receptionist, travel and itinerary organizational goddess, and fun at parties.
I want to talk with you, just once. I will try to make myself indespensible to you and your company.
Now that’s a purple cow (er, sorry about that) of a job enquiry. Of course, we’re in Malta, so we can’t really retain her services at the moment.
If you’re in need of such a person, feel free to drop me an email and I’ll put you in touch with Lori.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Her inability to spell ‘genius’ undermines her claim somewhat.
Sounds like boilerplate to me. If you don’t take her on board, I’m sure we’re all looking for someone who is “fun at parties.”
I’m assuming that’s at the bottom of all your job descriptions, right?
Man, you guys are total Debbie Downers.
i with the others, darren .. i was expecting something a little more than someone who claims to be paris hilton with secretarial skills.
that’s not a purple cow, it’s a headache!
Ouch.
And here I thought it was nice to see a little personality in a pitch.
But I got a reaction. I’m also an event planner, so I have to be fun at parties. In my zeal, I spelled a word wrong.
“Paris Hilton with secretarial skills.”? If you think that doing what I do amounts to that… I pity your assistant. If you’re even busy enough to warrant one.
But when you didn’t have balls enough to go through with the idea or the idea wasn’t yours, pick at the spelling, right? Accuse the person of spewing out c’n’p-ed spam? Dismiss the person as an airhead who managed to learn to type?
This is the first time I’ve ever done something like this, and it’s probably not going to be the last time. You try and sum up a lifetime of experience into a 1 inch by 4 inch text box to try to break into a new industry with skills that are transferrable but not direct.
I dare you.
In fact, I double dog dare you.
Purple Cow? I don’t get that. Please explain. 🙂
Patricia – ‘Purple Cow’ is a Seth Godin concept (I’m kind of a Godin acolyte), which you can get the gist of in this article. Here’s an excerpt:
“Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. They may be well-bred cows, Six Sigma cows, cows lit by a beautiful light, but they are still boring. A Purple Cow, though: Now, that would really stand out. The essence of the Purple Cow — the reason it would shine among a crowd of perfectly competent, even undeniably excellent cows — is that it would be remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.”
b: Isn’t a Purple Cow in the eye of the beholder? After all, there are a ton of things which I don’t are remarkable, but other people do. To me, this was a remarkable job pitch. To you, clearly it wasn’t.
Maybe you get and Jacques and Dick get a lot more pitches, or far more clever ones, but I don’t.
Here’s another characteristic of purple cows–people tend to love or hate them. That seems to be the case here, too.
I should add that one person’s contacted me about Lori already. So it clearly isn’t turning everybody off.
Lori,
No need to get all upset and defensive, your pitch and skills seem perfectly fine. I think the reason you’re getting a bit of backlash is because of the setup from Darren. He announced your request as a purple cow, while many believe it failed to live up to those impressive standards, you still seem like a swell enough gal with creativity.
It’s just your request didn’t seem as over the moon to others as it was to Darren.
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