With unemployment still high in what many are calling a jobless recovery from the past year?s economic downturn, the days of large signing bonuses, creative perks and massive recruitment campaigns are gone. Replacing them is a buyer?s job market in which applicants are resorting to increasingly original and desperate measures to stand out from a reserve army of the unemployed swollen with the ranks of those recently laid off as a result of downsizing or scandal induced corporate bankruptcies. In addition to the flowers, cakes, doughnuts, lottery tickets and singing telegrams sent to hiring managers, some job seekers have taken to handing out resumes on the street, agreeing to work for stock options instead of paychecks, and standing in business suits on street corners with ?seeking work? signs.
See STEPHANIE ARMOUR, USA Today, September 12, 2002