ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996                 TAG: 9604230001
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: 4    EDITION: METRO 
COLUMN: Workplace 
SOURCE: TAWN NHAN KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS 

HE WROTE THE BOOK ON JOB HUNTING THE NONTRADITIONAL WAY

When mailing or faxing your resume to a prospective employer fails to get your foot in the door, try delivering a pizza to his office at dinner time with your resume taped inside the box.

It works - someone has actually tried it.

The pizza prank is Tip No. 43 from the tried-and-true (at least once) strategies in ``303 Off-the-Wall Ways to Get A Job'' by Brandon Toropov.

If the pizza doesn't work, try one of Toropov's other suggestions:

Tip No. 40: Call a radio talk show, and after outlining your status as the victim of a layoff, describe your qualifications.

Tip No. 159: Wear a big T-shirt that says ``I'm an accountant'' (or whatever you are) and list your phone number.

Tip No. 36: Make a satisfaction guarantee to the prospective employer - if he is not satisfied with your work by the end of the test week, you'll leave and he won't owe you a penny.

Tip No. 141: Students, do your senior research project on the company you'd like to work for, then submit the paper as part of your application after graduation. (This gives you a good excuse to ask for an interview with a decision-maker, by the way). If you're not a student, enroll in a community college course.

``The competition is very different today for some jobs,'' Toropov said. He wrote the book for job hunters who are having no luck using traditional methods. Employers ``don't have a lot of time to spend on each application.''

That's one of the reasons why job seekers who demonstrate unusual creativity or initiative will stand out, said Toropov, who spent four months researching and interviewing career counselors and employers.

Some of Toropov's more outlandish suggestions work best for people looking for work in creative fields such as advertising, marketing or communications.

Not all employers will cotton to stunts such as disguising yourself as a delivery person or enclosing a shoe with your resume (cover-letter punch line: ``now that I've got my foot in the door'').

Can you overdo it? Yes.

``You have to be careful not to overwhelm employers or aggravate them,'' Toropov said. But ``you have to measure that with the risk of not doing anything at all. My advice to people is to be proactive.''

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