Normality Signaling: A Test Case

Maybe for a creative position in some ad agency can be fine, for anything else i think that is not the right strategy.
At least he catch the atention of the recruiter "efficient but not effective"

I wouldn't expect courting a prospective employer with desperate gimmicks to be any more effective than courting that blonde in the club with desperate gimmicks. Not that I've tried it or anything. I'm just saying ...

Bryan,

I don't know about your work place, but nearly everyone I have ever worked with is a bit weird in one way or another once you get to know them (yes, including me).

It is interesting that acting normal is a plus during the interview. Perhaps its not so much a matter of weirdeness/non-weirdness, as it is a matter of knowing how to act in a formal setting.

Interviewing at Microsoft

You know those life sized celebrity cardboard cutouts that adorn the occasional geek office? I decided to build a cardboard cutout of me and send it along with my resume as the “model Microsoft employee.” ... Of course, I still spent a lot of time polishing my resume ... [I received] a personal note from the Vice President of Human Resources ... to say that in all of his years at Microsoft, he had never seen a resume quite like mine ...

I never heard anything else from Microsoft about that resume, and it didn’t end up getting me a job (surprise, surprise).

Microsoft receives about 6,000 resumes per day.

Actually, I don't think the guy is likely to be weird. He just read somewhere that you need to stand out to get your resume noticed, and was willing to take a gamble. If his resume was good, the shoe gambit should give him the benefit of the doubt. Most people I've talked to who have responded to a resume solicitation talk about the feeling of sending their resumes into a black hole (most elicit no response whatever). Can blame a guy for trying to get noticed, and doing so with humor at that?

I saw a resume once which basically said the guy could not do most of what was wanted, but he would do almost anything he co-Workers would not. lgl

I think Randy is correct. Acting normal in the interview doesn't mean you are normal, it just means you know how to act normal when needed. This is valuable information. All very well to wear jeans and t-shirt when working in the back. But you should have enough brains to put on a suit when you have to meet with customers or the like.

I think that he should have not have gotten the job due to lack of originality. I have heard the shoe story before. See, for example
http://www.saja.org/tipsjobs2.html
http://www.dhrintl.net/about/pressroom/newarc69.htm

The first time you hear about the shoe resume, it's clever and funny. The second time is pathetic.

It's a good strategy if you're "objectively" underqualified, aka a longshot. you can make up in guts what you lack in experience.

I had some success with a cover letter whose first paragraph was my explanation of why I hated cover letters. Unfortunately, I could never work out the travel for an interview in NY. Oh well.