7 of the most creative resumes we've ever seen
It's nearly impossible to guarantee your resume gets the attention it deserves.
In fact, more than 40 percent of hiring managers spend less than 60 seconds looking at a resume, according to a 2016 CareerBuilder survey of 2,100 HR professionals.
So in an effort to stand out, some job applicants have taken resume-writing to a whole new level. Here are seven of the most creative resumes professionals have made to impress employers.
1. A pizza box
A college-student and professional designer in Brisbane, Australia named Zvina Luke decided that since her line of work is very visual in nature, her resume should be too.
Luke created a faux pizza resume includes toppings made from software logos in which she's proficient and a list of skills in the form of a fake takeout receipt.
"See what is out there and do something differently," Luke writes on her blog.
2. An iPad
While employers may be disappointed to find out that this iPad is actually made of cardboard, they're sure to remember it.
Boston and Los-Angeles based photographer Joshua Barnatt made the fake iPad displaying his resume to help potential clients envision how his photos could work for their own homepages.
3. A mini-basketball game
One job applicant researched her prospective boss, Sharon Napier, the CEO of Partners + Napier, and discovered that the executive liked basketball. To catch Napier's eye, the candidate, Taira Perrault, attached her resume to a mini-basketball game.
A company representative told CNBC that Napier loved receiving the game. Perrault was hired soon after as an associate art director.
4. A bottle of shampoo
Jessica Nitti-Mahoney, a hair stylist in Denver, Colorado, created a shampoo bottle (that's actually filled with fragrant hand lotion) as a cover letter and marketing tool to attract potential customers.
At first, the bold move didn't pay off — salons that Jessica would interview at didn't always have the reaction she was looking for.
"Some salon owners gave me the stink eye," Nitti-Mahoney told CNBC. "I think they felt threatened by my personal branding. I just thought it was awesome."
But her boss at Salon Orea in Denver loved it. Nitti-Mahoney said that she hopes posting a photo of the bottle on Instagram will help attract more clients to the salon.
5. A Lego figurine
Emily Kuret, interaction designer for Fjord Toronto Studio, left a lasting impression with her now-boss Scott Weisbrod when she gave him a Lego figurine of herself. Kuret created the Lego piece and attached it to a flash drive, which contained her portfolio and resume.
"My mentor had suggested that I leave something behind after my interview, something that they will remember me by," Kuret told CNBC. "So I set out to find a USB that fit my personality."
"I didn't really worry about standing out too much," she said. "I was hoping that Scott would find it useful to have all of my files in one place, and wanted it to be a bit more exciting than just writing my name on the USB. A plain USB could easily get lost on his desk."
Weisbrod, group director of the company's Toronto Studio, still keeps the Lego figurine on his desk, he told CNBC.
"It left a lasting impression," Weisbrod said. "Because she was very qualified first and foremost, it was like: Wow, it's amazing she went the extra mile."
6. A box of donuts
Lukas Yla, a marketing professional from Lithuania, recently moved to San Francisco and wanted to stand out in the crowded market, according to The Next Web.
So Yla pretended to be a Postmates deliveryman, hand-delivering boxes of donuts directly to the hiring manager of each company he was pursuing.
Inside the box of donuts was a clever cover letter, his resume and a link to his LinkedIn profile.
7. A resume of failures
Unlike the other resumes listed, this one was made to create a public statement. In a commentary on success and the hard work it takes to achieve it, one Princeton University professor posted his CV of failures for the world to see. It includes degree programs he did not get into, awards he didn't win, and academic journals that rejected him.
"Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible," Princeton assistant professor of psychology and public affairs Johannes Haushofer wrote on the CV.
People, he wrote, "are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days."
Haushofer credited the idea to an article by Melanie Stefan, who is a lecturer at the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.
"This CV of Failures is an attempt to balance the record and provide some perspective," the professor added.
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Video by Andrea Kramar. This is an updated version of a previous article published in 2016