Paid To Travel

In 2013, a New Zealand job listing went viral for a misleading but witty job advertisement. The sign asked, “Always wanted a corner office with a view? How about being paid to travel? Plus drive a $400,000 company vehicle?” Followed by the punch line which said, “Tony did, so he became a bus driver.” The ad was on point in terms of technicality and the witty punch line probably got them dozens of responses.

Solve The Equation

A campus job ad for computer engineers put up their listing on the main bulletin board of the college. The ad had paper slips with phone numbers on them that the students could take and contact them on. Sounds fairly simple right? Except when you take a look at the slip, it has a math equation for the students to solve and the correct answer is the phone number. Brilliant method to screen candidates at the very first step.

Do Not Apply

Vinnie’s Pizzeria posted a job listing on their window which had a rather strict set of rules to even apply for the job. The ad read, “DO NOT APPLY if you’ll need nights off because your band has a gig. DO NOT APPLY if you’ll need weekends off because you have a gallery opening. DO NOT APPLY if you just want to work a few weeks before you go to Europe.”

Don’t Mention The M

In 2017, Burger King sent out a witty job ad looking for a marketing manager. The ad mentioned they are looking for an “arketing anager” followed by a tiny text saying, “Don’t mention the M”. The design uses intentional misspelling to send out a message against burger king’s competitor, McDonald’s.

Brutal But Honest

In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton listed a job ad in a newspaper for his expedition to Antarctica. He knew the journey will not be easy so he kept it simple, brutal but honest. “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” The expedition was not successful as Shackleton never made it to Antarctica, which makes this gloomy job listing utterly authentic.

Who Cares?

The Swedish Army live-streamed its recruitment process which lasted for 4 days. They invited strangers to voluntarily sit in a black box and they were only allowed to leave as long as some other stranger volunteers to take their place. The black box only contained a single chair and was locked with an airlock. The campaign, which translated to “Who cares?”, ended up having 74 participants and 9930 applications!