A little while back when I was still job-hunting, I saw an interesting position come up with FI in Stockholm. They're the agency behind things like Google's 20 things I learned about browsers and the web. They were looking for a Web Producer to be clever and creative and innovative and insightful and all the usual things Web Producers are. I decided to apply but with such a high-profile agency, I figured my application had better be something appropriately clever and creative to get noticed.

I spent a couple of weeks tweaking key-words in my site to manipulate search results for the phrase "Awesomest Web Producer". I then used Moo to print up a postcard featuring a google search box with that phrase entered and the mouse cursor hovering over the "I'm feeling lucky" button (this trick doesn't work quite so well now that Google have launched Google Instant).

I posted the card off to them with the job reference number on the back and the words "My application" handwritten. No name, no signature, no contact details. If the scheme worked, they'd find me, proving the value of taking me on. That was my thinking, anyway. To be honest, once I'd sent off the postcard, I figured that was the end of it. It was a cocky, big-headed move and probably wouldn't work.

It did work. Kinda. It worked perfectly on a technical level, at least: you could enter the phrase, hit the button and land on my CV site. If you didn't hit "I'm feeling lucky", you were still presented with a page of search results, each about me, my career history and some of my projects. It also worked to get FI to contact me. I went through a few stages of the recruitment process before we parted ways. I never did find out exactly why but I wasn't quite 'the right fit'.

Of course, if I'd gone there, I wouldn't be starting a kick-ass job with Nokia next week.