Jobless Make TV Ads Pitching Themselves For Work

CHELMSFORD, Mass. — Jayna Dinsmore dressed in a sharp pink blouse and black slacks and made the pitch she hoped would end her five months of unemployment: Experienced marketing manager and analyst. Diverse background. Trade show experience.

Only she wasn't talking to an interviewer. She was talking to a TV camera.

After sending resumes, attending networking events and blogging about her search for employment, Dinsmore joined a small but growing number of unemployed people who have made television commercials about themselves to try to get directly into prospective employers' living rooms.

"I figure any exposure I can get is a great thing," said Dinsmore, a 33-year-old married mother with a newly minted master's degree in marketing from Bentley University.

"The New England Job Show," a new public cable access production, allows hungry job seekers to record 30-second commercials in a studio at a middle school in Chelmsford, near the New Hampshire state line. Volunteers _ all also unemployed _ then put the commercials into a half-hour episode that includes discussions on dressing professionally, personal finances and health care options.

About a dozen job seekers have taped commercials, and none has landed a job yet. But the first commercials just started airing last week.

The job show airs on at least five area public access stations. Comcast spokesman Jim Hughes said the cable company, which operates in many of the Massachusetts towns, didn't have viewership numbers.

Creator and executive producer Ken Masson said the show's uniqueness will catch eyes. "Everyone talks about being cutting edge. Well, this is cutting edge," said Masson, himself an unemployed community banker.

The commercials are different from personalized online videos that have exploded on YouTube because employers don't have to actually search for these.

But the commercials cast a wide net: There's no guarantee that hiring managers in the jobseekers' industries will see them. Those taping the spots said they were hoping to get lucky with the TV ad while also pursuing more targeted and traditional job search methods.

Other cable access stations have job programs: For two decades the state of Michigan has produced its own cable access job show featuring experts talking about employment trends, personal finance and career tips; and KSAR-15 TV, the public access station in Saratoga, Calif., airs a show on job hunting for California's Bay-area viewers.

But the personal pitches from job seekers appear to be a new twist, said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

"So many Americans are now comfortable with making a short video. It seems like a natural progression," Thompson said. "And TV, in spite of all the technology, is still the dominant medium."

Masson said he and friends from a networking group launched the show with $100 and the help of a local rotary club.

Kristyn Silk, who was laid off from Fidelity Investments in November, immediately volunteered to direct.

"Basically, this is a project and we all have some project management experience," said Silk, of Merrimack, N.H. "Our goal is to get people jobs."

The show's host, Ajita Perera of Shrewsbury, is a recently laid off market manager who worked as a reporter for CNN in Sri Lanka in the 1980s.

"It feels like coming home," Perera said.

So far, the group has recorded four episodes. The first show aired March 23 and will rerun on participating stations for two weeks. Stations will get two new shows every month, Masson said.

Thompson compared the 30-second commercials to speed-dating lunches. But like speed dating, it's unclear if lasting matches can be made.

That doesn't bother Libby Dilling, 42, of Stow, who has been looking for a nonprofit job for eight months. During a recent taping, Dilling recorded her pitch, but spoke too long and slightly fumbled over her words.

After some coaching, the group decided her third take was what she needed to land a job in the nonprofit world.

"I've never done something like this before," Dilling said. "We'll see what happens."

Comments

[bugsbonzai]

09:56 PM on 04/04/2009

Sorry to be a spoil sport, but methinks many of these "unemployed" people implementing this kind of tactic are not really unemployed, but rather unemployable at the specific job title and pay rate they insist upon. Sounds to me like this lady with a "newly minted master's degree" just doesn't want to take a $30 grand a year job in an unrelated field. Sorry, honey, as a guy who's worked two jobs for the last two years in fields unrelated to my own personal expertise, I don't feel much sympathy for ya. Instead of gimmicks like this nonsense, how about thumbing through the OTHER sections of the want ads. You just might find something interesting or fun. Or at least something that pays the bills.

[davidwayneosedach]

06:50 PM on 04/04/2009

This may well work for the good looking applicants. But after three or four runs it will be the boring same old same old.

[themodernleader]

10:33 PM on 04/03/2009

There is much ingenuity and creativity left to remake our technology, industry and agriculture. We must never sell ourselves short. And our leaders must come to recognize that beginning to pulll ourselves out of this terrible depression must start with opportunity for employment at the local level. The banks or other corporations are incapable of providing those jobs as they decimate their work forces. Only the government can provide jobs. We must revisit the public works programs of the 1930's so we may avoid their mistakes and emulate their success. Are we up to the challenge? Or are we willing to risk everything for paper currency corporations?

[davidpkronmiller]

09:37 PM on 04/03/2009

I'm doing a really similar thing. I think frankly it's part of our changing work culture - people are needing to market their skills more actively since they can no longer rely on a company to keep them on for thirty to forty years of work.

For my wife and I's part, we both lost our jobs about two months ago and since we're in the entertainment industry we've started putting our work out there more aggressively to maybe find jobs producing, directing, writing in series television or films. One way we did that was produce an action/adventure web series called "and Boris" ( www.andboris.com for those who are curious).

I think we'll see more of this type of new personal accountability and self-marketing.

[grasyknol]

12:21 AM on 04/04/2009

When either of your wife or you discuss your career breakthrough on Letterman or Leno someday, put a shout out for Grasyknol from the state of Ohio who wished you both well!