In a tough economy, job-hunters tend to look for creative ways in which to stand out from other candidates.
There's the Samford University student who decorated a cake with her resume and hand-delivered it to a company; the woman who started a Twitter Should Hire Me Campaign blog; and then of course, there's the guy in Manhattan who's been donning a suit and tie every week for the last month, holding up a sign that says, "Hire Me."
But the grandest in job-hunting gestures as of late may belong to Brandon Stuard of Toledo, Ohio.
Toledo News Now reports that Stuard took his wife Holly's search to another level by purchasing space on a billboard and putting up a sign that says "Please Hire My Wife."
In explaining his motivations, Stuard proved himself to be pro-active about increasing his wife's visibility.
"I felt a sense of, she was getting a little frustrated, but not losing hope. But I wanted to do something maybe help lift her spirits if nothing else," Stuard told the news outlet.
Holly Stuard explained that she probably wouldn't have agreed to the advertisement if she'd known about it beforehand.
"I think I definitely would have said no. I would have thought it would have been too embarrassing to have my face up on a billboard but, now I'm having fun with it and hopefully a good opportunity will come out of it," she said.
Stuard was laid off from her job as a teacher at the University of Toledo about a year ago. So far, she hasn't had anyone contact her at the hiremywife@yahoo.com email address posted on the billboard, but the couple is still hopeful.
Using unconventional tactics to gain an employer's attention in the past has proved effective for some job-seekers.
Alec Brownstein got a job by purchasing sponsored links that were tied to the names of the executives whose attention he was trying to draw. When the executives Googled themselves, Brownstein's plea to be hired popped up as a top result.
Of course, there have also been several instances when attempts at out-of-the-box resumes have gone horribly awry.
Back in 2006, one Yale graduate sent out an 11-page cover letter and a YouTube video of himself lifting weights and serving a tennis ball at 140 mph in an attempt to woo some high-profile consulting firms.
According to the New York Sun, "Wow is all I can really say," was one of many responses to the package.
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