As aspiring young agency creatives know, these days getting noticed by agencies almost requires executing some kind of viral resume stunt. The latest creative resume to make the rounds comes from a young lady who knows exactly how to package herself — literally.
Northwestern University junior Leah Bowman, 20, explained in a reddit post today that she wanted to stand out to prospective agency employers, so she decided to make a LEGO version of herself, complete with packaging and product descriptions that lay out her skills and qualifications. She shared images of her “LEGO miniscale resume” on imgur under the handle Pastlightspeed where it’s gotten 56,700 views in the past six hours — and landed her on the front page of reddit.
A communications major with a minor in anthropology, Bowman is also getting certification in integrated marketing communications. As she explained to Digiday over the phone, she got the idea because her family is originally from Denmark and has always loved LEGOs.
“It’s a big part of our heritage,” said Bowman of the Danish toys. “I was just home for spring break and applying to all of these agency summer internships. Agencies ask you to do all of these fun things for applications, but I also wanted to do something fun that I came up with myself and leave behind after a good interview, or send out to a select few places.”
Bowman said it only took her a couple of days to make her LEGO resume kit. She built the LEGO design using LEGO’s free LEGO Digital Designer software and used a few other programs to design the product packaging and descriptions. As an active reddit user, she decided to share her creation on self-styled “front page of the Internet,” and was shocked when it went viral.
“I was floored when it made the front page of reddit — it’s really cool that everyone loved it,” said Bowman.
Bowman says she doesn’t expect anyone to just flat-out hire her because of this stunt, but she’s been grateful for the outpouring of positive reactions and offers to share contacts at agencies. Her dream job is in fact to someday work at LEGO, but she’s not ready to apply there yet. She wants to get enough experience under her belt first.
“For now I’m just looking for opportunities to apply my education, and that’s the great benefit of summer internships at agencies — it gives you a chance to see if you like it there and what areas you do and don’t like,” said Bowman. “My strategy right now is to get some experience at different types of companies and then I can bring that as an asset when I apply for an actual posted job listing at LEGO.”
Given the online attention her resume is getting so far, there’s little doubt she’ll bet getting plenty of calls soon.
Images via imgur
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