Meet Rick Baran: single, outgoing, chatty, good first impression, several college degrees, willing to travel, salary negotiable. Baran, 38, is a recent transplant to this area. He arrived in Apex last month with his Labrador retriever and some big-time career ambitions.
Baran is introducing himself to local employers with an unorthodox calling card: An ad in The News & Observer that proclaims: "HIRE ME!"
The ad reels off Baran's professional goals: "Finance, global operations, manufacturing junior executive returning from international assignment to NC seeks career challenge."
In this job market, you can't overlook any potential advantage against competitors. Laid-off Wall Street bankers have advertised their talents by wearing sandwich boards plastered with job skills. Jobless desperadoes have bought space on billboards.
Baran has a degree in mathematics and an M.B.A., and he's finishing a degree in leadership. His every move is planned and reviewed with a strategic eye. His newspaper ad is no whim or fancy.
"I just used the purest statistical methodology on propensity to access information," Baran said. "It's the fastest way to approach your target audience."
It's also cheaper than the alternative: hiring a headhunter, which could cost as much as $30,000, Baran estimates. The ad is setting Baran back by about $250 a day, he said, and he has budgeted $5,000 for the promotional aspect of his job search.
And yes, he's contemplating a billboard.
"It's a bit childish, but it doesn't hurt," he said.
Baran's newspaper ad first ran Friday and brought four e-mail messages from prospective employers by that evening.
Baran grew up in Connecticut after emigrating from Poland at age 18. He speaks Polish, Russian, Slovak and German, with a smattering of French and Chinese. His most recent job was with a U.S. defense subcontractor in Manchester, England, until the contract ended.
He's looking for work in finance or auditing in global manufacturing or operations. He zeroed in on this area because of its reputation as a center for high-tech jobs.
Baran had never visited the area before he set foot in the Triangle and bought a condo in Apex. His methodological mind has already run a preliminary cost-benefit analysis.
"You can get a really nice house with a swimming pool for half what I would pay in Connecticut," he said.
