Side projects El Viaje de mi Tarjeta
Past project · 2012
El Viaje de mi Tarjeta
Three business cards travelling from hand to hand to find a job, which ended up on TV.
- Role
- Creator
- Type
- Personal branding
- Duration
- June - November 2012
01The problem
Months of sending CVs with no reply
February 2012: the Kodak bankruptcy took down the startup I worked for, and I lost my job in the middle of the crisis.
- Months of applications without a single reply
- A CV just like everybody else's
- No contacts at the companies I wanted to join
02What I did and how
Six degrees of separation, in three cards
Sending more CVs was not going to work. I thought of the six degrees of separation theory: if my cards passed from hand to hand, one of them would eventually reach someone who could hire me.
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Three travelling cards
I designed a business card with a message on the back: "This card is on a journey. If you receive it, please send me a message." I made three.
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A blog to follow the journey
Everyone who received a card wrote to me before passing it on, and I posted each stop on the blog and on a map. That way anyone could follow the journey live.
- Tumblr
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Start with strangers
The three cards started with a taxi driver, a businessman and a young entrepreneur. From there they travelled on their own, from contact to contact.
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From hand to hand to TV
One card reached Andreu Buenafuente and the story reached Cuatro, Telecinco and TV3. Each appearance brought more people following the journey and more job offers.
What I learned
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A different idea opens more doors than a hundred CVs.
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The media do not want a candidate, they want a story.
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Your network reaches much further than you think.
03Results
Three cards, one job at SEAT
In a few months the cards travelled 1,412 km and I received 11 job offers. The story appeared 32 times in the media. I ended up at SEAT, in employer branding: the job that opened the door to everything that came after.
- Growth 11 job offers and 32 media appearances And an Employer Branding role at SEAT
- Launch 1,412 km travelled by the three cards
04Media coverage
Media coverage
The story went from local papers to national television, and all the way to Belgium.
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Het Belang van Limburg asks me about Barcelona and the job I found with three business cards
Read article ↗ -
Els Matins (TV3) interviews me live about the job I found with three business cards
Read article → -
Cuatro's news follows the journey of my three business cards across Spain
Read article ↗ -
La Vanguardia interviews me about the job I found with three business cards
Read article ↗ -
Telecinco's news asks me about the three business cards that found me a job
Read article → -
The VDAB asks me what it is like to move to Barcelona and work there
Read article ↗ -
Observatorio Recursos Humanos tells in an article and a video how I found a job with three business cards
Read article ↗ -
La Salle includes my travelling business cards among the viral CVs that work
Read article ↗ -
I write about how I found work in Barcelona with three business cards
Read article ↗
05The website
The full story
The project page has the whole journey, card by card, with the 33 posts I wrote as it happened.
Read the full story →I like finding the fastest way to test whether an idea works, without burning budget. If you want a second pair of eyes on yours, drop me a line.
Get in touch →No strings attached · I reply myself