White hat consulting firm resumes can get strange.

by Chris
(Westfield, NJ USA)

I work at a consulting firm for what could be generalized as a white-hat (ethical hacking) company. We perform security audits for major corporations, and get paid very well to do so.

The money draws in all sorts of people, but we're an exclusive bunch, so resumes have to stand out to get noticed. A year or two back, I received a totally unmarked USB drive in a package, with a note attached simply saying, "Autoruns." Knowing a thing or two about the way that spyware propagates, I plugged it into my 'nix machine and started looking through the drive.

I couldn't find anything - the darn thing appeared totally empty! Figuring that it would do no harm, I plugged it into a spare Windows machine.

Lo and behold, the drive commandeered the computer and started displaying a show detailing the life of an applicant. I tried to quit, even hitting various keyboard shortcuts, but it had its hooks in the system and didn't let me do anything, even power down using the power button.

By this point, I was thoroughly amused, so I called my coworkers over and we all watched the show, which ran for a good half hour. When it was finished, the drive dropped a text file on my desktop with his contact information and destroyed itself.

Regardless, I was so impressed by this show that I called the guy in for an interview the next day. His first question was, "Did you like it?" I tried to get him to explain how he orchestrated the show, but he wouldn't tell me.

Unfortunately, as a white hat, he would have to explain what he did to us, as it was an unknown exploit, and he refused. We couldn't hire him.

To me, unusual resumes are wonderful if properly created. I like something that brightens my day, however that isn't malicious and doesn't give me a false impression of the person who I will call in for an interview.

If you can pull it off, I say you should give it a try, but keep in mind that you only have one shot at sending in a resume, so you need to do it right the first time.