25-year-old got a job by mailing in her resume and a 'cringy' note: 'Everyone was impressed,' says the boss who hired her

Camille K. Manaois got a job by mailing her resume to companies she wanted to work for. With an envelope and a stamp. In 2025.

At a time when many job seekers liken the search to hurling applications into a black hole, going old-school helped Manaois get hers in front of an actual person.

The 25-year-old — today a senior social media account executive at communications agency Carma Connected — had begun looking for roles around mid-May, while still employed elsewhere, to no avail. She had worked in social media and marketing project management in architecture and real estate but was looking to switch industries.

"I did all the traditional things," she tells CNBC Make It. "I tried everything I thought was going to work."

She looked for jobs on LinkedIn, even paying for a premium account. She applied there and on other popular job boards, or directly on the companies' websites whenever possible. She followed up on submitted applications with prospective employers. But she wasn't getting any traction.

Four months into her search, she decided to try something new — or old, rather. She turned to snail mail.

Her thinking was, "If I mailed it, it would get to someone. It's not like an email that will just land in the spam folder," she says. "You receive mail on your desk and you're like, 'Well I'm going to open it; it's addressed to me.'"

Manaois sent envelopes to six prospective employers. Each had a short note, along with her resume, cover letter, and a letter of recommendation from a coworker.

In the note, she introduced herself, listing the position she'd applied for and when. She also wrote: "Some applicants rely on algorithms. I'd rather rely on a more reliable route: your desk. Thank you for your time in reading my materials."

"It felt really cringy and kind of embarrassing," she says of the message, but she wanted it to "stand out."

Of the six, four employers replied, all via email, some with rejections. One response led to her current role — though not how she'd imagined.

Manaois had applied to a social media position for a sports betting company. They decided to pass since she hadn't worked in sports betting before, but they were so impressed that they sent it up one floor to communications agency Carma Connected, says Kristin Whittemore.

Whittemore, vice president of the agency's Las Vegas office and Manaois' current boss, says "everyone was impressed" with Manaois for "thinking outside the box."

"For someone as young as her to think about putting something in the mail was just wild, so it got all of our attention," Whittemore says. "I'm 44 and I wouldn't think about putting something in the mail."

LinkedIn data from January shows that the number of U.S. applicants per open position has doubled since the spring of 2022, and nearly two-thirds of people reported their job search had become more challenging, with competition from other candidates being the biggest hurdle.

Job seekers today "have to find a way to stand out," says Lindsay Mustain, a former Amazon recruiter-turned-career strategist. Hiring teams are "buried by a sea of sameness" in the applicant pool, she says, owing to AI-generated resumes and a high volume of applicants.

Manaois' approach might have had a different outcome with a different industry, employer or role. At a large company where recruiters are scattered at offices across the country, for example, or at a company less open to unconventional means of applying, it might not have worked.

In Manaois' case, it helped her break through the noise and convey her personal brand better than a resume alone, Mustain says. It's a similar tactic to mailing a physical thank-you note after an interview, which career experts say can also help candidates stand out as showing extra effort and thought.

Candidates should aim to offer "a sense of who you are as a person" in their applications, Mustain says. That might mean sending snail mail like Manaois or finding another way to share what's unique about you. For example, you might try posting regularly on LinkedIn, which can showcase your interests and your voice, since recruiters frequently check candidates' profiles there, Mustain notes.

Before Manaois went old-school with her approach, she felt, as many other candidates do, that her applications went unseen. To job seekers in this boat, Mustain suggests, "do whatever it takes" to get your application "in front of a human."

Whittemore says the agency might not have offered Manaois an interview if she'd just applied traditionally because she didn't have a background in hospitality, where the agency's clients are concentrated. But after seeing her creative approach, Whittemore thought she was "a go-getter."

"I can teach industry," Whittemore says. But "I can't teach what she just did; that comes from within." Fast forward through a remote interview, an in-person interview and a mock assignment, and Manaois had landed the job.

Her approach helped her get over a common hurdle with traditional hiring, Whittemore says: "Just seeing someone on paper, you don't get that full scope of who they are."

For Whittemore, the experience has been a lesson in "not passing up someone just because their industry experience or their background isn't exactly what we're looking for because it really could be the right person," she says. "Maybe they don't check all the boxes and that's okay because maybe they have other attributes that will overcome those."

And Manaois has proven just that since starting the job in December, Whittemore adds. "She's everything that we thought she would be," Whittemore says. "She just gets stuff done on her own, and she figures it out, and that's exactly the type of person we were looking for."

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