Opinion
 

Creative applications a rare treat for students

By Sarah Ohmer

The superficiality of the job market tends to intimidate and even turn off many college students. The repetitive application processes of filling in the blanks with bland information and impersonal data render potential employees into selfless labels and numbers. Of course students are expected to personalize the standardized forms, yet the more creative individuals remain frustrated, unable to adequately express their originality with personal records.

Luckily, one friendly central Texas business bases its hiring process on creativity. In 1984, Amy Miller opened an ice cream store with Scott Shaw in Austin. They hired their staff based on a "paper bag test." The paper bag test is pretty self-explanatory: a white paper bag is handed to the applicant, and the applicant figures out what to do with the bag. There are no limits to the creations.

Amy originally conceived this process because she said she viewed going to get ice cream "as a total experience that should be the brightest part of our customers' day."

Nick Meriwether, an art junior, jokingly remembers what he thought of conceiving with the paper sack.

"At first I wanted to take a picture of myself wearing a pint of ice cream, and only that, holding it up in front of me just like this," he said, while mimicking holding the bucket in front of his waist. "I figured I could stick the picture on the paper bag with something like ‘I love Amy's Ice Cream, literally!'" The pint would censor his private parts, and the marketable quote would get him the job.

Wisely, he opted instead to paint Amy's Ice Cream hanging out, having a few beers, and "rocking." The finished product illustrated his cute and sweet style found in many of his paintings.

Francis Spokely, a store manager at the Amy's Ice Cream located at 3816 Farnham, explained how such a process easily and directly showed how much effort and enthusiasm a potential employee was willing to devote to the friendly store.

"It's all based on creativity, and we get all kinds of stuff," Spokely said.

Paper sack puppets are the most common creations, but they've also gotten a dragon, a turntable model wrapped in the sack, a birdhouse, a camper van, a jukebox, a robot, a monkey and a hot air balloon. Who ever thought all this could be made out of a white paper bag?

Amy sure found a great way to spark the creative flame in many of her potential employees. Spokely got the job with a paper T-shirt a few years ago. He doesn't wear it to work, but he saved it along with his staff's finished pieces. Not surprisingly, his staff consists mainly of musicians and artists.

"But there's a varied mindset; everyone's between 18 and 30 years old; it's a collective mix, we're all good friends. We have a good time at Amy's Ice Cream," Spokely said.

I'm sure the creative personalities required only helps the customers enjoy their time at Amy's all the more. It's good to know some employers out there care more about creativity than facts, and that such a laid back hiring process proves to be highly efficient, productive and rewarding to all. That's the best idea to come out of a master's in business administration I have heard so far. 

Ohmer, a columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at dccampus@mail.uh.edu.