My employment history is entirely vanilla. So tell me your tales of coincidence, serendipity, happenstance, accidental sex (oral or otherwise), or whatever when getting employed.
Met a recruiter at a bus stop outside a job fair?
Applied for and interviewed for a job and was turned down. About 6 months later the interviewer had a new opening he thought matched my personality so he called me and offered it to me before advertising the job.
I used to put “published poet” on my resume. Once I got hired for a job which had little to do with my experience and the hiring person told me that line was what got me the interview. (Of course my charm and wit got me hired…)
ETA the job had nothing to do with poetry either!
Most of my work I got by knowing people in my business. In our small city it wasn’t a large group of people so when a spot needed filling I often got a call. There was a lot of mobility as the work has a high burnout rate.
I thought my daughter’s approach was odd. For about five years she traveled with a group of young people who followed the band Phish. Often they ran out of money. I told her I’d help her develop a resume and she told me she didn’t need one.
When she needed a job she’d walk into a restaurant and ask for the manager and tell him, “I can cook.” That was it. It helps that she could sell ice to Eskimos.
That seemed bizarre to me at the time but I’ve since learned a lot more about the ragtag bunch of gypsies slaving away in the kitchens of our finest restaurants. A creative and quirky bunch they are indeed.
I’m a retired pharmacist. I had just left a job at Hospital X where the experience was so bad, I briefly considered surrendering my license, and was in a nearby city to check out the antique stores. I stopped by a grocery store where a former co-worker with whom I was friendly worked, just to say hi, and he wasn’t there but the other pharmacist was. SHE was about 7 months pregnant, and they were looking for someone to work during her maternity leave. 
She called the manager, who gave me an application and did an informal first interview.
What’s so unusual about that? I was wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt. 
When I came back later for my formal interview, I did wear a dress. I got the job, which turned permanent when her husband was offered and accepted a transfer around the time that the baby was born.
As for the previous job, I left the grocery store about 3 years later due to the store getting a really crappy manager, and Medicare Part D(isaster) looming on the horizon. While interviewing for another job, I was asked why I left Hospital X after 4 months. I hemmed and hawed a bit, and the interviewer said, “You can tell me the truth. I have been told many times that Hospital X is a very difficult place to work at.”
Once walked into an office, the manager pointed at me and said, “Hey, do you want to work in my department?”
Was once hanging out with a friend when he ot a phone call. A fellow employee at his company had thrown a fit and quit spectacularly, and could I take his place the next morning?
I was temping for a couple of months and then the gig ended. Three days later they call me in again. Turned out one of the full timers had been killed by her husband in a murder / suicide. I was hired that afternoon.
Remember the movie Almost Famous? There was a scene when the young kid gets a call out of the blue from Rolling Stone. They don’t know he’s a kid, but like his writing and want to hire him. He is shocked and lowers his voice to sound older, then nearly loses it when they tell him how much money they’ll pay. I had that exact scene play out a few years ago when I was asked to take on a big, prestigious job for which I was only barely qualified. I really thought it was a joke at first.
Ah, remember when finding jobs was so easy it happened by accident?
My brother showed up at his construction job one Monday morning, and he was fired due to a simple misunderstanding. He returns home and tells my dad the story. My dad regularly went to a local cafe for morning coffee and hang out some with the other regulars. He tells my brother’s story to the other regulars. A guy overhears the story, and says that he owns a construction company and is looking to hire someone. My dad says that my brother is still at home. Construction guy calls my brother and hires him at a higher salary than the job he got fired from. Total time between firing and new job was probably two hours.
I got my job by applying on Monster, randomly. Which isn’t odd in and of itself, really.
But what was odd is that I got called in for an interview… and basically the manager interviewing me just shot the breeze with me. He did NOT ask me any sort of actual questions at all to see if I would be a good fit for the position. He didn’t even really go into much detail about what the job was. I was a little taken aback and eventually just had to come out and ask what exactly it is that I would be doing, which I immediately wanted to take back because I just ADMITTED to the guy that I had no idea what I was applying for (and that was true). Well he kind of explained it and then I gave him 99 reasons why I would love that work and be good at it and just right for them, etc. But yeah, not a single technical question (and this is a pretty technical job), not even any BS interview questions like “describe a difficult situation”. Literally just chit chatted with me and such the whole time.
Well right after the end of the interview I was left thinking, “what was the point of THAT?” and figured I’d never hear back. He told me I’d hear back from them within a week, but I didn’t, and I abandoned all hope.
Well, about 4 weeks after the interview, they called me up and made me an offer. An offer that was MUCH higher than what I had requested on the “desired salary” box on the application.
I was floored!!!
I worked as a baker in the kitchens of a rather wellknown hospital here in Kansas. It was due to close in a few months, as it was moving to Texas. Long story.
I happened to scan the “help wanted” ads here, which I normally didn’t do, because most of those advertised in food service are for servers, bussers, or part time line cooks.
But this time I saw an ad for a baker. The city library was being rebuilt, and they were going to have a cafe. I hadn’t heard about it, but decided what’s the harm in checking it out? I went to interview with the owner/manager and was all but hired on the spot. The place was a week from opening and all the positions were filled except for a baker, which was really needed.
The owner called my current boss the next morning(the interview was in the mid-evening) and my boss encouraged him to hire me. So that week was long hours. I worked my hospital job, then went to the library and worked at helping set up the new place, plus practising some of the recipes. Twelve years later and I’m still there!
About two years after graduating college I ran into one of my former professors at McDonald’s. It was nearly four years after taking a class from him. It was not a class in my major. Not even remotely.
Two days later he shows up unannounced at my home and tells me he wants me to pack a bag and come with him. He has something to show me. He takes me to the airport, we get on a private plane. And he takes me to a rather unique research lab (related to my major) where the lab director was almost falling all over himself to offer me a job. I took it.
I few years ago, I was looking for a job, and was on my way to hand in a CV (UK, we call 'em all that), when a lady suddenly yelled at me to stop- my CV file had fallen out of my bag, as I was walking past a cafe.
She glanced at it, and asked if was looking for a job, and if so, if I’d like an interview… Unfortunately, I’m really not good at waitressing, so I didn’t actually go for it. Sorry.
Coincidentially, my neighbour just told me she’s just got a job from a cold call- they were trying to sell kitchens, and she told the guy she had no money at the moment, as she was unemployed- and someone called her back the next day and asked if she wanted to work for them.
There’s a community center next door with a pond where kids swim in the summer. My friend was watching her kids swim and saw an acquaintance. As they chatted, the acquaintance said she was desperately seeking someone to work part-time for her, from home, doing the work I’m trained exactly to do. My friend said, “Uh, see that house?”
They called, I walked over with baby monitor in hand (my son was asleep) and more or less got the job right then. I had to put in a resume and jump through a couple of hoops for the paperwork.
I’ve been promoted a couple of times but I’m still with the same company. This job has been a godsend - I need to be available for my kids, one of whom has some medical needs. And it got us through my husband’s out-of-the-blue layoff. A couple of weeks ago when I was thinking of having a couple of my coworkers hung by their toes, I remembered how lucky I am and calmed down before replying to their emails. 
I was a “junior volunteer” at my library’s Summer Reading Program one year when I was about 13 or so.
One of the featured events was a local artist who came in and showed the kids how to be a portrait artist - talked about going to school for art, his materials and how he worked (he used wax pencils I think) and then had the kids line up and he did quick sketches of their faces for them to take home with them. He was older, quirky, and very funny.
I was assigned as his line-herder, and when the day was over and I was heading out, he stopped me in the children’s lobby and asked me if I would be willing to model for his weekly artist collective. He said I looked like a Titian painting, and that I seemed patient and calm enough to sit still.
I checked with the library and my parents (worried he was a secret skeevy) but he was very sweet and aboveboard, and everything checked out nicely. Mom drove me there and read while I sat for a group of about 12 or so artists, and I sat for them for about 2 months. I got about $400 and two really nice portraits of myself out of it, and got one of my little brothers a gig or two with them also.
I didn’t accept, but I was waiting at a Dominos Pizza and it was going on 45 minutes after they had promised. Apparently things got so out of hand that the manager had to come in from home to get things moving. He walks into the waiting room and asks if any of us by chance need jobs.
Usually, the topic of strip clubs doesn’t come in finance interviews. However, I had heard one of the persons interviewing me on a recent derivatives trading podcast where they were discussing Yelp’s business model. Somehow, this topic made it into the interview and I was hired.
I was working at the cosmetics counter at Walgreens when one of my regulars came in and asked how my day was going. I said, “great, I’m graduating from college today!” (Didn’t bother going to the ceremony). She asked what my ACT score was, I told her, and she hired me on the spot to be a tutor at Sylvan. It was supposed to be part time, but they started a No Child Left Behind program shortly thereafter and there was so much to do that I quickly began working 40+ hours a week, and am still doing so more than five years later.
Porn.
Yep, I was teaching at a small language school in Berlin and one of my students mentioned he went to the US on business some guy told him a dirty joke this guy didn’t understand. He was embarrassed to have to ask what some of the words meant.
So I decided to offer an “optional” final class for my adult students with all of the “bad words” in English. I had a worksheet with the various ways to use the word “fuck” and all of the wonderful words like cock, dick, schlong, pussy, cunt…you get the idea.
Although this was a optional final class, strongly warned of adult content, it was quite popular and I don’t think a single adult student ever said no - they all showed up. It got so popular that other students in other classes heard about it - but none of the other teachers wanted to do it so they would send their students to me on the final day.
To make this story shorter - one group that was sent to me was four or five German businessmen from a large company. Never met them before, but gave them my “porn lesson”. They liked that lesson a lot. A few weeks later I get a call from Frankfurt and the guy says, “Are you the teacher who did this so-called porn lesson for our employees? I have the workshop sheet.”
I figured I was busted and would be fired from the school in Berlin, but said, “Yes.”
The guy said, “Well, anyone who has the balls to teach that is someone we would like to have work for us.”
They flew me to Frankfurt - did a short interview - I was hired on the spot and then did week long teaching stints at various locations around Germany. It was the highest paid teaching position in all of Germany at the time. Nice gig.
Other jobs found:
I accidentally called the wrong agency to see about submitting a script in Berlin. It was the agency for actors, not writers - but the woman on the phone told me to bring in a photo as they occasionally needed Americans who spoke German for certain acting jobs. Sure enough, about 4 weeks later I get called and auditioned and got a role as the evil drug dealer in a 13 part, afternoon TV series for teenage audience. Sucky show but it paid well.
Bought a copy of the International Herald Tribune and saw a tiny ad saying they needed instructors for a private school in Switzerland…called and almost hung up as I was on hold so long and calls were pricey back then, but finally the director came on the phone and we chatted about 10 minutes and he hired me on the phone. Two days later I was in Switzerland and kept that job for seven summers - working my way up to Academic Director.
There are many other examples - but I always tell my students today that sometimes great jobs come from the most unexpected sources.
I don’t know if this is an odd way to get a job, per se. But it felt odd at the time. The HR recruiter at my current employer and I were members of the same service fraternity in college (Alpha Phi Omega). We’re both women, the fraternity is co-ed. She was about 10 years ahead of my time, but we shared a couple of anecdotes. This nailed the job for me, from what would have otherwise been a mediocre interview and spotty job history. Thanks, APO!
In a small town where people kind of know each other, I was browsing the religious section of the small book store. I picked up a newly translated version of the bible that had been in the news, when someone walked up to me and asked me if I’d like a part-time job during inventory season. I guess if you’re holding a bible, you must be honest.