Roland Burris and the mausoleum résumé: A good start?

Here's one that I'll bet executive recruiters don't see every day: a résumé on a mausoleum. In Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery, would-be Illinois senator Roland Burris has had his many accomplishments engraved in stone, in the mausoleum he will (I assume) one day be buried. He has listed everything from his "trailblazing" stint as the first African-American exchange student from Southern Illinois University to Hamburg University in Germany in 1959, to his rather more impressively record-setting position as the first African-American Illinois attorney general.

Interestingly, he has left room for more African-American firsts, and though it's certain he will never be the first minority to serve as Illinois senator, it appears he is fighting hard to be the third one.

Politicians, attorneys and executives aren't known for their creativity in the hunt for a new job, so Burris could be trailblazing in more ways than even he imagined here. Perhaps, in a market in which many big companies are dissolving, leaving executives flailing and jobless, it's time to re-think the staid past of executive job searches. Just off the top of my head, I could see a heavy hitter like Lehman's Dick Fuld (also known for his hubris) having his résumé painted on the back of one of the many paintings in his art collection, and delivered to the office of his potential boss. That may flirt with the "bribe" line, but it's a jungle out there, right? And if any of the auto executives go jobless in the coming months, perhaps they might persuade the pilot of their private jets to fly around Detroit, writing their résumés in the sky with their jet trails.

It's a thought.