Would you get tattooed just to interview at a

What happened

Everyone knows that great gimmicks are the key to hiring top developers for your startup. That’s why small AI startup LemonLime—which “optimizes your existing data to work with AI”—has so many of them. Want a job interview? ” game. Or—hear me out—get something permanently tattooed on your flesh. LemonLime has tried both tactics in the past few weeks.

The goal was to find “unhinged” people willing to take risks. Seven people got a tattoo of the LemonLime corporate logo. ) The predictable social media explosion eventually reached traditional news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal. Zietz apologized for the tattoo stunt on July 30, writing: We offered free tattoos and said we’d be happy to interview anyone who got one.

Why it matters

The tattoo stunt generated the most publicity, of course, much of it negative. , seven people took the deal and got tattooed with the LemonLime logo during a party. ” LemonLime is a small company with a grindset mentality. If you think you’re going to work there and, say, “have free weekends,” you are fooling yourself.

The “entire team shows up to the office 7 days a week,” Zietz wrote in a LinkedIn post two weeks ago. “Over a dozen applicants thus far have withdrawn after stating that they do not work past 5 pm or on weekends,” he added. m. ” But LemonLime does require that you be a good hang.

Zietz said that the company hires “people we want to be friends with,” since “changing the world is easier with friends. ” Zietz concluded his post by promising an “instant interview” to anyone who dropped their email address into the comments and who also scored perfectly on the lemon-or-lime game.

(I tried it and scored 0/7, suggesting that I am completely unsuitable for shipping code at 1 am on a Saturday while watching Pitch Perfect Sing-Along Edition. ) Zietz soon moved on to tattoos. LemonLime hosted a San Francisco afterparty on July 25 following Y Combinator’s Startup School event. ” At the party, Zietz brought in a tattoo artist and promised instant job interviews to anyone willing to get inked.

What to watch

What I thought would be a fun, memorable way to meet people was, in reality, reckless, and instead came across as tying a permanent tattoo to job opportunity, which showed poor judgement. Even though participants chose their own tattoos and no one was asked to get our logo, I should have understood the pressure and power dynamic created by connecting tattoos to hiring.

Regardless of said intent, turning a celebration of personalized art into a company stunt was poorly exercised judgement. ”