Calif. Mom Linda Smith Offers $500 To Get Her Daughter A Job

The recession has forced many job seekers to go to extremes. There was the husband who paid for a billboard reading "Please Hire My Wife," and the British guy who paid for a billboard reading "I spent my last £500 on this billboard, please give me a job." Now a woman from Menifee, Calif. is offering cold, hard cash to anyone who hires her daughter.

Linda Smith's daughter has been looking without success since June, so Smith, 61, decided to pitch in: She created a hand-held sign offering $500 cash for a job, grabbed a pile of her daughter's resumes, and stood on the side of the road handing them out, reports The Press-Enterprise newspaper in Riverside. "I'm offering $500 cash the minute she gets hired for $15 an hour or more as an executive assistant, or an office job," she said.

Lots of people are struggling to find full-time work in California, a state with a 9.8 percent unemployment rate -- one of the worst in the nation. But Smith's daughter, Lisa, has another hurdle: She's been out of the job market for the best part of two decades. In 1996, Linda Smith was struck by a drunk driver, which left her with mild dementia. She couldn't remember dates or how to get to places. Her mind was too foggy for her to work.