Tyler Sorenson was fed up with his job hunt, so he went old school: He dropped off a paper résumé at a local tech repair company. Sorenson, 24, had been feeling a common frustration among job seekers.

At the age of 12, I started helping a 15 year old with his afternoon paper route. The name of the paper was The Knickerbocker News. His route was 105 papers, six days a week. Each paper cost 42 cents.