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Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

nina4airbnb.com

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Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#41

Post by nashashmi »

rym_ wrote: post #35
nashashmi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, she did this in April and talks about it as her most successful campaign yet. I don't think she got a job at Airbnb, but she did get an interview. Unfortunately, the kinds of talent she showcases on her website is the kind of talent "RESERVED" for higher ups. I see "too much ambition" there and HR may not exactly be willing to approve of her. (Such is the impression I have received from working in big corporate…

Too much ambition is bad?

In corporate environments, there is too much management bureaucracy. A person with lots of ambition entering a weak or insignificant subsection of the company can quickly feel out of place.

However, when you have the veterans who have already done something great, an ambitious person may seem like a rare opportunity to do something big again.

In the words of Ip Man, it is difficult for a student to find a great teacher. It is more difficult for a teacher to find a great student.

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#42

Post by aidenn0 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #16
djsumdog wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until I read this comment, I didn't realize those were all images instead of text. O_o

I have a habit of compulsively selecting text on webpages for no real reason. So I quickly realize when pages like this one aren't actually using text, and then I find it so distracting that I can't actually pay attention to anything and just give up.

I do this too, and images of text are bad, but much worse are the places that open up popups when you click on text.

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#43

Post by cpncrunch »

geverett wrote: post #36

I love this and I'm still surprised AirBnb didn't take a chance on Nina, though she seems quite happy in her current job. I'm still not sure why AirBnb largely ignores the Middle East, especially considering the popularity of couchsurfing in the region. I watched AirBnb explode in popularity in Istanbul, where I lived 2009-2012, and saw many services like Pillow-style concierges spring up there well before we heard o…

>I love this and I'm still surprised AirBnb didn't take a chance on Nina

She gives a possible reason in her blog:

    the person interviewing me was saying he couldn’t contextualize my experience because i “hadn’t worked at facebook or google or studied at stanford”
Also, the all lower-case thing in her blog seems a bit overly pretentious. I know she use normal capitalisation in her "resume", but it's still a bit odd that someone who wants a marketing job is writing in that way.

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#44

Post by kelukelugames »

misterbwong wrote: post #38
startupfounder wrote: post #25

1. This has been submitted before, 302 days ago in fact: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nina4airbnb.com 2. This is actually a case study in how to market yourself: https://web.archive.org/web/20150714043548/http://media.wix.... 3. From the case study: These are the numbers: • 445,000+ Visits to Nina4Airbnb • Hundreds of thousands of Tweets and millions of impressions • 30,000+ New visitors to my personal blog…

The blog post is worth a read. This part was especially interesting to me: the person interviewing me was saying he couldn’t contextualize my experience because i “hadn’t worked at facebook or google or studied at stanford”.

That's awful if true. Especially as a direct quote. So much for being inclusive.

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#45

Post by jrjarrett »

misterbwong wrote: post #38
startupfounder wrote: post #25

1. This has been submitted before, 302 days ago in fact: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nina4airbnb.com 2. This is actually a case study in how to market yourself: https://web.archive.org/web/20150714043548/http://media.wix.... 3. From the case study: These are the numbers: • 445,000+ Visits to Nina4Airbnb • Hundreds of thousands of Tweets and millions of impressions • 30,000+ New visitors to my personal blog…

The blog post is worth a read. This part was especially interesting to me: the person interviewing me was saying he couldn’t contextualize my experience because i “hadn’t worked at facebook or google or studied at stanford”.

What in hell does that even MEAN? "contextualize an experience?"

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#46

Post by poof131 »

alexashka wrote: post #39

The bigger story here is that given that she's clearly way above average at what she does - she couldn't find a job for a year and did this as a last resort - an act of desperation. Which also did not work out - she ended up with Elance. If we measure success by job vs no job, then yes, otherwise... eh... People 'say' they want creativity, passion, etc - but in reality, most people who work in successful companies di…

While what you say can often be true, it is a sign of weak leadership. Strong leaders promote the best people and thereby lift themselves and the whole team. Bad leaders see strong subordinates as threats to their power and suffocate the team. Not saying there aren’t a LOT of bad leaders out there, but what you describe isn’t a law everywhere.

The bigger point I think is your first sentence. She’s way above average and couldn’t get a job for a year. “Woe is us, the shortage of qualified candidates“. Like I was telling one friend who was complaining about not being able to find someone good, “The reality is you can’t find someone good at the price you want to pay.” There’s a shortage of talent that wants to live in a one bedroom apartment with their family for scraps of equity while the boss lives in a mansion and makes millions, that’s the real shortage in SV.

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#47

Post by [deleted] »

kelukelugames wrote: post #44
misterbwong wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blog post is worth a read. This part was especially interesting to me: the person interviewing me was saying he couldn’t contextualize my experience because i “hadn’t worked at facebook or google or studied at stanford”.

That's awful if true. Especially as a direct quote. So much for being inclusive.

[deleted]

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#48

Post by konradb »

unexpected wrote: post #17

Speaking as someone who works in a Middle Eastern country, most of these countries would totally lose their minds if AirBnB made serious penetration into the Middle East. They absolutely do not want/tolerate these types of services (Uber also comes to mind).

How come these services are unwanted/not tolerated? This sounds interesting.

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#49

Post by criddell »

jrjarrett wrote: post #45
misterbwong wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blog post is worth a read. This part was especially interesting to me: the person interviewing me was saying he couldn’t contextualize my experience because i “hadn’t worked at facebook or google or studied at stanford”.

What in hell does that even MEAN? "contextualize an experience?"

Not sure, but I think it means they couldn't make an apples-to-apples comparison. To them, they wanted some Coca Cola and instead were presented with a pair of Air Jordans. Sure, they are nice shoes, but they wanted a Coke.

Re: Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015)

#50

Post by rconti »

nashashmi wrote: post #13
vonklaus wrote: post #2

This is awesome and a great way to get hired. Finding a company(or several) you really want to work at and targeting them specifically with a tailor made strategy is probably better than a shotgun approach. Best of luck to Nina.

FWIW, she did this in April and talks about it as her most successful campaign yet. I don't think she got a job at Airbnb, but she did get an interview. Unfortunately, the kinds of talent she showcases on her website is the kind of talent "RESERVED" for higher ups. I see "too much ambition" there and HR may not exactly be willing to approve of her. (Such is the impression I have received from working in big corporate…

Your higher-ups must be more talented than most.
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