Whats the Most Creative Way to Get Noticed When Applying for a Job?

What's the most creative way to get noticed when applying for a job?

This is how I got hired by one of the most sought after & my dream company - Airbnb! Read on. Every bit of it is true (Read till the end. This might sound too good to be true but trust me, every word of it is!) TL;DR - Went out to look for the office of Airbnb in Gurgaon, searched for it for 2 hours in every building in a prospective locality identified by a tweet and then stumbled upon it by chance. Read on to find out more! My story is a paradoxical example of ‘If you want something, you go and get it’ and on the hand, ‘If it was meant to be, it will be’. Here it goes. Date. June 20th, 2016. Place. Mumbai I was about to finish my MBA in another 10 days and I had no job, no interviews lined up and had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. I was hating myself for choosing a college which had no reputation and basically taking the easy way out. Come 30th June, I was done with the last exam and was officially unemployed. Not only that, my morale was at an all time low, I had been rejected for a job in an interview with one of the largest company of the world and the prospects for jobs were next to nothing. I had applied for an internship with Airbnb on 20th June on a web platform where the last date was 8th July; the date when the internship started. Airbnb was my dream company and I had been following it for more than 6 months; following up on interviews, how t started, expansion etc. Didn’t get any revert and I was still on the look out for job options and college administration weren’t proving helpful. Date. 13th July, 2016. Place. Delhi I had come to Delhi for my birthday (11th July) since my folks lived here. I was frustrated and was getting the ‘disgusting’ looks from my folks (You know the look that says - We didn’t spend so much money on you just so you could sit at home). I decided then no matter what, I was going to do something about that internship even though the deadline had gone. I wrote a kick-ass mail to an email ID I found online and wrote the subject line as - Just another boring yet interesting application for an internship Wrote the mail like a witty questionnaire and sent it. The moment I pressed send, I realised what a stupid thing I just did. I sent an internship mail to company that’s worth 30 billion dollars! Not happening! I then started searching for their address on Google and couldn’t find the address of their office in Delhi. I knew t were located in Gurgaon (It had been mentioned in the internship description on the web portal), but the address wasn’t there. *I later got to know that t were very protective of their address and thus didn’t publish it on any platform whatsoever. After 2 hours of search, I couldn’t find the address however, I found a tweet. A girl had tweeted to their official India twitter handle asking ‘Where are you guys located in Gurgaon?’ & t had replied - Just off M.G. Road metro station. With that in mind, I at least knew the place I could look for. Another 2 hour search on google yielded nothing and I slept off with no leads. The Next Morning. I was meeting a friend and I decided to take my resume along. I thought of dropping by M.G. Road metro station and doing some search myself to locate their office. At sharp 4 pm, I reached M.G. Road metro station, got down and started asking anyone that I encountered if t knew where the office of Airbnb was. Nobody had a clue what Airbnb was let alone knowing about their office. I was shell-shocked, wondering how could t not know about Airbnb. I knew I couldn’t find the office by asking people like this. So, I decided to do the next best thing. I then opened Google Maps, defined an area of 500 metres for me as “off metro station” and decided that whatever buildings, business centres etc. come in this area, I will visit them and try and find Airbnb. For the next hour and a half, I went to every mall, every business centre, spoke to every security guard and checked every register/name board in the buildings to check if Airbnb office was in that building but luck wasn’t proving to be on my side. Finally, it was 5.45 pm, I was limping around the area with an Umbrella stick (had a severe cramp on my right ankle even before I arrived). I had been to every building except one whose entrance I wasn’t able to locate initially. As I was walking back towards the metro station after an extensive search, I came across the entrance of the building that I had missed earlier and decided to go for it. I knew it was a Do or Die situation for me but I wasn’t ready to give up. The moment I entered the building, the security guard sitting at the entrance stopped me and this is how the conversation followed (SG - Security Guard). SG - Yes sir, where do you want to go? Me - I want to go the office of Airbnb. SG - But there’s no such company in this building As he said the above line, something shattered in me and I knew that I was staring at defeat but I wanted to push on. So I continued - Me - Bhaiya, Please check in the register. Maybe you haven’t heard about it My desperation was evident and I guess he picked up on it. SG - Sir, there’s no such company in this building. I have been working here for 2 years. As he said those words, the feeling of despair started taking over me and I couldn’t understand what to do. I guess, he must have pitied on me that day and said the following things. SG - Sir, there’s a business centre on the second floor where there are a few companies of which I’m not aware of. You might wanna check there? There was still hope and I didn’t want to let it go. Since I had come so far, there was no harm trying here. I went up in the lift, pressed the second floor button and waited. As the elevator doors opened and I stepped out, I had the names of the companies on my left and the glass door on my right. I checked up on the names of Airbnb in the list on my left but there was none. That moment was where I say it impacted me the most. I knew it was a dead end but something inside me was still pushing on. A voice inside me (I don’t know if it has ever happened with you but almost a whisper which tells you exactly what to do and you achieve what you set out to do), told me to go and talk to the receptionist sitting behind the door. I knew there was no harm in asking. I convinced myself - If I’m gonna hear a no, I better hear it from someone and not my own voice. I opened the door, went up to her and asked - Is the office of Airbnb here?(expecting a No in answer because that is what I had been getting till now) She said - Yes! She said - Yes!!!!! Guys, I can’t tell you the amount of elation/happiness/amazement I felt in that moment. I’m pretty much sure if my future wife would say yes to marriage, I wouldn’t be that happy as compared to how happy I was in that moment. I had finally found it and I wasn’t leaving without interviewing. This is how the conversation went between me & her. Her - Yes, it is here! Me (Elated beyond wits) - Really, it’s here? (More like - Realllllyyyyyyy?) Her - Yes, but whom do you want to meet? Me - Could you please call someone from the HR? Her - Yes, but whom do you have to meet? Me - I don’t know. You’re supposed to tell me that. She made a call, asked the person on the other end who I’m sure must have said that he doesn’t have any appointments lined up. She - Did you have an appointment? Me - No She - So are you a walk-in? Me - Yes. As I said this, her eyes widened, she whispered something into the phone and asked me to go the certain cabin and meet the representative there. As I got up, I felt a feeling of small triumph. The one where you want to Thank god even though you haven’t won the battle yet. The interview is another story for another thread. For those of you who’re wondering if I was hired, check my credentials. *Thank you for reading Edit 1. So, a lot of people have been asking me to update the second part of the story that is the interview (Some even messaged me to complete it). So here it goes! Continued. As I got up and went over to the cabin, I saw the logo of Airbnb and I did a small victory dance right outside the door (Like - finally, I found it! Almost similar to like finding a needle in a haystack). As I opened the door, I saw people of my age sitting there and staring at me. Awkward! I stepped in and asked - Umm. Who’s the HR person here that I’m supposed to talk to? As I said this, I heard a voice, with a deep baritone, behind me - Yes? For a second, I was shit scared. As I turned around, I saw the gentleman standing behind me and understood that he must be the one I’m looking for. “Hi Sir. Thank you so much for giving me your time on such short notice. I’m really grateful!” I started blabbering while he lead me to the cafeteria in the next cabin. He sat there and offered me a seat. People, I can’t tell you how good it felt to sit after a strenuous 2 hours of walking with a cramp. As I offered him my resume, he looked at it, with my name written on it in bold letters and the first question he asks me is - “Are you a Sindhi?” Never in my life had I imagined that the first question for an interview would be this. If you’re wondering, Sindhi is a community of people who originated from Sindh, Pakistan. My family immigrated to India during the partition in 1947. “Yes sir, I am. Are you too?” I said to which he nodded affirming the fact. “Cool” “So Deepanshu. Tell me about yourself!” In the next 30 seconds, I ratted off my complete life history. Trust me, I never felt so good about myself and talking about the things that I have done in my life. “Okay. And why do you wish to work with Airbnb?” He continued “Because I love what you do, I love why you do it, I love how you do it and I wish to be at the centre of it giving everything I’ve got.” I said with conviction. I realised I meant every single word of what I had just said. There was no fake emotion in it. “Great! So, why should we hire you?” “Well, as I said before. Because I love what you guys do, I’m really enthusiastic about being a part of your team. I have been following your company and its news since the past 6 months and honestly, the vision that your company has is something that I completely resonate with. I mean, when I read the qualities required under the career section, I felt like somebody was describing me!” “Great. That sounds amazing” he said. “Thank you!” I said. Frankly speaking, at that moment I was still digesting the fact that I’m actually giving this interview after all that I had been through in the day. “So, I have to ask you. How did you find our office?” he asked and I just smiled. Like a sly smile. .P I told him the whole ordeal right from the google search up until that moment. As I finished, he was silent for a few seconds. “I can’t believe it man!” he exclaimed. “Sir, honestly you can’t say that. I genuinely have been to every building and have spoken to every guard on the premises to confirm about this office.” I said “No No, I believe you. It’s just that I can’t belive that someone’s been looking for our office for the past 2 hours.” “Why?” I asked. “Well, because it’s been only 3 days that we shifted into this office! That’s why our name is not on even on the door yet and the reason nobody knows us around here!” As he said this, it all fell into place like a god-damn jigsaw puzzle. Precisely why I said in the starting of this answer that I’m a paradoxical living example of ‘If you want something, you go and get it’ & ‘If it was meant to be, it will be’. Because, he was going to leave from that office in 5 minutes when I had arrived. Had I been 5 minutes late, he would have walked right by me and I wouldn’t have known. “So Deepanshu, I have some news for you. The internship that you have come for is already full.” He said and something crashed in me. “But, the Rajasthan market is opening up and if you’re open to relocating, I can recommend you for the same!” I almost jumped in excitement and affirmed that I was willing to move anywhere as long as I get to work with Airbnb! “Cool, I’ll pass on your contact to the relevant head who’s hiring for Rajasthan and then we’ll see. Best of luck!” With that he got up & I handed my resume to him. He gave me his email id on which I mailed a soft copy too and well - bada big bada boom - 3 weeks later, I was hired! *Mic Drops*