
Custom resume from someone who wanted to work at Airbnb (2015) - tswicegood
http://www.nina4airbnb.com/
======
startupfounder
1\. This has been submitted before, 302 days ago in fact:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nina4airbnb.com](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....](https://web.archive.org/web/20150714043548/http://media.wix.com/ugd/25c031_fab734c9df1e4424a0476f4ce932b2c9.pdf)

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

• 14,000+ LinkedIn profile views

• 2,000+ Emails and messages of support from around the world

• Global media coverage

• An interview with Airbnb

• A pipeline of interviews with dozens of other high impact companies

4\. This is her blog post about it: [http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-
good-the-bad-and-the-...](http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-good-the-bad-
and-the-ugly/)

5\. Fireside chat:
[https://youtu.be/tcjaqeXjKuc?t=7m14s](https://youtu.be/tcjaqeXjKuc?t=7m14s)

~~~
misterbwong
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”._

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

~~~
true_religion
It means placing an experience in context, and being able to relate it to
other contexts.

For example, if you know someone who works with PHP then contextualizing their
experience could follow these steps: understand that PHP is a programming
language, look at their code and see it is well architected, decide to hire
them even despite inexperience in Ruby because they have the core skills.

Being unable to contextualize experience isn't the same as not having
emotional empathy. It is being unable to have an actionable intellectual grasp
of a topic.

~~~
samstave
True, that interviewer should either not be interviewing or perhaps not even
be working in this industry then...

------
alexashka
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 didn't get there based on merit but largely,
just dumb luck. If you know you're in a cushy spot, do you want to hire people
who are way better than you?

Nope.

The job market is broken, and most people you know are the reason why. The
people holding down the jobs are interested in keeping it that way - or else
they'd get replaced.

Imagine a basketball player who could choose his/her own teammates and knew
that if he/she gets kicked off the team, nobody will hire him/her ever
again... They'd rather see the whole team destroyed, they'll get to collect
cheques a while longer that way.

With regular jobs - this is much less obvious but truth of the matter is -
there are too many young people hungry to replace the old, that the only way
to prevent the whole system from beginning to collapse is to impose
classicisms in subtle and not so much ways.

~~~
poof131
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.

~~~
alexashka
It's how you define 'qualified'.

Here's from her blog:

"Professionals i admire were calling my work impressive, but 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”."

Here's another:

"despite my 10 years of marketing and social media experience and despite the
reach of my latest campaign, i was told i wouldn’t be that person."

This lady is clearly qualified. She's just not a good 'culture fit'.

I get that a fair bit myself - there's an apparent shortage of iOS developers
and I happen to be one looking for work currently. Do you know how many
companies explicitly say 'do you have a bachelor of computer science? no? ok
bye'?

A lot! A college graduate being able to do iOS should be a 'wait, he/she must
be good, that's unusual', instead it is straight to the garbage bin.

I could of course just start straight up lying on my resume and get better
results but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Which means the hoardes of shameless liars who will say anything to get the
job, get ahead. So it goes...

~~~
joshstrange
I don't mean to nitpic but I tried to go read some of her blog [0] and it
almost drove me crazy.... Someone buy her a Shift key! Lowercase "i"'s by
themselves cause my skin to crawl as-is but she doesn't even start sentences
with capitals.

[0] [http://eatwritewalk.com/](http://eatwritewalk.com/)

------
aresant
This made the circles ~a year ago when it was published, unfortunately didn't
work out at AirBNB for Nina.

"Now, three months later, Mufleh tells Business Insider that Airbnb decided
she wasn't the right candidate for the marketing role she had been considered
for." (1)

But it's been succesful enough as a marketing piece to get her interviewed
far-and-wide and - like a good marketer - she wrote a white paper to double
down on the success.(2)

(1) [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-resume-that-got-nina-
mufl...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-resume-that-got-nina-mufleh-job-
interviews-with-uber-linkedin-and-airbnb-2015-7)

(2)
[http://www.nina4airbnb.com/#!whitepaper/c1e1m](http://www.nina4airbnb.com/#!whitepaper/c1e1m)

------
danso
Holy shit, putting on my protective suit before all the "DONT BREAK MY
BROWSER'S BACK BUTTON" comments come pouring in :).

Actually, I don't think it would break browser interaction, but yeah, I think
she should consider re-creating the page as text rather than screenshots of
text. First of all, much easier to edit (and style) when it's just text.
Second, makes it much easier for the employer to Cmd-F search for keywords.

My other recommendation would be to have a prominent resumé link, and have it
point to a standard PDF. Though maybe a linkedin link is good enough? I know
Airbnb is probably more tech-forward than most employers, but there are still
some HR shops that print out candidates' resumes to read by paper..and if your
web-ready resumé does _not_ print out well...you may be at a disadvantage.

While this may not be the most technically well-executed page...have to give
credit to the applicant for even trying to do something different, even if
she's not a web developer. I've often introduced web dev to newbies by just
pointing out that when they _really_ need to get something online for the
whole world to see...an _image_ works just as well in a jiffy. The Web isn't
just about HTML, but about having that URL that anyone in the entire world can
freely and relatively instantaneously access. It's something we take for
granted as web developers but it's a very different paradigm for those who are
not webdevs.

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

O_o

~~~
CydeWeys
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.

~~~
bschwindHN
I have the same habit but it was the retina screen that tipped me off. All the
images are slightly blurry on a high-DPI display and I immediately notice
because I've been spoiled by super sharp fonts and crisp images.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Weird I have the same habit however what clued me in was the images too
forever to load and they were pixelated before they were fully loaded.

------
unexpected
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).

~~~
inanutshellus
Totally fascinating! Why on earth would anyone care what someone else does
with their home/car?

~~~
extra88
I care what my closest neighbors do with their apartment as I share a floor,
ceiling, and common spaces with them. If I owned a car, I might care what
neighbors on my street do as it could reduce availability of on-street parking
(there's little off-street parking here).

But I think the main point was not about the citizenry but the governments in
the Middle East. The governments there would care for the same reasons
governments in other countries do, companies like Airbnb and Uber are
violating and/or inciting violation of zoning laws, regulations, avoiding
relevant taxes & fees, etc. Relative to countries like the U.S. they might
"lose their shit" because it's more novel to have such disruption. Such
outfits might also not fit well with their forms of corruption, reducing bribe
opportunities (e.g. why pay a bribe to get a zoning change for a hotel when
you can just call the rooms "apartments" and list them on Airbnb?).

------
vonklaus
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.

~~~
nashashmi
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 like
places.)

~~~
rym_
Too much ambition is bad?

~~~
nashashmi
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.

------
randlet
It looks like this from earlier in 2015 and there's a follow up post on her
blog[1]. Ultimately she didn't get a job at AirBNB but seems like she did end
up landing a job elsewhere as a result.

[1] [http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-good-the-bad-and-
the-...](http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/)

------
jaequery
am I the only one fascinated by the use of images instead of text on the site?

~~~
LargeWu
If she doesn't have CSS chops, then it makes a lot of sense. Much easier to
build the components in photoshop or whatever and just get them stitched
together. It doesn't look like she's interested in any sort of development
role, so it's not a skill I would expect her to have.

------
andrewfromx
i like it better than people who come to interviews without even creating a
_free_ account with the company they want a job with.

~~~
rifung
In fairness, some people are just more interested in the technical side of
things than the product side.

------
geverett
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 of them in the States. As Nina
points out, Muslim hospitality is a natural cultural fit with the type of
exchange that is core to the AirBnb experience.

~~~
cpncrunch
>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.

------
mazzer
Airbnb has a history of enthusiastic individuals creating microsite "resumes":

    
    
      * 2011:
        https://kathleenkowal.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/custom-airbnb-resume/
        Kathleen went very physical, but it wasn't a good fit for Airbnb in 2011
    
      * 2012:
        http://www.ericlovesairbnb.com/
        Eric more or less pioneered the "microsite" approach [at Airbnb, at least] and is still there today
    
      * 2013:
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2600264
        Loren was not extended an offer, and has unfortunately taken down his "resume" site
    
      * 2014:
        http://www.katielovesairbnb.com/
        Katie was successful and is working on killer stuff at Airbnb these days
    

I'm sure there are more examples, but I thought it would be interesting to
contextualize. Some of these folks got jobs there.

As for the "hadn’t worked at facebook or google or studied at stanford" from
the recruiter ... well, sometimes startups become BigCos and idiots are tasked
with interview duties.

------
winter_blue
It's strange she emphasizes "Bedouin Hospitality" because bedouins[1] comprise
a really small percentage of the natives/citizens of the U.A.E., Qatar,
Bahrain, etc.

Bedouins are a seminomadic group of people sort of like the gypsies of Europe.
Most of the citizens of Arab countries are not bedouins. They're permanently
settled in one location/area, and they do not identify as bedouin.

This cultural gaffe indicates that she should have done more research before
making such a prominent statement. "Arab hospitality" or "Middle eastern
hospitality" would have been more appropriate.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin)

~~~
djscram
Perhaps, but that Bedouin hospitality is part of the self-identity of most
Arab groups, I believe. (source, was married to a Palestinian from Kuwait for
several years and was exposed to a variety of Arab cultures in U.S.)

------
bitwize
I was half expecting some Aleksey Vayner bit of hilarity but there's actual
skill on display here.

~~~
eigenvalue
Off topic, but I feel terrible every time I see him referenced given his very
tragic suicide as a result of the endless humiliation he suffered from his one
youthful indiscretion.

------
27182818284
I think this worked out for Loren back in the day, right?

[http://thewc.co/misc/loren-wants-to-work-for-
airbnb/](http://thewc.co/misc/loren-wants-to-work-for-airbnb/)

~~~
pen2l
Yeahhhh... No it didn't. I was very surprised to learn he didn't land a job
after he got an interview from Airbnb. I mean, seriously Loren showed some
pretty good skill with that site.

------
lemcoe9
I do believe that ATL (Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport) is
the busiest airport in the world, and has been so for quite some time. Dubai,
indeed, is not.

~~~
extra88
Looks like it depends on how you count. Atlanta moves the most people, Chicago
moves the most planes, Dubai move the most people between countries. Dubai is
also #3 for the most people regardless of origin and destination which makes
me think they'll remain tops for moving people internationally; all the other
top airports would have a much larger proportion of domestic passengers
(unless flights between Hong Kong and the rest of China don't count as
domestic).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_busiest_airport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_busiest_airport)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_world%27s_busiest_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_world%27s_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic)

------
hathym
desperate times call for desperate measures

~~~
EC1
Desperate times if you're bad at what you do.

------
mdturnerphys
This should have "(2015)" in the title.

~~~
dang
Yup. Added.

------
hnal943
Does it bother anyone else that the colored boxes on the campaign results page
seem to have random widths?

That combined with the text-as-images make the whole experience rather
disconcerting. I understand she's not a designer, but as a marketer her
presentation needs to be polished. As it is, the visual mistakes undermine the
content.

------
blammail
It definitely checks the "passion to work here" checkbox.

------
greggarious
I wouldn't hire a designer who's application does not degrade gracefully - had
to allow JS just to see her resume.

~~~
anonx
She's designing social media strategies. Do they have to degrade gracefully,
too?

~~~
douche
Social media strategies are pretty degraded to begin with...

------
systems
she also worked for queen rania the wife of a tyrant

i have very little sympathy for her

we should take this more seriously, dont help tyrants ... or their wives

