This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
It’s notoriously difficult to get a job at Google.
The tech giant, once famous for its lavish perks, receives millions of applications a year, and some estimate it is nearly 10 times harder to get a job there than to get accepted to Harvard.
For Mariana Kobayashi, an account executive currently working in Google’s Dublin office, it was all about standing out from the crowd.
After being fired from LinkedIn, Kobayashi said she set her sights on Google in June last year.
But he told Business Insider that he decided to take a different approach to applying: curating a video about why he should get the role.
The video chronicled his work experience and contained pre-recorded references from former colleagues and friends in the industry.
The entire process took about 10 hours, he said. When finished, Kobayashi used ContactOut, an email research tool, to send it directly to the hiring manager.
He also posted the video online and it quickly went viral.
“Many people have contacted me offering coffee chats and letting me know about positions,” he said. “Then the recruiter for the role contacted me and I called her.”
A “purpose-oriented” application.
Kobayashi said the Google recruiter told her she was overqualified for the graduate program she applied for.
However, she said she was impressed with Kobayashi’s video and LinkedIn content and promised to keep her in the pipeline for additional roles.
“I contacted her every couple of months, letting her know my progress and what I was doing. In September I saw a position for an account executive,” Kobayashi said.
Kobayashi said she was able to get a reference from a friend and applied immediately despite being slightly underqualified for the role.
The recruiter also talked about the role, offering to connect her with the hiring manager.
“It was a very targeted application, so I think that made me stand out, and then because the recruiter was already on my side, that helped me,” he said.
Recognize your “warning signs”
Kobayashi said he sent two documents after the interviews. One highlighted why a company should hire her and another detailed what he perceived as her “red flags” or employment gaps.
“It was a document that said, ‘Here’s why you shouldn’t hire me,’” he said. “But I also included a page that says, ‘Here’s how I’m going to turn my red flags into green flags.’”
She said she lacked sales experience and wanted to acknowledge that while demonstrating that she had a plan to address the problem.
An interview in three phases
He said the interview involved three phases of approximately 45-minute calls, including a case study and a leadership assessment.
“After an interview, I would send them the documents and they liked it,” he said.
After completing the interview process, he contacted the recruiter weekly.
“I had to wait a month until I got a response telling me I was in the last group of people,” he said. “A week later, I got a job offer.”