After being fired from LinkedIn in May 2023, a woman found work at Google with a salary nearly twice as high after her creative job application went viral on the internet.
Mariana Kobayashi reportedly landed a job at Google's Dublin headquarters after her creative video-format job application went viral online, according to a Business Insider story. Kobayashi applied for a job in a non-traditional way, forgoing the typical résumé.
How Mariana Kobayashi got a job at Google
With millions of applications each year and a reputation for having a strict hiring process, Google makes it very difficult to get hired. Kobayashi made a video to showcase her work experience in an effort to stand out from the competition. In addition, she included pre-recorded industry connections and references from past coworkers on her video résumé, which helped her land a position at Google.
Kobayashi's resume video goes viral
Kobayashi's video résumé took more than ten hours to produce. She uploaded it online and sent it straight to Google's hiring manager. She included materials in her application outlining her identified weaknesses and her plans to remedy them.
Kobayashi's video gained rapid popularity. People in the industry took notice of it and got in touch with assistance and guidance. Kobayashi and the recruiter were in touch regularly. She was chosen for the final list of applicants following the conclusion of three rounds of interviews.
Talking to Business Insider, she said, "I've grown two levels in my career - which wouldn't have been possible if I had stayed at LinkedIn - my salary has almost doubled, and I'm in a company that is much more suited for me. The experience taught me not to tie my self-worth to my job like that again."
She was then called by a Google recruiter who informed her that she was "overqualified" for the job for which she had applied. They were impressed by her initiative and expressed interest in her applying for other roles at Google. She shared her experience and the process of making the video on LinkedIn a few days ago.
In 2023, LinkedIn—owned by Microsoft—underwent two rounds of layoffs. In its engineering, talent, and finance teams, the second round impacted close to 700 workers.