1. This has been submitted before, 302 days ago in fact:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nina4airbnb.com" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nina4airbnb.com</a><p>2. This is actually a case study in how to market yourself:
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150714043548/http://media.wix.com/ugd/25c031_fab734c9df1e4424a0476f4ce932b2c9.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20150714043548/http://media.wix....</a><p>3. From the case study:<p>These are the numbers:<p>• 445,000+ Visits to Nina4Airbnb<p>• Hundreds of thousands of Tweets and millions of impressions<p>• 30,000+ New visitors to my personal blog<p>• 14,000+ LinkedIn profile views<p>• 2,000+ Emails and messages of support from around the world<p>• Global media coverage<p>• An interview with Airbnb<p>• A pipeline of interviews with dozens of other high impact companies<p>4. This is her blog post about it: <a href="http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/" rel="nofollow">http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-good-the-bad-and-the-...</a><p>5. Fireside chat: <a href="https://youtu.be/tcjaqeXjKuc?t=7m14s" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/tcjaqeXjKuc?t=7m14s</a>
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.<p>Which also did not work out - she ended up with Elance. If we measure success by job vs no job, then yes, otherwise... eh...<p>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?<p>Nope.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
This made the circles ~a year ago when it was published, unfortunately didn't work out at AirBNB for Nina.<p>"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)<p>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)<p>(1) <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-resume-that-got-nina-mufleh-job-interviews-with-uber-linkedin-and-airbnb-2015-7" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/the-resume-that-got-nina-mufl...</a><p>(2) <a href="http://www.nina4airbnb.com/#!whitepaper/c1e1m" rel="nofollow">http://www.nina4airbnb.com/#!whitepaper/c1e1m</a>
Holy shit, putting on my protective suit before all the "DONT BREAK MY BROWSER'S BACK BUTTON" comments come pouring in :).<p>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.<p>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.<p>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 <i>really</i> need to get something online for the whole world to see...an <i>image</i> 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.
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).
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.<p>Best of luck to Nina.
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.<p>[1] <a href="http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/" rel="nofollow">http://eatwritewalk.com/2015/07/14/the-good-the-bad-and-the-...</a>
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.
Airbnb has a history of enthusiastic individuals creating microsite "resumes":<p><pre><code> * 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
</code></pre>
I'm sure there are more examples, but I thought it would be interesting to contextualize. Some of these folks got jobs there.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin</a>
I think this worked out for Loren back in the day, right?<p><a href="http://thewc.co/misc/loren-wants-to-work-for-airbnb/" rel="nofollow">http://thewc.co/misc/loren-wants-to-work-for-airbnb/</a>
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.
Does it bother anyone else that the colored boxes on the campaign results page seem to have random widths?<p>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.
she also worked for queen rania
the wife of a tyrant<p>i have very little sympathy for her<p>we should take this more seriously, dont help tyrants ... or their wives