[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.

[czinck]

Can be, if it seems likely that the ambition would cause them to leave the company, especially if within a year or 2 of hiring. There are a lot of costs to hiring someone (both money-wise and in opportunity cost) and if they seem likely to leave in less than 2 years than the company could end up net-negative for hiring them.

[nommm-nommm]

It can be.

Too much ambition can lead to losing sight of practicality, burn out, high stress, anxiety, depression, high turnover, as well as losing site of the bigger picture.

[rconti]

Your higher-ups must be more talented than most.

[dikdik]

I thought this too. But I am in the middle of my job search (applied for several on the ASK HN thread) and the calls I have received back are for jobs I did not write a cover letter or at most a paragraph that I sent with my resume.

The two companies where I spent almost a week each writing a cover letter and editing it until I thought it was perfect, have not even bothered to send me a "not interested." Obviously anecdotal, but not sure if I will continue to put in that effort as it does not seem to make a difference for me.

[soared]

I've had the same experience. Written ~10 unique cover letters (for positions I really wanted), done a couple 'practice problems' but the only positive responses have been from 4 sentence long emails I sent out to people who posted on Ask HN.

[pinewurst]

I'm in the midst of the same process and have observed exactly the same.

[dikdik]

Well now I have to eat some crow. I ended up hearing back from one of these companies a couple days after my original comment. It was very positive, too! Hang in there, my friend, need lots of patience for this.

[kirykl]

I work at mega corp. Finding a small company is key. A hiring manager here wouldn't even be able to submit this to HR. Maybe her resume which would go into a giant stack, as if submitted online to be reviewed by committee.