Philippe Dubost's Amazon-Style CV Wins Him 150 Job Offers!

Well, I knew I wanted to do something different, something fun.

 

After I decided in December that I would start looking for a new job, the idea of applying to jobs on job boards was killing me.

 

I remembered seeing all those fancy/custom resumes, like the Google resume, designer resumes.

 

Being a big shopper at Amazon, the idea came naturally. An Amazon page is actually a good fit for a resume: it has a title, a picture, descriptions, lists, … And it's familiar to so many people in the world.

 

The idea was really to send the link to my online Amazon-style resume along with my actual resume when sending applications.

 

I thought, if a company I'm sending this to thinks it's fun, then it's probably the kind of company I want to work for.

 

Two weeks ago I sent the link to a popular French tech Blog (Frenchweb). They shared the link, but the feedback was pretty weak…three days after, somebody posted it on HackerNews, and from here it exploded.

 

I've had one million unique visitors within eight days; 33,000 Facebook likes; and thousands of Tweets (I haven't found the right tool to count them yet!).

 

I've received about 1,000 messages, and about 150 are job-opportunities, with some terrific opportunities! I'm so happy and so surprised with this success! 

 

I don't think so.

 

I initially thought about it after seeing the massive positive feedback and all the messages asking for advice. But in the end, I really did this to land a job, this is what I want, so first I'll work on getting the job of my dreams, and then I'll consider branding activities...

 

I wanted to study in the US because I wanted to know more about the country. Also, to make my English better, as I knew it would be very useful in my career. I knew I couldn't really go wrong with an American MBA.

 

Although I am very glad I landed there, I did not exactly choose the University of Dayton, they had a double-degree exchange program with the Toulouse Business School in France, where I was studying.

 

The best moments: very informative talks on business with amazing faculty and accomplished professionals,  the concentration classes in Information Science…and the commencement ceremony of course!

 

The worst moment: the extreme cold in Dayton in winter!

 

I'm in touch with some of them, mostly exchange European students like me. Most work in finance.

 

In short, think "TripAdvisor for apartments". If you know the successful ApartmentRatings website, it's the same basic concept. We let people write reviews on apartment buildings or houses they have lived in, so that potential future tenants and buyers know what's really going on.

 

It was inspired by a personal experieince. After moving into my first Parisian apartment, I realized the neighbor played guitar at 2am in the morning… and the previous tenant had left for the same reason. I thought it was annoying that I had no way to know this in advance. Nowadays there are reviews on books, movies, and electronics… why not on apartments? 

 

Well, I recently visited Thailand, and it was the greatest trip I've taken in a while: amazing food, wonderful people, fantastic places…

 

Other than that, I think my heart is still in Mexico, where I lived for more than a year, in Mexico City and Guadalajara.

 

I recently read the book "The Startup of You" written by the founder of LinkedIn. One key tip is: work on your competitive advantage, differentiate yourself.

 

In the modern job market (and especially in IT), every candidate is in competition with tons of others, locally or around the world.

 

Being a Project Manager is nice, but how many are there in the world? Being a Project Manager specialized in online advertising and speaking Japanese? Now that's precious.