Should Google hire this mustachioed self-promoter?
Matthew Epstein, a young marketer, gains much online traction from a video he produced advertising himself to Google. He has his first Google phone call today. But is Google what he really needs?
If you want to get a job at Google, all you need to do is make a video of yourself in your underwear. Oh, and it helps if you're wearing a false mustache.
This, at least, seems to be the view of Matthew Epstein who has raised some considerable personal visibility by creating just such a video and, indeed, a Web site, Googlepleasehire.me.
His video, thanks partly to the championing passions of TechCrunch, has already enjoyed almost 100,000 views.
Yet I must leave it to you, the great hirers of tomorrow, to decide whether Epstein is someone you would want to have in your bosom.
On the positive side, here is someone with initiative, the will to invest in his own (acting) abilities, and the inventiveness to devise a self-promotional tool that is clearly gaining him much sympathy in the world of virtual relations.
On the slightly less positive side, here is someone who utters phrases, in self-description, as "a digital strategist with a passion for bringing products to market online and offline."
Epstein is clearly reveling in his new-found exposure. He even uses his site to offer statistical results of his approach. He says he has received, in three days, 4,000 Facebook likes, 3,000 tweets, and 1,500 Google +1's.
What is quite beautiful about his approach is that he freely admits on his site that he currently has no job and that the reason for creating this marketing effort was based on pure human frustration.
"I had been rejected by so many companies during that two-week period that I felt the need to prove to myself, almost remind myself, that I was worthy of being in the profession," he wrote.
What seems less clear is why he is out of work. All I can find on his site is that he and his last employer, Infoition, "parted ways."
Epstein announced on Twitter that he has his first call with a Google recruiter today at 12:30 p.m. PT.
Will he be tweeting all about it? Will he make another movie about it? Will it be a Skype call, complete with fake mustache? (Epstein promised on Twitter that he would wear his birthday suit.)
I have one more question: Is he too good for Google? The company has made some considerable strides in its marketing. It has come to realize that people are human beings who like to be talked to in a human way.
However, last week I happened to meet an ex-Googlie in a bar who told me that he had left because the corporate bureaucracy of the now-vast Google was a little too much to stomach.
With Epstein's sense of initiative and speed, perhaps he might actually get more done in a place that is starting-up, rather than one that is struggling with revivification.
Perhaps it is Google that should be begging Epstein, not the other way around.