Thoughts On My First Week at Google
Googliness.
I'd heard this word so many times - from watching The Internship to studying throughout my Master's program.
Truthfully, I didn't think I possessed it. It seemed like the embodiment of the ultimate employee, the ultimate worker. I knew I wasn't on that level. I was convinced.
I still don't know that I possess googliness, but Google seems to disagree.
So, you work at google now.
Let me back up a little.
A little over 9 years ago, I took my first client. We worked together and had a great time, and I realized this marketing thing could be a really profitable side hustle. And for me? That's all it was ever meant to be.
I side hustled through the rest of high school, through undergrad, while working on my Master's and while working a corporate job. Then, in 2016, I was laid off twice in one year. Instead of gambling on the corporate world some more, I went "full time" ... and in some ways, I thought I'd achieved the ultimate pinnacle of success. Doesn't every entrepreneur want to go "full time?" Well, here's the thing.
We live in a world that demands perfection. Chases ultimate success. Thirsts for that next tier of recognition. Once I achieved "full time" entrepreneurship and thought I'd made it big, the next steps in the ladder appeared, like when you're playing Candy Crush and the cloud cover lifts and you can see the next 20 levels. I started chasing speaking at conferences, getting all the press coverage I could, and upleveling my service offerings. The bar continued to rise.
And then a particularly strong period of "feast and famine" hit. In a moment of "weakness," I found myself scrolling through the job postings on LinkedIn at 2am, hitting "apply on LinkedIn" to every job that struck a chord.
The next morning, I woke up, and had put it past me. Feast and famine. I began pushing towards the next feast.
But the day after that...
The day after that I got an email from Google. They wanted to meet with me. They found my background interesting and my resume worth looking at. Fast forward a couple weeks and a couple rounds of interviews - I was offered a marketing job at Google and I accepted. And last Monday was my first day.
what's it like to work at google?
For me, it's been a lot of learning and a lot of growth. You know when you graduate high school and you go to college, and even though you had a 4.0 GPA in high school, you're just a middle of the road student in college?
Imagine that on an infinitely larger scale. Google gets over 4 MILLION resumes per year from folks eager to work there. Less than a fraction of a percent of those people get hired. Google currently has somewhere around 75,000 employees - even if all of those employees were hired this year, that's only a 1.8% acceptance rate - lower than any Ivy League school's acceptance rate this year.
I am going through orientation and training with some incredibly talented people and it has definitely highlighted some of my blindspots and opportunities. It's also been incredibly humbling.
Dannie, why did you say yes?
This is the question I have gotten the most in the past week - why did I accept the job? Why, when I was in a really incredible time in my business, would I leave that to go back to the "corporate world?"
My first answer was "it's Google. You don't say no."
But a lot of people challenged that - I am the girl that does what most people expect I wouldn't.
When I dug deeper, I realized the answer was simple. I'd learned everything I possibly could from the entrepreneurial community. I was on the precipice of something exciting, but I was missing that one ingredient that would be the catalyst for my inevitable evolution.
Google is that catalyst.
Trust me, I'm just as curious as you to see how it all works out.
Please note: I am currently an employee at Google, Inc. However, this website, all it's contents, and all the contents of all outbound links (i.e. social media accounts, etc.) are my personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Google, Inc., it's parent company, or any of it's subsidiaries.