Can you Snapchat your way to an internship? Looks like it

A San Francisco State University student just landed himself a summer internship via a rather unconventional method: Snapchat.

Like many students, Lan Paje was looking for an internship as the semester comes to an end. One of the places he applied to was a lifestyle and travel company called The Points Guy (TPG), whose founder, Brian Kelly, once paid his family trip to Grand Cayman with miles.

“In total, I applied to around 10 organizations,” Paje said in an email to USA Today College.

“Since I was studying two different fields [computer science and journalism], I created two resumes, and applied for front-end software engineering and editorial positions.”

When he didn’t hear back about his formal application through TPG’s jobs portal, Paje decided to try something different. The sophomore had noticed Kelly was the person behind TPG’s Snapchat account.

“I knew I had to get my resume in the hands of a decision maker, so I decided to find a way to contact Brian Kelly,” Paje said.

“I realised he actually personally ran the TPG Snapchat account during his various travels, so I decided to screenshot my resume and send it to him via Snapchat’s chat feature.”

And it worked!

https://twitter.com/whitmanpio/status/862495399986298880

After getting Kelly’s personal email, Paje was interviewed and offered a position formally as an editorial intern in TPG’s New York office, all in the span of one week.

Paje’s Snapchat intervention got him a fortunate foot in – a feat considering the company had filled up their positions for summer interns.

Apart from an exciting summer ahead, Paje also learned a valuable lesson about the job search process. According to Paje, it pays to know which companies you are really keen on, rather than sending mass application to dozens of companies.

“I’ve heard stories of friends who have haphazardly applied to over 30 companies and never received an interview offer.”

Paje said quality is better than quantity.

Paje isn’t the only student who have gone off the beaten path to score an internship. A month ago, AdWeek reported a couple of Miami Ad School students in New York made a video based on the Twitter feed of one Chloe Harlig, a creative coordinator at Droga5, an ad agency that counts The New York Times, Pizza Hut and Hennessy as some of its clients.

Like Page, Ben and Jackie’s effort of “microtargeting” got them noticed and they have since been accepted as interns at the prestigious global advertising agency.

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