A crazy idea...
I was laid off from my Internal Communication role at a SaaS startup in mid August 2024. I was OK with that outcome and knew I really wanted my next internal comms leadership role to be in the Entertainment industry (film, TV, streaming). It's a space that makes the best use of my background and interests, while aligning with a long term career goal – but that's another story 🎥
The same week I was laid off, Netflix advertised a rare Manager, Internal Communications role for their Feature Animation team. The job ad said the person would need to have a passion for animation and storytelling to succeed in the role.
I did all the traditional things to apply for the job, plus some extras: got internal referrals from two friends at Netflix; emailed hiring manager directly; reached out to the hiring manager via LinkedIn; one of those Netflix friends sent my resume to the recruiter for the role, etc.
Still, no response. I’ll learn later that Netflix can easily receive 10,000 applicants for a job posting. Easily.
After a few weeks of effort, I had the novel idea to make a human connection by sending the hiring manager a handwritten letter. As I was preparing to do that, God blessed with a better, crazier idea: Demonstrate my passion for storytelling by writing and physically mailing a screenplay to the hiring manager. A short film script about my interest in the role 😳
I went with it and wrote “A Chat with Marlee”.
That's the name of the hiring manager for the role. We've never met or spoken despite my many attempts to reach her. Weaved into the story is an intro, storytelling work outside of internal comms, career success, and career failure. It took about a week and a half to write, edit, and refine before I felt it was ready.
Disclaimer: The screenplay includes way more dialogue and exposition than I'm comfortable with, but this was never meant to be a script for production. I allowed myself to be lax on the 'rules' of the craft and just enjoy creation of the story 😌
I printed the nine-page screenplay and mailed it via USPS in a tall envelope on which I hand addressed and manually affixed $2.04 in stamps. Honestly, this effort was less about ‘standing out’ and more about making a human connection. Something that’s hard for a hiring manager to sense in today’s hyper-efficient job-filling procedures.
Wanna read it?
Of course you do. Click the image below to read the nine-page screenplay (PDF) 👇
A human touch
Hand-addressing, affixing stamps to, and physically mailing the envelope were all in effort to make a human connection with this hiring manager. That was all the more my intent when I taped a hand-made 'QR card' to the last page of the script – stained with actual tea. (Makes sense when you read the story ☕)
Here's a photo of what that looked like. Go ahead, try that QR code, or click the image to see where it goes.
So, what happened?
I still haven't heard from Netflix, but I'm not giving up 💪
I'm starting a new fully-remote role at a SaaS startup out of Canada in late October. It's the first time the company has had an internal comms manager, creating an exciting opportunity to develop their program from scratch.
In the background, I'll keep reaching out to Marlee and showing my suitability for this role. I’m confident that I'm the internal comms manager Netflix needs. I’ll be patient and stay ready to discuss that whenever she's ready 🙂