In this episode, we chatted with Luis Dinis, Manager at Google. We discussed the future of education, antitrust, and privacy concerns around Google, and how to get into one of the best places to work.
What is Luis’s story?
After graduating from the Catholic University of Portugal and with a Masters in Management from ESCP Business School, Luis worked for two years at PwC in the International Tax field before starting his career in the digital world, where he worked at startups such as Rocket Internet and Hometogo.
Luis is currently working for Google where he’s been for the last five years, in different roles related to ads marketing and sales, working with mobile experts, the education industry as well as with media and tech agencies.
More recently, he launched his startup in the e-commerce field.
What does Google do in the education field?
Google’s fundamental mission is to make information accessible to everyone.
Google is active in the field of education in three ways:
- Google Career Certificates: online training programs designed to earn job-ready skills in certain career fields such as IT Support, Project Management, Data Analytics and UX Design.
- Google for Education, a division that focuses on boosting the penetration of Google products in the world of education;
- Partnerships with education companies, designed to increase their online presence and success.
What are some misconceptions about Google?
- Google is a relaxed company: it’s true, Googlers don’t work the long hours of investment bankers, but the hours that they work are intense and extremely productive.
- The Googliness component simply means “being a nice person”: one of the steps in Google’s recruitment is to see if candidates have the “Googliness” component. It actually is a mix of several characteristics, mainly having passion and drive. It’s a mashup that is ‘hard to define but easy to spot’.
- Google is the “bad cop”: as with all big tech companies, scrutiny around Google has been increasing. It is often believed that Google steals information from people and that it abuses monopolistic positions. However, we don’t pay attention to the fact that, for example, Google is free and that it pays attention to UX.
Some of Luis’s tips to land your dream job at Google:
- Ask yourself: am I a good match for the role that I’m applying for?
- Networking is crucial: About 70-80% of people in Google enter thanks to a referral from a Googler;
- Ask yourself: what makes me special and different from other candidates?
