Aditya Shergill’s first attempt at video editing came about a month ago, when he cut a video celebrating his cousin’s birthday.
But despite his relative inexperience, he took the bold step of creating a video application for a job with Netflix Canada’s communications department, by stitching together footage from Netflix trailers to make his pitch.
“I wanted to prove that I could go the extra mile,” said Shergill this week, after his 90-second video resume began making the rounds on LinkedIn and getting endorsed from experienced people in the world of marketing and advertising.
Shergill, who arrived in Canada from his native India in August, and whose LinkedIn profile states “I like brands as much as Michael Jordan liked Oakley sunglasses in the 90s,” said that he got the idea after coming across the job posting on the Netflix site on Friday.
“I was looking at trailers [on Netflix’s YouTube channel] to get a feel of the brand, and then the idea just struck me—why don’t I use these trailers to make a trailer for myself?” he said.
He spent about six or seven hours combing through trailers for about 15 shows, including Emily in Paris, Hey Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? and Harry & Meghan, jotting down snippets of useful dialogue .
“I sat down, poured myself a coffee, and just watched all of them,” he said. “Whenever I came across a sentence or a bit of dialogue I thought could contribute to the narrative, I made a note on an Excel sheet. I knew what I wanted to say—about why I selected Netflix, why I would be a good fit.”
His original video was about two-and-a-half minutes long, but he turned to friends and relatives to get it down to a more manageable length.
There’s been no response from Netflix to the video so far, although it has got some notice from the LinkedIn community.
“C’mon Netflix, how can you not applaud this level of initiative and creativity? Give this man a call,” wrote marketer David Pullara. Another person in the comments tagged Netflix Canada PR director Lindsey Scully, urging her to watch the video.
Shergill is fine if his out-of-the-box approach fails to land him a job at Netflix. “Even if it doesn’t work out, I’m happy with the attempt I made and the response I got,” he said. “I’ll keep going and even if this doesn’t happen, I know there are other opportunities out there.”
