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After nine gruelling interviews spanning across five months, Business School Alumni Lee Hunter recently joined Google as their Product Marketing Manager for B2B products in the UK.

Lee credits his Master in e-Marketing and Information Management as crucial in realising his dream of working at Google. "From what I know, UWA was one of the first places to offer a Master in e-Marketing. It offered a speciality that fit exactly with what I wanted to do and it was absolutely essential in getting the job with Google."

Lee said the interview process was daunting but rewarding at the same time. "Unbelievable, the final decision came down to the two guys that actually started Google! It was a pretty gruelling process but Google are fanatical about getting the right people. People are the essential ingredient to Google's success - so they take their time to make sure they get it spot on."

While Lee was completing his Master Degree, he worked at a small Perth IT startup doing their marketing for a few years before switching across to financial services with AMP. "I then moved to London in 2005 and was doing the European marketing for an investment bank when the offer to join Google came up."

"The degree gave me a great foundation in traditional marketing as well as innovative approaches using new media. Being such a unique degree it really opened up my possibilities and allowed me to stand out from the crowd. It also made the transition to working internationally a lot easier."

Google was a perfect fit for Lee who says the culture is based on innovation and rewarding creative thinking.

"It is one of the coolest places to work. The people here are great and have such diverse backgrounds. One day you are working with a girl who used to be an Olympic athlete, the next day you are chatting with the guy who programmed the Mars Rover."

"To work at Google you need to be innovative and flexible. The industry is changing so fast that you need to be able to adapt quickly to changes and recognise what trends are happening and why. My Masters degree really helped to prepare me for this."

Since arriving in London, Lee has been fortunate to work on campaigns that go across all of Europe. "Now, the Google products I work on touch millions of people every day - it's pretty amazing to do marketing on this scale."

With Lee's role at Google in the UK still in its infancy, his goal is to make a significant impact in his current role, although Lee already has his eyes set on a future at the Google head office in San Francisco.

Google Now Hiring UWA Graduates
According to Lee, Google values academic qualifications from high level universities. "If you don't have a great degree from a great university, it is almost impossible to be employed at Google. Other people in my position typically come from universities like Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and Cambridge.

Lee said that during his interview process Google ‘checked out' UWA.

"They wanted to make sure that UWA was good enough to produce candidates in the top league. Google looked very closely at UWA and my degrees and they were impressed. Now they know about UWA it means that graduates hopefully won't have such a tough process to get in."

Lee says future graduates interested in working at Google must be interested in technology and of course Google products. Coupled with a strong academic background, graduates need to be creative, innovative and open to a rapidly changing workplace.

If you think you fit the criteria mentioned, Lee welcomes emails from UWA graduates. If you are a standout performer and love Google he suggests you firstly look at the jobs on your local Google website. If you find something of interest then email him at [email protected]