Read the unorthodox résumé a college dropout used to beat out 1,500 applicants and land a 6-figure marketing job

Jason Fried, the CEO and cofounder at Basecamp, told Business Insider he previously met Didorosi at an Adobe conference in 2014. Fried was impressed by the entrepreneur's scrappiness and his can-do attitude in launching Detroit Bus Co. despite not having prior experience in the transportation industry. 

"Here's the thing — a lot of people have ideas," Fried said. "Everybody has ideas, but it stops there for most people. We often overthink and talk ourselves out of things. But Andy had an idea, and he did something about it. He just did it."

Didorosi wasn't initially what Fried had in mind for the leadership role at Basecamp. He said he was looking for someone with a more traditional background. 

Didorosi also submitted a résumé for the job that's far from traditional. It's not a one-page document crammed with bullet points highlighting his education and experience. He said it was hard for him to summarize his experience in one document, so he decided to write a narrative about his life instead. 

In total, the document is four pages long. Didorosi used much of the first page as a personal introduction. As an extra touch, the résumé font is the same as the one on Basecamp's website. Though he might not check all the boxes as a perfect candidate, Didorosi said he gave it his best shot and leveraged some outside-the-box thinking to show he's done the research. 

Fried said the company received thousands of applications, and many applicants had vice-president and C-suite titles. As the hiring team whittled down to the top 20, and eventually the top four, candidates, Didorosi remained among the frontrunners for the job. 

Even when he was in the final four, Didorosi followed his instincts. The finalists were assigned a project with a prompt to write up a company marketing plan with a $1 million budget. 

"I thought I can either write what I think they want me to write — with key performance-indicator numbers and net promoter scores — or I can do what I'd do for my bus company," he said. "If it was marketing at this level, how would we pitch it?"

While the competing applicants came up with formalized and campaignlike plans that spent all the money to the dollar, Didorosi's proposal utilized a more casual approach, Fried said. Didorosi suggested smaller experiments first to see what would stick. One idea he had was to contact new companies that had be interested in software tools. It was overall a very direct on-the-ground proposal, Fried said.

"I like his way of taking many swings versus one big swing," Fried said. 

Nevertheless, Fried wanted to see how Didorosi would respond if he asked for a different strategy. Fried reached out two days later and asked for a revision.

"They said it didn't really have any big concepts — that it didn't have a big idea," Didorosi told Business Insider. "I made some tweaks, but I told them I didn't have one. There's no big idea. They probably expected me to spend all the money. It's just not my way." 

Two hours after Didorosi's response, Basecamp reached out again with the job offer. 

The 32-year-old could have come up with an expensive marketing plan, but he stuck with what he learned from experience. He applied a small-business approach to a corporate setting, and his strategy earned him a hire.

"A small business of any kind is really marketing at its very core," he said. 

Rather than dwelling on what he thought the company was looking for, the entrepreneur redirected his focus to what he had to offer. He leveraged his unique experience in bootstrapping small businesses from scratch to outshine his peers. 

Didorosi believes his strength is his ability to overcome past business failures.

"There's way too much focus on prerequisites because that's what we've been told our whole lives," Didorosi told Business Insider. "There's no single path to success. I jumped — was on the path of promised reward, certainty, and structure. But it's not what I envisioned, and it's not where I wanted to go." 

He said each business he launched — most stemming from his passion for race-car shops — taught him how to find a niche, and it also helped him understand the importance of budgeting habits. It gave him the power to have complete ownership over his career.

"Many people will disagree with me and that's good," he told Business Insider. "The way I did it — I own literally everything. I have no debt. I own all the tools, and I own all the buses. But I started with one school bus. I learned how to drive it and fix it. I learned to run payroll."

That's Didorosi's advice for aspiring business leaders — plan to do it yourself first. Once you prove you have a business, hire help. 

Ultimately, the entrepreneur's hands-on mindset paid off. Resilience is taught through experience. The business leader went through four startup ideas before he profited.

Didorosi is Basecamp's first head of marketing. Fried said the hiring process was particularly hard because he created a role and didn't have anyone to compare the candidates with. Hence, he thought he wanted someone with classic marketing experience. 

"Sometimes, the shopping process helps you figure out what you want," Fried said. 

Of the four finalists, one was entrepreneurial, and the other three worked in marketing for large companies. The hiring team ultimately realized that Didorosi's scrappiness was more compatible with Basecamp. 

"Whenever you hire someone, you're just placing a bet," Fried told Business Insider. "The other three finalists were great, but we felt like Andy was the better bet for us."