diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 16a21a1696c..c1c07e82ada 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ Contributors:
 ### Under the hood
 - Switch to full reparse on partial parsing exceptions. Log and report exception information. ([#3725](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt/issues/3725), [#3733](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt/pull/3733))
 - Check for existence of test node when removing. ([#3711](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt/issues/3711), [#3750](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt/pull/3750))
+- Better error handling for BigQuery job labels that are too long. [#3703](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt/pull/3703)
 
 
 ## dbt 0.20.1 (August 11, 2021)
diff --git a/plugins/bigquery/dbt/adapters/bigquery/connections.py b/plugins/bigquery/dbt/adapters/bigquery/connections.py
index 137b02d4f48..62de829b23b 100644
--- a/plugins/bigquery/dbt/adapters/bigquery/connections.py
+++ b/plugins/bigquery/dbt/adapters/bigquery/connections.py
@@ -595,9 +595,20 @@ def _is_retryable(error):
 
 _SANITIZE_LABEL_PATTERN = re.compile(r"[^a-z0-9_-]")
 
+_VALIDATE_LABEL_LENGTH_LIMIT = 63
+
 
 def _sanitize_label(value: str) -> str:
     """Return a legal value for a BigQuery label."""
     value = value.strip().lower()
     value = _SANITIZE_LABEL_PATTERN.sub("_", value)
-    return value
+    value_length = len(value)
+    if value_length > _VALIDATE_LABEL_LENGTH_LIMIT:
+        error_msg = (
+            f"Job label length {value_length} is greater than length limit: "
+            f"{_VALIDATE_LABEL_LENGTH_LIMIT}\n"
+            f"Current sanitized label: {value}"
+        )
+        raise RuntimeException(error_msg)
+    else:
+        return value
diff --git a/test/unit/test_bigquery_adapter.py b/test/unit/test_bigquery_adapter.py
index 5f7d79054e6..147b8cba0df 100644
--- a/test/unit/test_bigquery_adapter.py
+++ b/test/unit/test_bigquery_adapter.py
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 import agate
 import decimal
 import json
+import string
+import random
 import re
 import pytest
 import unittest
@@ -17,7 +19,7 @@
 from dbt.adapters.bigquery import BigQueryRelation
 from dbt.adapters.bigquery import Plugin as BigQueryPlugin
 from dbt.adapters.bigquery.connections import BigQueryConnectionManager
-from dbt.adapters.bigquery.connections import _sanitize_label
+from dbt.adapters.bigquery.connections import _sanitize_label, _VALIDATE_LABEL_LENGTH_LIMIT
 from dbt.adapters.base.query_headers import MacroQueryStringSetter
 from dbt.clients import agate_helper
 import dbt.exceptions
@@ -972,3 +974,22 @@ def test_convert_time_type(self):
 )
 def test_sanitize_label(input, output):
     assert _sanitize_label(input) == output
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "label_length",
+    [64, 65, 100],
+)
+def test_sanitize_label_length(label_length):
+    random_string = "".join(
+        random.choice(string.ascii_uppercase + string.digits)
+        for i in range(label_length)
+    )
+    test_error_msg = (
+            f"Job label length {label_length} is greater than length limit: "
+            f"{_VALIDATE_LABEL_LENGTH_LIMIT}\n"
+            f"Current sanitized label: {random_string.lower()}"
+        )
+    with pytest.raises(dbt.exceptions.RuntimeException) as error_info:
+        _sanitize_label(random_string)
+    assert error_info.value.args[0] == test_error_msg