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How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

shane.engineer

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Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#31

Post by gaius »

steven2012 wrote: post #25

At my previous company, someone walked into our office and asked if we had any openings for engineers. Given that we were hiring anyway, we said sure so we talked with him. Unfortunately because of visa issues we couldn't hire him but if not for that, we definitely would have. It was a case of right-place-right-time, but it definitely was something we talked about for a while afterwards.

My first startup job I literally walked in the front door and asked if they needed a Unix hacker. They interviewed me on the spot. Not enough office furniture so I got a chair and the engineering lead sat on a DEC Alpha he had in his office.

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#32

Post by jerf »

ejcx wrote: post #11
pibefision wrote: post #6

Why the goal is a startup? I don't undertand the obsesion of being part of something so fragil.

As an engineer, it's great being able to push code daily and see people using your work. Young engineers normally have more responsibilities at a startup, more trial by fire. It's great fun and good for career advancement. There are tons of reasons for and against

Recent HN discussion on for and against: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10758278

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#33

Post by iammaxus »

lucio wrote: post #24

You developed in a long weekend a MVP which does more than the startup's soft?

Formlabs cofounder here.

Of course, there is a difference between a demo focusing on implementing new features then the software that we are shipping. But yes, it was extremely impressive and it's no surprise that he is leading much of our engineering team (beyond software, as well) today.

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#34

Post by vinceguidry »

blairbeckwith wrote: post #12

This is so true. It's really shocking how little effort and originality some/most people go to in getting the job they want. I have a similar story, although nowhere near as much effort. When I was 20 and hating life in school, I really wanted to work at Shopify. At the time, they were maybe 80 people. I've never made a resume and didn't feel like that would get me noticed. Sio I simply sent a cold email to Tobi, our…

Naiveté is a useful quality in a candidate for the right company. It signals the potential for loyalty. Once you've had your idealism broken by corporate bullshit, there's no easy way to get it back.

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#35

Post by vinceguidry »

rubidium wrote: post #2

It's a high risk method. But it's much more effective than traditional job applications. So if you weigh the time spent (10-20 hours building custom thing for company) vs spending 10 hours filling out 30 applications, I would guess this is a better approach. It's also a method described in "guerrilla marketing for job hunters". There's others in the book if you're looking for a little lower effort non-traditional met…

High risk? Really? What do you have to lose? Time spent doing what you love?

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#36

Post by patio11 »

An intermediate step between "send in a resume and cover letter that no one reads" and "send in an unsolicited blow-their-minds project", which may well bounce off the same spam or attention filter which bounces a resume, is "convince one person in the company that they want you to apply there."

This is much, much less difficult than engineers think it is. People with hiring authority are on the same Internet you are. They use the same email / Twitter / etc. THEY WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU. Engineers are in incredible demand.

They get a steady stream of resumes from people who are wildly unqualified for the job. That is one reason why they're not going to read your resume when you send it in unless their prior expectation is that you're interesting.

It is not harder to be interesting than "someone I've never heard of or met." "Hey Bob, I watched your presentation at $CONFERENCE last year on Youtube. Great stuff; loved what you did with $FOO, in particular $COMMENT_PROVING_YOU_KNOW_WHAT_YOU'RE_TALKING_ABOUT. I'm also a $FOO developer. Do you have a few minutes to chat on Thursday about what you guys are doing?"

You're not proposing marriage here. You're asking for 15 minutes to get to know them. You do not have to author a heartbreaking work of staggering genius to make this call happen.

Your goal for the chat: get Bob enthusiastic enough to either suggest "Hey you should apply here" or be receptive to you suggesting "Hey, I really like what you're doing, and would like to see if I could be a part of it. Can you get the ball rolling for me?"

n.b. If you want to knock someone's socks off with a demo of e.g. an application which uses their API, use the above to get one person enthusiastic about reviewing the demo, then implement. If you can't get one person enthusiastic about the prospect of looking at your work, there's sharply limited odds that actually doing the work meaningfully advances your interests.

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#37

Post by dasil003 »

wdewind wrote: post #26
blairbeckwith wrote: post #12

This is so true. It's really shocking how little effort and originality some/most people go to in getting the job they want. I have a similar story, although nowhere near as much effort. When I was 20 and hating life in school, I really wanted to work at Shopify. At the time, they were maybe 80 people. I've never made a resume and didn't feel like that would get me noticed. Sio I simply sent a cold email to Tobi, our…

> When I asked why, I was told "this worked because you were naive enough to think that this would work". I've been here four years now, and it's still the most important email I've ever sent. Maybe luck, maybe naivety, but I'm thrilled it's worked out. When I was half way through college I decided I no longer wanted to be in school. I emailed a bunch of startups saying essentially "Your company sounds cool. I'll com…

I think it works a lot better when you're 20 because people hire you based on potential. But when you're 30 hiring managers want to see skills. I suppose it could still work if you're changing careers, but you would need to demonstrate an even higher level of hunger and dedication.

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#39

Post by rubidium »

vinceguidry wrote: post #35
rubidium wrote: post #2

It's a high risk method. But it's much more effective than traditional job applications. So if you weigh the time spent (10-20 hours building custom thing for company) vs spending 10 hours filling out 30 applications, I would guess this is a better approach. It's also a method described in "guerrilla marketing for job hunters". There's others in the book if you're looking for a little lower effort non-traditional met…

High risk? Really? What do you have to lose? Time spent doing what you love?

When you're looking for work and need to get a job (e.g. to support a family) spending 10-20 hours working on a single job opportunity is risky because they may just say "sorry, we like you but _____". where _____= {there's a corporate headcount freeze, we don't need that skill, we already have something that does that better, we're not good at hiring}. I still think it's likely a good strategy, just worth acknowledging the inherent risk.

If you have oodles of free time, then sure, it's low risk.

Re: How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone

#40

Post by motdiem »

Anecdotally, that's how we hired our designer - her last "mockup" project matched exactly what we were working on next - the hiring process was super fast, and there are a lot of benefits to hiring someone who has already spent time thinking about the same problem space as you did.
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