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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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

zuck9 wrote: post #30
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…

What position did you get? Are you at the same till now? EDIT: Your website, http://blairbeckwith.com/ says "You have reached a domain that is pending ICANN verification."

[deleted]

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

#43

Post by groundCode »

This is a great story and kudos - it looks like an awesome piece of work for a weekend project.

As a counterpoint, I did something similar (replicated a barebones version of a tool that a company I wanted to work for had) and sent it off and didn't even receive a courtesy "thanks but no thanks" email. Them's the breaks I guess.

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

#44

Post by zerr »

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…

Do you feel underpaid?

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

#45

Post by mathattack »

dasil003 wrote: post #37
wdewind wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Very good point. You can only get hired for potential early in your career. This is one reason it's so hard to switch careers later on. Going back to school is the only other way to get a "reset".

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

#46

Post by mathattack »

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…

Great story! Did they start you for free? Or how long did it take to get paid?

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

#47

Post by commenter1239 »

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…

are you still working for free?

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

#48

Post by evook »

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 was young, I cloned services and wrote a letter to the company offering to buy a exclusive one year license or it would get released as open source in addition with a demo. That was giving me some job chances.

Now it's all about who you know, and what condition a potential employer is offering. No car, home office, solo office, dynamic hours and I'll walk out of an interview when the pay isn't obscenely high.

One time everything was right, but I complained to the managing director that the HR was giving me upfront bullshit during an interview, being not sure if I wanted to work In an environment where hiring is practiced that badly. This resulted in my first upper management position and allowing me to hire the employees of my department without HR in charge. Best decision ever, my best three engineers didn't even study. The hiring system is broken. In the technical sector even more than anywhere else, because it just doesn't make a difference for your skills if you have studied ivy league or learned everything necessary at home for yourself.

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

#49

Post by mathattack »

patio11 wrote: post #36

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…

Very good advice. Any employee at any halfway decent company can put a friend's resume at the top of the pile. You still have to know what you're doing to get through the interview, but HR people are looking for any good reason to cull their stack. "Well, Jane over in QA recommended them" is as good a reason as any, and provides them cover when asked, "Why doesn't this person have skill X"

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

#50

Post by pravj »

I was interested in working with the Data Science team of one of India's leading e-commerce startups.

Later, I ended up doing a project[1] where I have collected and analysed the user order data from their order tracking portal.

Now I feel that they won't take me back because I kind of played like a Black-Hat instead of a White-Hat by not notifying them about the little loophole that made it possible for me.

Before this, I was an intern there and got that because of one of my past project. This method does work.

[1] http://pravj.github.io/blog/indian-ecommerce

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