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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

#81

Post by rlonstein »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #71
k-mcgrady wrote: post #17

I don't get why you have to go to such extremes to get hired. In my experience getting hired at a startup is like getting hired anywhere else - in fact generally it's easier. You send in a CV, attend one or two interviews (personal and technical), and get a decision. I'm not sure what it's like now but weren't companies finding it really difficult to find engineers in SV not that long ago? That should make things eve…

Since the destructive idea started that one bad hire was a disaster for a company, it has been a lot more difficult than that. It is probably a major factor in the talent shortage, as companies are no longer willing to take any chances or train anyone, even for jobs that would take four hours of training! I've watched companies in the last year I interviewed with wait and suffer? a year to fill a position, even thoug…

  > Since the destructive idea started that one bad hire 
  > was a disaster for a company, it has been a lot more
  > difficult than that.
I experienced this first-hand a few years ago. I had a few friends and former colleagues working there and was qualified. One of the six interviewers was known to be difficult (even to outsiders) and sank me. The CTO personally apologized to me face-to-face but decided to uphold the 100% agreement tradition.

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

#82

Post by starving_coder »

I did something very similar and approached the hiring manager to show him what I've done. While he appreciated my work, he wanted me to work (for free) on the company's Github stuff and said he will call me if that something opens up. PS: I am okay spending my free time on his cool project but it progressively looks unsustainable.

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

#83

Post by gravypod »

The largest thing that stops me from being able to apply for a job as a college student is that every job I am interested in, mainly back-end/low-level software development, say that they require a "MS in CS and 5 years of experience."

These job postings are for entry level positions and internships, nothing higher.

Is this something I should be worried about? Should I just apply to this kind of work anyway?

How do I find companies willing to hire me as a college student with no official experience?

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

#84

Post by jpmw »

gravypod wrote: post #83

The largest thing that stops me from being able to apply for a job as a college student is that every job I am interested in, mainly back-end/low-level software development, say that they require a "MS in CS and 5 years of experience." These job postings are for entry level positions and internships, nothing higher. Is this something I should be worried about? Should I just apply to this kind of work anyway? How do I…

Having hired a bunch of people, including juniors out of school, I'll tell you this: apply, just apply.

A job description and requirement is their picture of the ideal candidate, but they will hire the person that's the closest to that, and other things not mentioned in the offers like how you would fit culturally in the team, work with others, and so many other things.

Just apply to what you want to do, what's the worst case again? Ah, you spent time writing a cover letter.

Btw, keep your cover letter short. People might not read it if it's too long.

Another last tip: apply even if you are almost certain you won't have it. Never say "I'll apply when I get more experience". You know what? By then, you will change, the company will change, and it might not be a good fit anymore. I wanted to apply to a couple of specifics startups in the past that I never applied too because I felt like I was not up to it, in the end, I was wrong and the company changed so much that I don't want to work there anymore at all, but I'm sure that would have been great for years.

Apply. Just apply.

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

#85

Post by totalrobe »

cscharenberg wrote: post #66
wdewind wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that's true. This strategy certainly isn't going to land you a job at Google/FB/etc. but I'd be happy to chat with someone in their 30s who'd just gone through a bootcamp kind of thing and was offering a similar deal as someone who is currently hiring at a startup and we had a position for a junior/recent college grad. To me the biggest snafu is that it's a lot easier to do the whole "I'll work for fr…

At most companies if you changed careers near 30, you will never get a chance to talk with someone and show your potential. The HR filters are so tight that unless you know someone on the inside of a company who can pull strings, you'll never get asked in for an interview. I'm watching my wife - a lawyer with math degree and programming experience - struggle to even get responses for junior QA positions. I think the…

From personal experience, it's better to try to make a move within a related industry - for example if she has law experience, look for software companies that create applications and systems used in the law world.

She could probably more easily get into a more client-facing role where domain experience is a plus, like project/product management or some kind of implementation/consultant position. From there, she could make a lateral move into a more techie role if desired.

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

#86

Post by ryandrake »

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…

Time to do such research is not always a luxury a job applicant has. The hypothetical job candidate would, I'm sure, love to be able to get to know the intimate details of the 30 companies they need to apply to right now (because their savings dries up in 3 months and they have a family to feed), but that takes a lot of time. Maybe you didn't happen to have watched Bob's presentation at $CONFERENCE. Chances are, you don't even know how to contact Bob or that indeed Bob is even the decision maker. What then? In many cases, you'll not know a single person at the company that is in the position to hire or recommend you. At that point, you're back to the "job posting black hole".

I'd turn it around on the company: You're not proposing marriage either. Take a measly few minutes every so often to really look at the stack of resumes you get, and give a few of them a whirl. Don't spend months and months of the company's time and money hopelessly looking for that special snowflake 100% match when there may be many 90% matches lining up at your door. Thanks to lax U.S. labor laws, the decision to hire is not irreversible.

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

#87

Post by busterarm »

cscharenberg wrote: post #66
wdewind wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that's true. This strategy certainly isn't going to land you a job at Google/FB/etc. but I'd be happy to chat with someone in their 30s who'd just gone through a bootcamp kind of thing and was offering a similar deal as someone who is currently hiring at a startup and we had a position for a junior/recent college grad. To me the biggest snafu is that it's a lot easier to do the whole "I'll work for fr…

At most companies if you changed careers near 30, you will never get a chance to talk with someone and show your potential. The HR filters are so tight that unless you know someone on the inside of a company who can pull strings, you'll never get asked in for an interview. I'm watching my wife - a lawyer with math degree and programming experience - struggle to even get responses for junior QA positions. I think the…

> Apply to startups. I don't know what else to tell you. I'm seeing TONS of people (for better or worse) get placed in jobs after completing coding bootcamps. Some of them have >90% placement rates.

@wdewind: I'm over 30, went to a bootcamp and changed careers (from something else in tech). It's still hard to get a good position in this situation. Yes, tons of people who get out of bootcamps get jobs but 90%+ of bootcamp grads are essentially new grads with little work experience. I was one of two people over 30.

Ultimately, demonstrable programming skill seems to factor in very little for junior positions. Maybe in general. Growing startups actually had the lowest response rate for any of us with actual work experience. Most of my interviews ended up being either large companies or early-stage startups that wanted to pay _waaaaaaay_ under-market and worthless equity (NY).

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

#88

Post by vonmoltke »

patio11 wrote: post #80
ryandrake wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a former recruiter, I can't second this enough. Applying online is like shouting into a black hole. If this is true, why even have an online job site? Why waste everyone's time?

For one thing, existence of a jobs page tells desirable candidates to find the real way to apply; non-existence leads some candidates to assume you're not hiring. Every company with 10+ engineers is hiring engineers but many people don't know that yet, so, have a jobs page.

> For one thing, existence of a jobs page tells desirable candidates to find the real way to apply; non-existence leads some candidates to assume you're not hiring.

Assuming there is a "real way". Many large companies force you through their terrible portals and HR filters.

> Every company with 10+ engineers is hiring engineers but many people don't know that yet, so, have a jobs page.

Mine isn't, and has not been for several months. We aren't in financial trouble, either. We just don't have the backlog or volume of expected work.

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

#89

Post by ryandrake »

jpmw wrote: post #84
gravypod wrote: post #83

The largest thing that stops me from being able to apply for a job as a college student is that every job I am interested in, mainly back-end/low-level software development, say that they require a "MS in CS and 5 years of experience." These job postings are for entry level positions and internships, nothing higher. Is this something I should be worried about? Should I just apply to this kind of work anyway? How do I…

Having hired a bunch of people, including juniors out of school, I'll tell you this: apply, just apply. A job description and requirement is their picture of the ideal candidate, but they will hire the person that's the closest to that, and other things not mentioned in the offers like how you would fit culturally in the team, work with others, and so many other things. Just apply to what you want to do, what's the w…

It seems that everything in the process, from the "Jobs Page" that goes to a black hole, to the unrealistic job descriptions, to the months-long interview processes, to the opaque and feedback-less selection process, seems to be built for the purpose of not hiring candidates. Which seems odd for an industry that constantly complains about not being able to find talent and is bent on perpetuating the "shortage of engineers" meme.

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

#90

Post by justinclift »

pravj wrote: post #50

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 t…

Heh Heh Heh

It's kind of sad you sound surprised. :(

If you were in their shoes, how would you have handled someone doing that? :)

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