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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

#111

Post by awalGarg »

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…

I feel pretty fair in blaming the current "standard" way of submitting job applications at most places. For pretty much every posting I see, I'd be taken to some ugly and bloated page asking me to upload a PDF/DOC which is then parsed out to auto fill some form fields and those form fields mostly don't let me actually communicate what I want to.

I have been looking for a job since the past couple of months, and my experience has basically been just that. Simple job listings with an email to send your details to haven't been a common sight to me, specially at established places[1]. If anyone knows of some service where I can find them, I'd be glad to hear.

[1]: I know the story is about startups, but I presume parent is talking about jobs in general?

[edit] markdown issue

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

#112

Post by wdewind »

busterarm wrote: post #87
cscharenberg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 boot…

Yes, you're not going to get paid market rate as a junior developer coming from a bootcamp. Hell, most startups aren't paying senior level people market rate when compared to G/FB etc.

My first job was hugely under market rate. I was up to market rate in about 3 years. But I had to change jobs 3 times to do it. It's not easy, definitely not saying that. But it's doable.

> Ultimately, demonstrable programming skill seems to factor in very little for junior positions.

This has not been my experience.

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

#113

Post by gedrap »

ryandrake wrote: post #86
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…

I think it's more about a situation when you are 'omg I want to work at THIS company' rather than 'I just need a job'.

You can get enthusiastic about one company and get something done about it. Following the Patrick's suggestion, it's some mega project that would take the whole week or so, a couple of focused hours should do the trick. And if you are genuinely interested, you will naturally sound generally interested without any bs covering it all.

Even if the case of just needing a job, following this advice will probably help you get produce a few but high quality applications, rather than sending yet another resume.

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

#114

Post by berfarah »

If you're the author: Typo here (I assume): > At they time they had 10 employees

I found the Raleway text really hard to read, personally changed it. It might just be how it looks on Mac or Mac retina, but it was very light.

I think there's a middle ground in there somewhere

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

#115

Post by mathattack »

blairbeckwith wrote: post #54
mathattack wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They, like most good companies, ended up not letting me work for free. I was paid well (for someone with, as I said, no experience and no concrete skills) right off the bat.

Nice! Some industries (Advertising, PR, Government...) do make people work w/out pay. I like that it worked out so well for you.

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

#116

Post by ameister14 »

Kalium wrote: post #100
johns wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too bad. A cover letter is 100x more valuable than a resume.

Could you explain why you say that?

I have gotten multiple jobs and a lot of interviews by writing a cover letter and not attaching a resume to it.

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

#117

Post by dangerlibrary »

Kalium wrote: post #105
kbeckmann wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good cover letter tells more about the person and not just the cold facts. What motivates the person, details about side projects etc.

Those are valuable details, but I think that it makes the application largely about the applicant's ability to author prose. This is appropriate for a copywriter, but I find it of less certain value for a software engineer.

The best argument for a cover letter over a resume is that relatively few people tailor their resume to each application. As a result, a resume is the job-application equivalent of a mass-mailer. Cover letters (when written correctly and not templated) convey a certain amount of interest in THIS job, and show that the candidate is serious about the position.

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

#118

Post by tropo »

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…

When you say "low-level", might that mean assembly code? If so, got a resume?

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

#119

Post by Kalium »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #117
Kalium wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are valuable details, but I think that it makes the application largely about the applicant's ability to author prose. This is appropriate for a copywriter, but I find it of less certain value for a software engineer.

The best argument for a cover letter over a resume is that relatively few people tailor their resume to each application. As a result, a resume is the job-application equivalent of a mass-mailer. Cover letters (when written correctly and not templated) convey a certain amount of interest in THIS job, and show that the candidate is serious about the position.

I think that's only significant if you believe a candidate's display of interest correlates significantly with their ability to perform on the job. I am not convinced that that is a significant correlation or that it should be aggressively selected for.

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

#120

Post by Terr_ »

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…

> You're not proposing marriage here.

For me the biggest job-search hurdle is emotional... I know it sounds like one of those bullshit "you biggest weakness" dodges, but the idea of "looking elsewhere" is perilous.

I feels either like cheating (on my current employer) or else some sort of irrevocable sense of obligation towards whatever I'm asking about. ("How dare you waste my time with questions if you weren't already planning to accept an offer!")

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