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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

#151

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#152

Post by patio11 »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #123
Terr_ wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 alre…

If it helps, remember that the people on the other side absolutely do not feel the way you feel. Your current employer understands that employees will leave, and plans and budgets for that. That's why people talk about bus numbers. Your prospective employers do not expect every coffee, phone screen, or interview to result in a new employee. They understand that they will talk to people who are a bad fit, and that's p…

This is, legitimately, one of the most comments ever written about the job search process on HN. Employers run a portfolio strategy for candidate selection, much like sales guys run a portfolio strategy with regards to leads. Making the wrong decision on a candidate/lead is totally acceptable. Missing an opportunity with a candidate/lead is totally acceptable. Spending time investigating a candidate/lead which doesn't work out is not just totally acceptable it is the entire freaking job. If an employer has a 100% acceptance rate on candidates or a salesman closes 100% of leads that is an alarming signal that the process is out of control: they're clearly not exposing enough people to it!

Candidates need to understand this.

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

#153

Post by eric-hu »

wdewind wrote: post #112
busterarm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 se…

I've been having many discussions about this with another engineer friend. Is it really fair to call Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon salaries "market rate". My impression is that they're generally in the top 10% of pay, if not higher.

I think maximizing your compensation is great and everyone should spend some time on it. I just think having expectations of Google pay from a startup is a guaranteed recipe for disappointment. Read: I've heard of zero startups that offer that level of pay.

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

#154

Post by yitchelle »

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…

These lists are wish lists and is used to see who can be brought in as applicants. Unless they are very generic, it is very difficult to tick off every item on the wish list.

My rule of thumb is that if you are able to meet about 75% of them, just apply.

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

#155

Post by jasonkester »

ryandrake wrote: post #109
patio11 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If unsolicited apps are 1/10th as effective as solicited ones (generous!) then you only have to research 4 companies to outdo 30 shots in the dark. You can find e.g. the name of the CTO of Fog Creek. It's FizzBuzz-level difficulty or less. You can find e.g. any published work of Thomas Ptacek to bond over. You didn't have to run into him at Black Hat, or even know that he has spoken at Black Hat, to find a video of h…

I don't think we're talking about unsolicited vs. solicited applications. Surely a candidates odds are substantially better when the company initiates contact. I'm talking about official vs. unofficial channels: does it makes sense to have an official (job site / resumes) channel that pretty much funnels into the trash, along side an unofficial one (where the real hiring happens) that rewards insider connections, fri…

It sounds like you guys are talking past each other. Patrick is telling you the reality of the situation. You're telling Patrick that the situation he describes is silly and unfair.

That's certainly true, but it's definitely not helpful to point it out then continue doing what you're doing.

The correct thing to do when faced with a series of silly steps that are 10-100X more effective than the "fair" way that an engineer would design is to learn how to follow those silly steps and follow them.

This pattern hangs engineers up quite often in life. See also salary negotiation, promotions, dating, etc. etc. It's worth taking a step back, looking at how the real world operates, then finding a way to make yourself operate in that real world.

You'll end up a lot happier for having done so.

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

#156

Post by [deleted] »

amyjess wrote: post #139
georgecmu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not familiar with the story, but from the text it follows that it was the company's landlord that was discriminating. Typically, in cases like this, conflict revolves around bathroom use and exclusion due to gender assignment/reassignment.

Bingo. There was only one bathroom on our floor, and we shared the floor with another company, some busybody at the other company complained, so the building manager banned me from using the women's restroom. That's illegal in Dallas.

[deleted]

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

#157

Post by fapjacks »

amyjess wrote: post #139
georgecmu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not familiar with the story, but from the text it follows that it was the company's landlord that was discriminating. Typically, in cases like this, conflict revolves around bathroom use and exclusion due to gender assignment/reassignment.

Bingo. There was only one bathroom on our floor, and we shared the floor with another company, some busybody at the other company complained, so the building manager banned me from using the women's restroom. That's illegal in Dallas.

I only lasted six months in Austin, let alone Texas.

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

#158

Post by FLUX-YOU »

leeny wrote: post #51
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…

As a former recruiter, I can't second this enough. Applying online is like shouting into a black hole. Pinging a real person with sincere, earnest content and talking to them like they're a person is so much better.

If everyone followed this advice, it wouldn't work because that person would quickly ignore the dozens of pings he'd get daily.

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

#159

Post by ruraljuror »

leeleelee wrote: post #149
amyjess wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. There was only one bathroom on our floor, and we shared the floor with another company, some busybody at the other company complained, so the building manager banned me from using the women's restroom. That's illegal in Dallas.

So you are biologically a male, you identify as a female, and you wanted to use the female bathroom? I think that if, as a society, we decide that gender access to restrooms is not based on physical gender but instead based on how you self-identify -- then as society we should completely eliminate the separation of bathrooms for males and females. Agree or disagree?

Agree. In the U.S. OSHA has already mandated this. Employees do not have to prove their gender.

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

#160

Post by AlwaysRock »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #96
leeny wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former recruiter, I can't second this enough. Applying online is like shouting into a black hole. Pinging a real person with sincere, earnest content and talking to them like they're a person is so much better.

Hey "former recruiter" what do you do not? I'm currently a recruiter now and always interested in hearing about what people do after recruiting.

now
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