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Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

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Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#31

Post by akd »

gaius wrote: post #21
cperciva wrote: post #2

In my CL template, I end up talking about how, in high school, I woke up at 5:00 am to practice for contest math tests Take that out. It doesn't matter what sort of job you're applying for -- the words "high school" should never appear in the resume or cover letter of anyone who has a college degree. As for the rest: Dress like the job you want to have, not like the job you're applying for. If I was applying for a ma…

My company is completely casual, in fact my boss dresses more casually than I do, but I still expect every interview candidate suited and booted - it's no different from expecting no spelling mistakes on their CVs.

What industry are you in? If you're in banking, sure, but if you're in software I hope you clearly communicate this to interviewees.

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#32

Post by wallflower »

edw519 wrote: post #25

"I dislike cover letters because they feel extremely artificial." Then make yours natural. Write like you speak and say what you want to say. "is this over-the-top or absurd" A suit is never absurd, except at the beach. When in doubt, overdress. You can always take off your jacket (and tie). And don't forget the handwritten and sincere Thank You Note.

> And don't forget the handwritten and sincere Thank You Note.

The power of the Thank You note. In your Thank You note, reaffirm your interest and state when you will call them to follow up ("I will call you next Thursday at 10am") and make sure you call at that time! I got this from CollegeGrad.com back in the day and it's a valuable tip. Please do not email something. How much effort does that take? Putting a letter in the mail at least takes putting some clothes on, finding a stamp.

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#33

Post by KB »

I was just hired by a startup and I provided a cover letter along with my resume. In fact it was mentioned to me that my cover letter was part of the reason I was brought in for an interview. Cover letter's don't have to contain all of the regurgitated crap you find on resume help sites. Its a great way to get a lot of the finer points across that your resume simply can't. Be sure that every cover letter (like your resume) is tailored to the particular job and company you are applying to. Nothing looks worse than a cookie cutter cover letter where someone can easily tell you just swapped out the hiring manager's and company's name.

On top of that... I wore a suit to the interview. I was on the fence on wearing it or not, but when in doubt its always better to be over dressed.

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#34

Post by ajross »

tptacek wrote: post #10

Suits harmful (although only nominally). The suit says, "I mostly interview at places where suits matter". Cover letters extremely valuable. Cover letter says, "I gave your company 5 minutes of thought before I clicked the button that sent my resume". Best possible thing you can do prior to an interview? As in, the single best possible thing you can ever do that will raise your chances more than anything else you do?…

It depends. Certainly a suit is never going to be helpful when interviewing at any true technology company, whether it be a startup or not. But the idea that it would hurt is situational: certainly if a mid-career professional walks into an interview in a $500 suit, his/her attire just screams "I've been writing VB code for 10 years in an IT department."

But if it's on a recent graduate, or an amateur trying to break into hacking as a profession, not so much. There, it's just a sign of naivete. It's cute, not dumb. It might be awkward, but at least it shows the candidate cares about the position.

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#35

Post by tptacek »

ajross wrote: post #34
tptacek wrote: post #10

Suits harmful (although only nominally). The suit says, "I mostly interview at places where suits matter". Cover letters extremely valuable. Cover letter says, "I gave your company 5 minutes of thought before I clicked the button that sent my resume". Best possible thing you can do prior to an interview? As in, the single best possible thing you can ever do that will raise your chances more than anything else you do?…

It depends. Certainly a suit is never going to be helpful when interviewing at any true technology company, whether it be a startup or not. But the idea that it would hurt is situational: certainly if a mid-career professional walks into an interview in a $500 suit, his/her attire just screams "I've been writing VB code for 10 years in an IT department." But if it's on a recent graduate, or an amateur trying to break…

You are never going to get ruled out of a good job for wearing a suit. You can get ruled out of a lot of really crappy jobs for not wearing a suit. So, OK. But you are always safe in business casual. And you can adapt on the fly, untucking your shirt if everyone else is in cutoffs and Birks.

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#37

Post by gaius »

akd wrote: post #31
gaius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company is completely casual, in fact my boss dresses more casually than I do, but I still expect every interview candidate suited and booted - it's no different from expecting no spelling mistakes on their CVs.

What industry are you in? If you're in banking, sure, but if you're in software I hope you clearly communicate this to interviewees.

More importantly we're in London, England - not the West Coast :-)

There are a lot of ex-City people here, which may be where the expectation comes from, but even so...

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#38

Post by gaius »

LPTS wrote: post #28
gaius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, yeah. And if a candidate had spelling mistakes on his resume, would you think "well, I'm hiring him to code, not to write documentation"? Or would you in fact not even bother to interview him at all?

Well a resume conveys useful information, which is important. Dress does not. It's a signal to noise ratio thing. Incidentally, bad spelling in an otherwise smart person is a good sign of creativity, because it's correlated with personality types that correlate with creative thinking (when intelligence is evidenced at all).

I am not interested in someone who writes "creative" code that someone else has to debug.

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#39

Post by LPTS »

gaius wrote: post #38
LPTS wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a resume conveys useful information, which is important. Dress does not. It's a signal to noise ratio thing. Incidentally, bad spelling in an otherwise smart person is a good sign of creativity, because it's correlated with personality types that correlate with creative thinking (when intelligence is evidenced at all).

I am not interested in someone who writes "creative" code that someone else has to debug.

That's not what I mean. You are deliberately taking the worst possible interpretation of what I wrote. No one wants typos in code. But, a programmer who's written english is bad, but who is highly intelligent will probably not evidence the same typos in programming as in typing written english.

It's the same sort of thing as dyslexia being different at a neurological level in chinese then in english. English dyslexics who learn chinese aren't dyslexic in chinese. Likewise, people who are messy in their english might be extremely good at code. People sure like to hang onto conventional wisdom even when there is plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that they are wrong.

Re: Interviewing for startups : are formal cover letters + suits necessary, neutral, or harmful?

#40

Post by timr »

hunterjrj wrote: post #4

You'd do well to wear a suit to any job interview. Programmer or not, startup or not, walking into an interview in a suit conveys a sense of professionalism. First impressions are hard to change. So start off well. Also, I'd take the advice of those who who say "Wear sandals and a t-shirt" with a grain of salt - I suspect that the majority of people who give that advice are not (and haven't ever been) in a position t…

You're assuming that a suit always provides a good impression. That's not automatic, especially if you're interviewing at a small, casual company that is trying to maintain a specific kind of casual, fun work culture.

Like, say...a startup.

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