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What effects do startups have on your resume?

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Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#21

Post by krschultz »

enjo wrote: post #5
edanm wrote: post #2

Interesting article, but I'm actually more interested in what effect having started your own startup (and failed after, say, a year) has on your resume.

I was in exactly that situation a couple of years ago. It definitely closed some doors for me. At every single interview I was grilled about my desire to start another company. It definitely cost me a job I really wanted. They freely admitted that I was well qualified, but their concerns over my bolting for another run at my own thing kept them from hiring me. Of course, they were right. I was out on my own again wit…

If you don't mind sharing, what kind of position was it? My feeling is that being a founder and then going back to apply for an engineering job is difficult, but trying to go from founder to a "higher level" position the experience might be advantageous. A lot of upper managament positions are looking for people with technical background and P&L experience, now with a failed startup you have a lot of L experience but I think it would help.

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#22

Post by bconway »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
jarek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then when you are asked about your work as a programmer for ___.com, do you entirely neglect to mention you were the founder?

If they don't ask you are under no obligation to volunteer. As a rule though, those that have worked for start-ups and/or were founders will not normally go back to big-corp to do a 9 to 5, and in the age of google even if you don't disclose it you may be found out anyway. Yes, that's illegal in plenty of places but it happens quite frequently regardless of that.

As a rule though, those that have worked for start-ups and/or were founders will not normally go back to big-corp to do a 9 to 5,

You'd be amazed how things change when you get into your 30's and start having kids. ;)

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#23

Post by jacquesm »

bconway wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don't ask you are under no obligation to volunteer. As a rule though, those that have worked for start-ups and/or were founders will not normally go back to big-corp to do a 9 to 5, and in the age of google even if you don't disclose it you may be found out anyway. Yes, that's illegal in plenty of places but it happens quite frequently regardless of that.

As a rule though, those that have worked for start-ups and/or were founders will not normally go back to big-corp to do a 9 to 5, You'd be amazed how things change when you get into your 30's and start having kids. ;)

> You'd be amazed how things change when you get into your 30's and start having kids. ;)

Yes, that's pretty much my situation, only you can add another decade.

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#24

Post by gamble »

The only purpose of a resume is to get you past the first round of screening. Name recognition trumps everything else. A job at a well-known and respected tech company like Google or Facebook gives you an automatic pass to the next round. Right or wrong, this doesn't include many startup companies unless they're already successful enough that it's debatable whether they're still startups.

Once you've got an actual person on the phone, the company you worked for is much less important than what you did and your ability to relate it. Still, speaking from personal experience, you should be prepared for interviewers to question whether you worked for a 'real company'.

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#25

Post by chuhnk »

My first and only job has been at a startup. I've been here 3.5 years and gone from junior tech to senior sys admin. I hope this reflects nicely on me for my next jump. One thing I am afraid of however is a lot of what I've learned is self taught, I'm not entirely aware of the way big business handles system administration. I dont know kickstart, veritas, san arrays, perl, etc. Im all about open source and if it doesnt work then I'll write it myself.

To answer the question, I'm not sure how it will reflect on me when going for something in a banking environment, however for another startup, the experience with open source might be appealing.

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#26

Post by johngalt »

jacquesm wrote: post #16
johngalt wrote: post #11

Scale matters more than name recognition. If you worked at a 50,000 employee F100, your skills aren't going to be suited for a 10 person startup, and vice versa.

Why not?

The environment at a large shop is more constraining, and the people are more specialized. You'd go from being a small cog in a very large machine to being the entire machine yourself. At a large shop it's like being in bootcamp, everything is systematized. Transitioning from that to a green field can be a shock when you have become too reliant on the rest of the machine.

Conversely someone coming from a startup wont understand working in a large team where progress is more methodical (slower). They will seek to circumvent processes they see as slow or useless. Perhaps they will try to 're-engineer' towards things they are more familiar with. In the process they may cause a net loss for the entire team.

In general I'd say its easier to go up than down. If you're used to the functions of a large organization it would be difficult to scale that back (network engineers that can't work without Cisco gear for instance). Someone coming from a startup is likely to be adaptive, and I'd rather have a generalist in a large organization, than a specialist in a small one.

Although I'm from an IT background not Dev so YMMV. The limit of my programming is single page perl/python scripts.

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#27

Post by jacquesm »

johngalt wrote: post #26
jacquesm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

The environment at a large shop is more constraining, and the people are more specialized. You'd go from being a small cog in a very large machine to being the entire machine yourself. At a large shop it's like being in bootcamp, everything is systematized. Transitioning from that to a green field can be a shock when you have become too reliant on the rest of the machine. Conversely someone coming from a startup wont…

People that have worked in start-ups are very well suited to being trouble-shooters in a large organization, and people that have worked for a big company stand a chance of running a start-up that interfaces / sells to big companies because they can relate to the party on the other side.

I'd think that it's a net win to have experience about the other side of the table, and that your skills are actually worth more by having been 'on the other side of the line' for a while.

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#28

Post by johngalt »

jacquesm wrote: post #20
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because once you've worked for a 10-person startup, you'd be crazy to go back to working for "the man"

What does that have to do with skills? The GGP wrote that your skills are not applicable, not that you'd be crazy (with that I agree).

Certain problems have to be solved by large teams, and the team dynamic is different when you get into the thousands of people. Contrast that dynamic with a small shop of only a few devs. Disregarding of the technical skillset, they are practically different jobs.

If you were interviewing a candidate that had never worked for a startup wouldn't you take that into consideration?

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#29

Post by jacquesm »

zeemonkee wrote: post #10
SteveMorin wrote: post #8

I have worked with a number of people in the industry over the years and have seen a bias against startup founders, more than a desire to hire them. But on the flip side people want to hire engineers from startups. Basically being at a startup is desirable because they often think it bring good qualities (of course evaluating the position and individual too) but being a found brings the concern of them being disconte…

> I think you have to look at the individual, their specific fit and how old they are. Isn't that descriminatory ?

Yep. As long as they're old enough and that's all you get to ask for.

Re: What effects do startups have on your resume?

#30

Post by jacquesm »

johngalt wrote: post #28
jacquesm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with skills? The GGP wrote that your skills are not applicable, not that you'd be crazy (with that I agree).

Certain problems have to be solved by large teams, and the team dynamic is different when you get into the thousands of people. Contrast that dynamic with a small shop of only a few devs. Disregarding of the technical skillset, they are practically different jobs. If you were interviewing a candidate that had never worked for a startup wouldn't you take that into consideration?

> If you were interviewing a candidate that had never worked for a startup wouldn't you take that into consideration?

People that apply to a start-up usually do so because it offers them something they can't get elsewhere. Freedom, responsibility and a smaller world. They've self-selected long before they applied because they're usually willing to take a fair sized pay-cut in order to be able to join. That speaks volumes about their motivation and willingness to adapt.

If a candidate had never worked for a start-up and didn't throw up any overt red flags if they're the most suitable guy or girl for the job I'd definitely give them a shot at it.

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