How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
blog.vidyard.com
How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
1–10 of 81 posts
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#2Kuddos to the persistence and doing a great job maintaining your tone in your communications.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#3It's an interesting story and really shows an unusual level of determination, but I'm stuck on this part:
> So, just to recap, that’s about 5 months and 9 interviews/meetings and countless hours spent working on projects/reports/presentations.
> by proving himself capable for the role, he hacked the process.
I don't see a hack so much as I see a broken process that made a single task monumentally difficult and time consuming. Employers everywhere have a problem with relying on credentials or experience rather than recognizing ability and potential, which is understandable given time and budget constraints. If someone could figure out a way to help companies quickly pick talented but inexperienced individuals out of a pool of applicants, THAT would be a hack. A pretty amazing one for employees and employers, too.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#4Kuddos to the persistence and doing a great job maintaining your tone in your communications.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the read.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#5Wow, some really big mistakes... Explains why it took 5 months to get the final interview.
>but I will put in 12 hours a day, 7 days a week until I get there.
>Vidyard being one of them, even if I work for free.
>I'm even willing to work for free for a period of time.
Never, ever, ever do this stuff
- Free
If you say you're willing to work for free, that tells me one thing: You think your work is of no value to me. And so if you think that, I will also think that your work is worthless to me. Instant turn-off.
- I will work 24/7
You're coming off as desperate if you put it like that. I've similarly been on the job hunt for my first job recently and out of all the phone screens I had, every single one led to an on-site interview (21 on-site interviews in the next 3 weeks). I attribute my success in part to a similar snipped that I would make sure to drop into every interview:
"I'm not a 100% subscriber of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, but I do believe that in order to become good at something you have to spend a lot of time and focus on it. I want to become the best software developer I can be.
I'm not looking for just a 9 to 5, and especially interested in startups because I want to join a great team that I can intensely work with and learn from"
That was roughly part of my pitch. I also researched _every_ person who I'd be talking to. Has a lot of PostgreSQL related posts on their blog? "Oh yeah I hate MySQL". Re-tweeted a tweet about a MongoDB bug report? "I prefer traditional databases for serious apps". Has a blog post about Go? "I think the speed advantage that Go can offer is really interesting" And so on and so forth. People like people who are like them, with pretty much everyone exposing their lives and opinions, stuff like this is up for easy pickings.
Respect to the guy's persistence. I'm similarly in a position where I can't immigrate to the US (but at least I'm a EU citizen so I can move to London) so I can see why OP really wanted to join a famous startup when there's already so few available to him.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#6Wow. I don't know if I should be impressed or pity the guy. Mike says, "Everyone who wants to work in a startup should do this," which I don't agree with. But I think every job-seeker should read this piece and pay attention to 2 key points:
1. Amar leveraged his own internet real estate by publishing blog posts about Vidyard's marketing and then tweeting at the founders to let them know about his work. He essentially provided some flattering, well-written, and useful consulting work to Vidyard.
2. He was honest about his desires, expectations, and willingness to work. When his initial email was written off as just another form letter, he went above and beyond to ensure his real feelings were heard.
These tactics are within the reach of every reasonably intelligent person. Good read.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#7Is this the end of the current startup era? How did we get from "Make stuff people want" to the current obsession with funding, SEO and "Growth Hackers" (!). This sounds like the same sort of nonsense I was reading in January 2000. Just like the 90's tech boom, the community has become inward-looking, stale, and it's feeding on itself (c.f. this article, which isn't about how to start a company but to be hired by a "startup"). The most exiting new stuff seems to be stuff that just feeds more startups.
None of this is about the practical details of the article. If that's the job you want then this sounds like a great way to get it. But like I said, if this is the kind of thing that's interesting to "startups", then I think the end is near.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#8Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#9It's an interesting story and really shows an unusual level of determination, but I'm stuck on this part: > So, just to recap, that’s about 5 months and 9 interviews/meetings and countless hours spent working on projects/reports/presentations. > by proving himself capable for the role, he hacked the process. I don't see a hack so much as I see a broken process that made a single task monumentally difficult and time c…
I agree. The previous startup I used to work at had a horrible candidate selection process. Amar's case is too one-off for it to be a hack but at least it was possible.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#10"hot startup" is empty and salesy, IMO. after reading this, i kind of wish i hadn't. none of the parties mentioned came off in a positive way.