This is a great quote by Sam Altman (President, Y Combinator) from his chat with over 4,000 interns at 2015 Internapalooza event in San Francisco. Sam strongly encouraged students to consider joining high growth companies that are at the cusp of breaking out into multi-billion dollar businesses rather than be enamored by brand name employers.
If you are a college student, chances are you are thinking about your next employer. You may have an offer in hand or like many students and college graduates, you may have kept your options open. If so, you are likely asking this question:
“How should I go about finding that perfect employer that will truly launch my career?”
Making a wrong choice out of the gate can at best lead to a few prime years of missed opportunity. At worst, it can be detrimental to your career in the long term.
Are most professionals underemployed? Frankly, yes they are.
Shocked? Here’s why: most job searches start in one of the following ways. Unfortunately, none of these help you to discover or evaluate all of the available breakout opportunities.
1. Jobs Portals: Looking up jobs portals, career center websites or companies’ own listings for open positions will highlight open jobs but not necessarily great employers.
2. Recruiters: Students sometimes receive emails or calls from recruiters they may have interacted with in the past. Recruiters often promote their clients, not employers that are truly right for you.
3. Social Networks: A few students look up alumni at various companies or are contacted through social networks like LinkedIn or Facebook. Great idea but limiting in how many good companies you can reach this way.
4. Tech News: Finally, some students diligently read tech news channels online to keep track of spaces and companies that are hot. While buzz is often short-lived, great companies are not. Some high growth companies, especially on the enterprise side, can maintain a relatively low profile.
By the same token, companies at the cusp of breaking out into successful organizations are often focused on building great businesses and not so much on building their employer brand. What’s the chance that you have discovered these great companies through the above checklist? If you don’t believe me, run this test for yourself. How many of the companies in the popular “Breakout List” or Wall Street Journal’s “$1B Startups” had you heard of before they became mainstream?
I often refer to this as the Discovery Gap. And unless you discover and evaluate all employers that could potentially be right for you, settling for one will likely result in underemployment.
“What’s the connection between picking a high growth employer and launching your career?”
In 1999, a smart and hard working Stanford student, Marissa Mayer, graduated with a master’s degree in computer science. Like her peers, she got many offers (14 to be precise) at prestigious companies in Silicon Valley. But she decided to join a relatively little known company in Silicon Valley, Google, as their 20th employee and first female software engineer. To a degree, this company was competing in a very crowded space at the time. Marissa was a believer though. In 6 short years, she was elevated to Vice President of Product Search earning hundreds of millions of dollars as Google flourished. Marissa is currently President & CEO of Yahoo! There are many stories of successful college students & graduates like Marissa who chose to make choices that were different from the rest.
So, what was different about how these college students went about their job search? In other words:
How should you go about looking for that breakout employer that will launch your career?
- Don’t settle for a job
As a student, it is often tempting to settle for the first opportunity you are offered. After all, it may be a good, stable job that pays well. It could be that many of your friends regard the brand well and that’s critical, right? It seems you can’t go wrong with the most prestigious employers.
It turns out though, that while the downside is limited, so is the potential payoff. Conversely, a great employer at the cusp of a huge potential market opportunity and an amazing product could jumpstart your career in ways you can hardly imagine. Spend some time to find such companies, ask your alumni who work there how well the company is performing, make a list, and connect and engage with those employers. It takes work but it’s well worth the effort.
2. Expand your horizons and avoid being underemployed
If the list of companies you are tracking is limited to ones that you come across from jobs portals or word of mouth, you may be vastly under-reaching your potential. Consider expanding your horizons to discover employers that you have never heard of. Find those hidden gems like Google in ’99 or Facebook in ‘05.
3. Do your research and know exactly what you are getting into
Most high growth companies do not have a great employer brand already. That’s ok. If you know the company is serving a huge market, their product is well received, they have assembled a top-notch team, and investors that perform rigorous due-diligence have invested a ton of cash, you are not going to be too far off from making a favorable decision.
4. Take calculated risks
There’s only one guarantee in life. If you don’t make the serious effort, you will not succeed. If you are comfortable taking calculated risks, be open to taking one as a job seeker too. Ezra Callahan took the plunge by joining Facebook in 2004 and it worked out well for him. Someone else from Facebook once said, “the biggest risk is not taking any risk…”
Introducing 500 Miles
500 Miles envisions to eliminate underemployment around the world by closing this discovery gap. The 500 Miles mobile app help college students and job seekers discover high-growth technology employers and learn deep insights about them.
Our engineering team includes experts with deep technical talent. This team has built a robust big data platform that scours the web for information about companies using technology that bubbles up high growth employers that are perfect just for you. The 500 Miles app not only shows deep insights about each company (including headcount growth, H1B hires, salaries offered and more) but it also provides you with information about employees (both past and current) from your alma mater so you can connect with them.
As most college students are well aware, dropping a resume on a job listing often doesn’t yield great results. It can take weeks to hear back, if you’re even contacted at all. The 500 Miles app offers you a way to connect and engage with employers. Furthermore, your alumni and other employees can refer you which significantly improves your chances of being interviewed and hired.
The 500 Miles app is available for free on iOS and Android devices. Download it from the Apple or Google Play store at:
Do you think we are effectively solving the discovery problem? Let us know what you think.
Originally published at blog.500miles.io.
