Getting your first job at a startup
Common Advice
Here’s the most common advice I found myself giving when meeting with people who were trying to get their first position in software development:
Cracking the Coding Interview:
It seems like most of you have found success landing interviews. That’s awesome, and to be honest it’s usually the hardest part of this process. Jonathan talked to you about the growth mindset, and there isn’t a better example of this playing out than with technical interviews.
I’ve seen people go from “idk wtf you’re even asking” to finishing interview questions with plenty of time to spare simply by really deliberately learning the concepts and practicing the types of questions most commonly asked in technical interviews. If you don’t feel totally confident in technical interviews, buy this book right meow and spend at least a few hours each day in it each day:
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
Amy brought up a really good point that a lot of the content in the book is written in Java. This may be a barrier, but I definitely think yall had enough experience at GA to quickly understand the change in syntax. The actual concepts here are very similar regardless of the language. That said, another great resource I’ve found to help with interviews is a weekly newsletter called Coding for Interviews. Sign up for the newsletter right now: http://codingforinterviews.com/
Want to get more interviews?
Startups make most of their hires through referrals. Second to that comes cold emails to founders. Surprising, right? While filling out the form on a startup’s jobs page is a great first move, quickly following up with an email to the founder(s) is the kind of thing that separates you from just about every other person who simply passes in their resume. To find a founder’s email, simply use their firstname@startup.com. Download a gmail tool called Rapportive to verify that you’re hitting the right email. To find the names of the founders, you can easily search http://www.crunchbase.com/
Cold tweets are also super effective. After filling out the form on their jobs page or emailing a founder, make sure to shoot their twitter handle a quick tweet letting them know how much you love their product and how much you’d love to work for them. Another option for both the tweet and the email subject line is to simply ask: “Are you hiring?”
If you really want to get fancy, making a youshouldhireme.com website has proven to be very effective for people in the past. Only do this if there’s a startup you really want to work at. It’s a bit time-intensive but it can pay off big time in convincing them to give you a chance. Here’s the most popular example of someone doing just that: http://googlepleasehire.me/
Your personal website and github are the best ways to get your foot through the door.
Emphasize your projects. Many startups are going through tons of resumes, personal websites, and githubs every day. Most of them absolutely suck. Leading with a personal website alone is a huge differentiator.
When a founder at a startup is flipping through personal websites the main thing they are looking to see is that you can actually build things. Make it easy for them. As soon as they hit your page, they should immediately notice that you’ve already built several apps.
Often, once someone sees that you have projects, they will want to click on them to just check them out right away. Reading text gets boring after awhile. Show, don’t tell. Make it super easy for them to dive right into your app. Unless you absolutely need it, get rid of any sort of sign up or login on your apps and let people just play around with them as soon as they hit the page. If I’m checking out a project someone has built and it forces me to sign up, I’m very likely to cmd-w and move on immediately.
Other quick tips:
1. To find awesome startups, look through VCs portfolios. In New York, there are some really great VCs including but not limited to Union Square Ventures, Lerer Ventures, RRE, First Round Capital, and more. Another great list is Made in New York: http://nytm.org/made-in-nyc
2. Star each other’s repos on github. It doesn’t make a huge difference, but you don’t want to have a bunch of repos with zero stars when someone checks out your github. I made an open google doc with the githubs of everyone I met with yesterday. Take a minute to star a bunch of repos really quickly, including your own now: http://bit.ly/GArepos
3. Go to New York Tech Meetup. The next one is on March 4th and tickets always sell out really quickly (they are free). Immersing yourself in the tech community is the best way to find out about cool opportunities at different companies. If you don’t want to wait until then, they’ll be co-hosting an event with Richard Stallman on February 20th: http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/events/164513032/
4. I’ve heard of people getting solid positions from two other startups in the talent space right now. Many of you have already used AngelList Talent, but Hired is also a really good way to get interviews and offers, though it may be take awhile to get in.
5. Last but not least, if you really don’t think you’re ready to work at a startup FT, offering to do an internship may be the way to go. I definitely think everyone I talked to is at the point where it’s really a matter of diving in, so don’t go for this option unless things are really not working out and you need to land a job right away. One program I find particularly interesting is Hackstars, because you have the opportunity to run around between an entire batch of Techstars startups and it puts you in a really good position to feel around until you find one you would like to join FT.
Keep me updated on the job hunt. I would love hear how things are going. Also, feel free to add me on facebook: http://bit.ly/helllyeah
