your roadmap for landing a role at a startup

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Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

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Learn if a startups is right for you, what they are looking for, and how to best prepare and position yourself for the career opportunities they offer.

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Page 1: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Page 2: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Intro

Why join a startup? Is a startup right for you? Key roles for students & new graduates What companies look for in candidates• Academics• Project-Based Experience / Side Activities• Work Experience• Key Software/Technical Skills (for CS & Software Engineers)• Personality Traits

Additional way to pick-up skills Communicating and engaging with employers Wrap-up

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 3: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Why Join a Startup?

Be part of ambitious missions Work on challenging problems Have an impact and make a difference Learn from exceptionally talented people Enjoy a casual work environment & flexible hours Equity upside of joining a successful company (for full-

time employees) Learn ropes firsthand for starting your own company

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 4: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Is a Startup Right for You?

Startups value people who will go after opportunities without prompting• If you need to be told what to do and prefer that working style, then a

startup is probably not for you With leaner and meaner teams, you must be prepared to be hands on• Even if you are leading a functional area, you’ll need to get “into the

weeds” and actually do the work versus telling other people what to do Be prepared to run lean & scrappy in terms of how you get things done• Even those startups that have been funded, don’t have big budgets and

learn to do a lot with less Do you love to execute and “do stuff”• Startups need people who create, iterate, and generate value

Source: “Finding Startup Jobs” by John GannonConnecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 5: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Key Roles for Students & New Grads

Software Development – build, develop and manage the life cycle of products

Data Science – analyze, understand and extract knowledge from data Product Design & User Experience (UX) – design & build beautiful

products that are intuitive to use DevOps – keep all the servers, networks and cloud computing

environments running Growth Hacking – use creativity, analytical thinking, and social

metrics to gain exposure and expand market share Sales – sell products that are new and often ambiguous Technical Account Management – interface with customers and

help them become successful with the product Marketing – generate awareness & demand, engage community

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 6: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

What Companies Look for in Candidates

Project-Based Experiences & Side Activities Key Software/Technical Skills• For CS & Software Engineers

Work Experience Academics Personality Traits

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 7: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Project-Based Experiences & Side Activities

Valued above all else: Startups want to see that you’ve built things

Class projects count, but not as much as independent projects• Demonstrate you enjoy programming to devote your free time to it

Seek out the "hacker culture" at your school and get involved• It's not enough to be in the groups – you have to build things

End goal (having side projects) is more important than how you get there• Pursue personal projects of interest. Do things for fun that help show your

passion and skills. (i.e. droid games or apps)• Build anything. Great programmers start out as crappy programmers

“I would hire someone with a 2.0 GPA from a no-name college and tons of side projects using cool tech versus a 4.0 MIT CS grad who focuses only on

school.” Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 8: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Key Software/Technical Skills

Javascript: The language of the front-end, and an increasingly popular choice for backend work

Other good languages: Python, Ruby, Clojure, Scala, Haskell – anything not traditionally taught in class

Apps: Important to have at least attempted to build a web app, mobile app, or other interesting thing

Modern version control systems: Git or Mercurial are also typically not taught in class, but are incredibly useful for everything you do (a HUGE plus)

Databases: Even if you learn it on your own (DB classes aren’t mandatory)

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 9: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Work Experience

Employers prefer candidates with internship experience over those with high GPAs• Experience at startups and tech companies is ideal• Experience at other companies is good, but also need to show

that you’re picking up the skills that startups look for Try to find internships early in your academic career• “If I see you’ve worked in non-technical internships for the

first two years of college, I already have tons of red flags raised in my mind.“

• If you don’t land an internship with a startup or tech company, compensate with more project-based experiences

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 10: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Academics

Grades mean less to startups than they do to established companies• Some put significantly less weight on GPA

Class projects carry weight• Demonstrate how they tie into your interests and passions

Even more important:• Can you map your academic experience to real life projects?

Added bonus (for some)• Take relevant but unorthodox classes that demonstrate intellectual

curiosity in your field

“Don't just take the 400 level class, communicate why the topic is so interesting.”

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 11: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Personality Traits

This is particular to each company, but here are some common traits:

Intellectual curiosity • Evident desire to learn more about things

Passion• Deeply care about your areas of interest and exhibit that you’re willing to

make the effort to grow and expand your skills (because you love it) Self-starter• Exhibit ambition & drive in how you go about things

Do things differently• Anything that makes it clear that you didn’t just follow the herd

Commitment to personal growth and learning• Explore topics outside your field of interest, focus on self-improvement

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 12: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

“What I Know Now Didn’t Come from Class”

 Don’t limit yourself to just the material offered in class• Take advantage of opportunities offered by your department/school

Don’t waste time• Submit your assignments early and work on your own projects

Learn on your own• Khan Academy• Coursera• Code.org• Stanford Engineering• MIT OpenCourseWare• Channel9

 There are plenty of opportunities out there – Everything is a click away. Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Source: Den Delimarsky

Page 13: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Obtaining Skills (for CS)

Go beyond your CS curriculum Learn more programming languages Try different operating systems Create apps Contribute to an open-source project Read tech books Spend sleepless nights trying to debug that web service

that fails every single time someone tries to upload a video larger than 200MB.

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 14: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Communicating & Engaging with Employers

Resume (what’s important)• Name & contact info• Projects and work experience• Languages/tools/frameworks/etc (if software/engineering)• Educational info & GPA• Extra-curricular, hobbies, etc. 

Highlight your body of work• GitHub (huge plus) - great way to show off all of those side projects• Online portfolio or personal website• Personal blog

Kill the generic cover letter and send a personal email• Communicate why you want to work for the company• Personal touch and effort significantly increases probability of a response

“We can usually get a good feel for how curious and motivated someone is by the way they talk about what they're working on, whether it's class or side projects.”

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 15: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

GitHub is Critical

Page 16: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Summary

Demonstrable skills through project-based experience is KEY• Projects > GPA• Challenge yourself outside the classroom• Find the “hacker culture” on campus and participate/build things • Try to find an internship as early as possible

Curiousity and passion are held in high regard• Explore new ideas & ways of doing things, even outside your major

Package and communicate your background and experiences to emphasize the above

Reach out and network, but not generically• Be personal and with focus and purpose

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 17: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Next Steps

About ThinkB1G Connecting talented students

with amazing startups & high-growth companies

Interested in joining a startup? Openings• ThinkB1G.com/Startups

Newsletter: ThinkB1G.com Student profile• ThinkB1G.com/Students

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

Page 18: Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup