Five Tips for Landing a Job at a Startup

1. If you’re going to be a robot during the interview, be a cool robot - like Wall-E or Optimus Prime.

Maintaining the right culture is key at an early stage startup. Small startups are like a family and because there are so few people, the addition of one person can have a big impact on group dynamics. Culture is one of the reasons why people gravitate to startups – so they can escape the often uptight, impersonal, robotic landscape of corporate work environments. It takes a lot of effort to craft the right culture and startups are concerned about taking on someone new who can ruin that culture.

Having the right technical knowledge and skills are important but you should come off as a real human being. Culture should be important to you too and you should understand the culture of the startup you’re looking at before getting too serious. Culture goes to more than having a ping pong table at the office. It goes to values and you should make sure that the startup’s values are aligned with yours.

At Ecovent, we’re very upfront about our values (which drive our culture):

• Execution is our constant: We are exceptional. We perform like it. We do it right – build it like it’s ours. Our work quality is paramount. We step up when something needs to get done. We know details matter and make every inch count. We make decisions based on evidence. We challenge the status quo. We follow through to the end.
• We love all feedback: We listen to customers – they are not dumb. We made it wrong. We show gratitude for compliments and criticism. We give timely, actionable feedback to help better others. We are courageous in accepting and giving feedback. We follow up to show we value feedback.
• Transparency increases success: We do what we say and say what we do. We don’t compromise on honesty or integrity. We speak up if something is on our mind.
• Ecovent is a family: We own this company – it’s our baby. We remember our heroes. We’ve got each other’s back. We have mutual respect for one another. We encourage each other. We make other people feel good and help them shine.
• Everyday should be awesome: We strive to learn something new every day. We appreciate something in our lives every day. We reflect on life. We have unbridled enthusiasm. We’re here because we want to be here. Let’s make it great.

2. We can tell when you’re not really trying, so try.

It’s obvious when you fire off the same resume and cover letter to dozens of employers. There’s nothing wrong with casting a wide net, but start-ups are looking for people who are passionate about their mission. Tell the startup why your skills are a good fit. And if you’re not sure, have a conversation about it via email, Twitter, LinkedIn, meet-ups, campus recruiting events, or carrier pigeon.

“Fishing” by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is licensed under CC BY 2.0

3. For software engineers: code outside of the classroom.

Startups look for passionate, talented engineers. If your goal is to be an exceptional software engineer, you need to be building your skills outside of your academic work. Class projects are good and all, but you become a great developer through practice and experience. Exceptionally talented engineers don’t wait to be taught something. They do amazing things on their own time simply because they’re curious and ambitious. Time and time again, the number one indicator that tells us whether a recent college graduate is going to be a great software engineer is how much coding they have done on their own time – not because a professor or employer made him or her do it!

4. Don’t say: “Why aren’t you doing X? Twitter is doing X.”

It’s fine to ask tough questions. An interview is a two way street. However, arrogance is not impressive. You’re probably operating on very limited information about a startup, so don’t be so presumptuous about the wisdom of key business decisions.

If you genuinely want to know about something, it’s better to say “Could you please tell me about your company’s thoughts regarding Y?” It sounds a lot less loaded.

5. Proofread, proofread and proofread your resume, cover letter and portfolio.

This is basic and prevalent advice. It’s not strictly even related to landing a job at a startup, so why is it here? Because we keep getting resumes and cover letters with typos. It’s the easiest way to leave a bad impression. Why? It shows a lack of attention to detail. More importantly, it indicates that a candidate lacks attention to detail when there are tremendous personal consequences involved. If a candidate can’t pay attention to the details when it comes to his or her personal career development, how can he or she be expected to pay attention to the vital details of a work related matter?

Print it out. Read it aloud. Do it again. And again.

“Proofreading marks example” by Peryl Herrera is licensed under CC BY 2.0

P.S. - we’re hiring.

 

“Blue Robot” by Volkspider is licensed under CC BY 2.0