How to apply for startup jobs effectively

Image credit: siraanamwong / 123RF Stock Photo

Whether you’re a recent graduate, looking to switch jobs, or took a break and want to get back into the startup scene, these tips might make your employer prospecting phase easier.

Step 1

Spend a week making a list of companies you badly want to be a part of. The inspiration for this list may come from engineering blogs, news mentions, articles by the founders, just about anything. Maybe even Quora answers on company cultures. Anyway, keep the list small.

Step 2

Research the company. You don’t necessarily have to demonstrate a deep understanding of their product or space. Show that you have put in your hours to know them better.

Make notes for:

• Their market share/traffic. Useful tools for this are SimilarWeb, SEMRush, AppAnnie
• Their feature set
• How their product evolved over the months or years. Use WebArchive
• Product updates: Did you notice that they have released a new feature?
• Engineers and product managers should get to know the stack the company’s using. Tools like BuiltWith, StackShare, and Add-ons Detector are great. Read their engineering blog.
• If they have an Android or iOS app, read their app store reviews to get an idea of how well-loved the app is.
• Any news articles about them. Have they raised funds? Are they partnering with anyone?
• How the founder conceived the company.
• Their main competitors.
• Their Glassdoor reviews. Take reviews with a pinch of salt, though. Disgruntled (ex/present) employees leave damning reviews that may not represent the actual culture.
• Most importantly, use their product. If it’s a B2C app, make a small transaction and get a feel for the experience. If it’s a B2B HR tool, sign up for a free trial even if you know you will never be the end user. If it’s an API-as-a-service, make some sample API calls on their free tier or go through their documentation.

Step 3

Email the Founder/CXO

The irony is that you have a much higher response rate when you mail the head directly rather than HR. HR personnel get hundreds of employement inquiries a day from within their companies and from outside. On top of that, they deal with various employee prospecting tools like HackerRank, Linkedin applications, AngelList applications, and more. You will be one among 500 applicants.

To get emails, first google ‘[firstname]@[company].com’ and related combinations. If that doesn’t work, use Email Hunter or Clearbit. The free tiers for both these services will most likely be enough to get what you need.

Content Of the Mail

[Subject Line]

Experiment with unusual subject lines. For example: “do you want to hire me?”

Open rate = 250 percent.

[Body]

Things to Avoid

Concluding thoughts