Be interesting (and other ways to help land a job/internship at a startup) | Hacker News Reader

Be interesting (and other ways to help land a job/internship at a startup)

chriskurdziel.com

41 pointsckurdziel14 comments

If you're coming from a technical background, as part of the Be active in social media I'd add Have some code of yours in an open repository. Be it some weekend-hacked project, or a contribution to an open source project, or a well-written lab exercise. That gives an edge.

I agree with this in theory. In reality, though, almost none of the startups I've interviewed with have looked at my repos.

I link my Github to my resume a number of times (username at the top, URLs for relevant projects). Out of the interviews I've landed, one company has expressed a basic familiarity with my code.

There are alternative explanations for this: I haven't been coding for long, I have a non-CS background, and its possible (likely, even!) that my code sucks. If my code were atrocious, though, these companies wouldn't ask me to interview! Right?

(Feel free to check out my Github in my profile and confirm/deny this. Don't worry, I have thick skin. :P)

Anyway, just an observation on posting your code publicly.

True, maybe having your code in the open is overrated. I have to admit that I'm not talking from experience when I say it gives an edge.

Still, as part of a 2-minute research on a candidate, having LinkedIn and Github appearing first, instead of, say, a World Of Warcraft forum and your MySpace page, most likely help. (Not saying that this is necessarily fair, though.)

Maybe some companies like the idea of you having a Github account (maps to "really into coding" on their candidate checklist) but don't have the time to actually evaluate the code that you've posted, due to having too many candidates/applications to sift through, etc. That could be one explanation...

i look up all technical candidates on Github... only problem is some people have multiple online identities making it hard to find them on LinkedIn & Github & at their blog etc...

I wish that some of the professors my 2nd year at business school shared your point "Be authentic & have an opinion." Some were very old school and we spent ten frustrating weeks building a resume by talking about more font sizes and margins than content. My resume is usually the most helpful when interviewers see that I was the president of a rock climbing club and we have a truly organic conversation about the sport. Now after they see 50+ nearly identical resumes they still remember the climber. Always share some personality.

i'm a climber too and that actually helped me get noticed as well. i interviewed a guy recently that had "guitar hero expert" on his resume and it led to an awesome conversation. that kind of stuff matters way more.

Great advice. I'd say managing the results you get when googling your name is important as well. You could write 500 blog posts, but if the blog itself can't be found easily, what good is that for?

I like that point. Googling your name shows interesting things about who you are. Getting "above the fold" is surly important!

The most interesting thing a google search for my name reveals is that I have a very common name.

agree - i google almost every professional i come in contact with and hate when i can't find the right person

I'm an SEO (amongst other things). I made an 8 step process that some of my friends have used to own the search results for their names, which takes about 20 min to do. I'm making a quick start-up later this month to sell the instructions in PDF, just ask if you want to try the steps first.

If you like node.js, backbone.js, redis, mongodb and looking for an internship in San Diego, CA. Let me know. We're a small team with big plans.

This advice helps you not only land the role, but keep it. Companies love having interesting people work for them.

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