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Best Resume Ever: How to Woo a Startup
- aorshan 15y agoThis is awesome. I love her initiative and even more I love how the guys at ridejoy responded in kind. Really shows they love what they do and are having a great time.
- margotleong 15y agoAw, thanks so much! I was absolutely blown away by how Ridejoy reciprocated; I honestly wasn't expecting that at all. (I may even have teared up slightly, but I'll never tell!) They're an incredible team and I am so lucky to be working here.
- zacharycohn 15y agoCongrats, Margot. Have a great time working with Jason & Crew!
- margotleong 15y agoThanks, Zachary! Looking forward to an awesome, if crazy ride with an exceptional bunch. :)
- _feda_ 15y agoIn my experience you do a good job :)
- margotleong 15y agoWow, thanks so much! High praise indeed.
- kalvin 15y agoNot sure if this is too adorable (adorkable?) for Hacker News, but it's certainly relevant! It's a bit irrational to put this much effort into a job app-- but it's also an incredibly strong positive signal. For early-stage startups, passion for the space, the people, makes a huge difference. You don't just want the right skills and talent (which Margot also had in abundance), you want people who care. (And of course, we're hiring a lead designer and engineer: http://www.ridejoy.com/jobs/ http://www.ridejoy.com/jobs/. Don't worry, preparing a slideshow is not actually necessary.)
- SomeCallMeTim 15y agoI disagree on the "irrational" part: I think it raises your chance of getting an interview by a huge amount, and getting that interview sooner rather than later. Also, consider: The whole effort doesn't need to be unique. Yes it would need to be customized for each employer, but once you've done the work, you can potentially use it again. Unless it gets featured on Hacker News, of course. At that point you'd pretty much need to start over for your next job application. But hopefully at that point it's earned you a job. :)
- driverdan 15y agoDoesn't the fact that she got the job prove your claim of it being "a bit irrational" wrong? Not only did she get the job, she was (apparently) the top candidate as soon as your team watched it. Plus, as an added bonus, it got her and her new company on the front page of HN. Have any of your other new hires done that?
- joshontheweb 15y agoI think the best way to get a job is to take your top choice and be irrationally invested in working there. When they are sifting through resumes and you come with this, you are in!
- patio11 15y agoIt's a bit irrational to put this much effort into a job app It's perfectly rational if you're being savvy about how you approach your job search. If you're playing a numbers game and sending out 200 resumes a day to jobs you're poorly qualified to work at, this is very irrational, since it will not meaningfully increase your hit rate but will severely decrease the amount of resume spam you're capable of. Don't do that. If, on the other hand, you've done your research and know that there are three positions out there you'd be perfect for, spending two hours (or ten hours) on a sales presentation is a pretty good use of your time. The NPV of a job upgrade, particularly from unemployed or student to "first gainful employment in a meanginful role", is staggering. Heck, I'd do this just to close consulting sales if I thought it would meaningfully affect outcomes -- it's a LOT less work than often goes into getting five figure engagements on the calendar. Now is it the best possible job search tactic ever? No. Major points for creativity, and "do the job before you have the job" is one of the most effective things you can do in sales, but you'd probably do even better to get a warm intro to the hiring manager and convince them in person that you're the perfect candidate for the position. The resume is optional at that point, but if you've already met them, you're essentially guaranteed that they'll actually review it. (The likelihood of falling out of the funnel before your content is even seen is a major reason why I would suggest not just e.g. throwing one of these into someone's inbox and praying.)
- darxius 15y agoWow now that's a great use of an awesome piece of software. I wasn't expecting that. Putting myself in the shoes of an employer, this would be an instant win. It shows she took the time to put something together that's more than just a resume. However, I don't know how well this will fly with a large multi-national company (think IBM, Alcatel, etc). That's why I like startups, they're usually filled with happy people and good ideas.
- ericdykstra 15y agoI'm a big proponent of resumes that show personality and break the mold. Do a search for examples of designer resumes and you'll see how much of a person can be expressed through just the design choices, while still expressing all of the relevant content that you expect. I've heard from resume screeners that a lot of them are told to throw out anything that doesn't match one of the standard formats, or that has color. But do you want to work for a company that imposes such arbitrary, or at the very least stale, rules from the get-go? I think the corporations (generally larger ones) that have these kinds of restrictions could be missing out on the most creative and self-driven employees.
- SomeCallMeTim 15y agoThinking about it, I am absolutely certain that I'm not interested in working for a company that would throw out resumes with color. In fact, I'm going to have to add color to my resume now just so that I don't accidentally get an offer from a company like that. ;)
- grecy 15y agoNot trying to be a buzz-kill. It's a neat idea, sure... 1. It's too slow. I want to know about you, now. I'm a fast reader and want to get on with reading at my own pace, not the pace you've decided to have fancy transitions slide in. 2. I don't have a ton of time to sit through this. 3. There is no detail. You show logos of some impressive places you've (presumably) worked... but... what did you do there? What did you learn? How will that experience make you a good fit at company x?
- zacharycohn 15y agoShe submitted a resume as well.
- mdwrigh2 15y ago> 1. It's too slow. I want to know about you, now. I'm a fast reader and want to get on with reading at my own pace, not the pace you've decided to have fancy transitions slide in. Fair point. Had this been poorly done, I would've hated that I couldn't flip through it quickly, but since it's well done I don't mind it so much. > 2. I don't have a ton of time to sit through this. This is essentially the same point was 1. > 3. There is no detail. You show logos of some impressive places you've (presumably) worked... but... what did you do there? What did you learn? How will that experience make you a good fit at company x? She also included her resume, presumably with that level of detail.
- jasonshen 15y agoI agree that if this was the only thing Margot sent, it would not be as compelling. But she also sent a resume and an exceptionally well-written cover letter with a lot of great ideas about how she'd engage the Ridejoy community (we ask for 5 ideas from all job applicants). I think we would have at least phone screened her without this video slideshow, but it took us from "interested" to "wow, this girl looks super legit and really wants this job". If you're a job applicant, that might be worth a lot.
- dmd149 15y agoI now see what I was competing with. Great choice!
- maneeshgoel 15y agoAs a way to separate oneself from other candidates, this cannot be beat. Amazing job, Margot, and RJ for the great reply. I am so sick of that song.
- tptacek 15y agoKilljoy, I know, but you'd probably want to have permission from Spoon (or, more likely, Merge Records) before repurposing their most popular track commercially. Similarly, annoying as it probably sounds, virtually anything a startup would ever want to do with a piece of music anyone has heard of before† is probably not kosher. On the flip side, there's thousands of amazingly talented musicians willing to record tracks for tiny amounts of money, so maybe investigate that instead of just grabbing random tracks from iTunes. The obvious and (please presume) prolific apologies apply if rights to You Got Yr Cherry Bomb were secured for this. Totally possible. † Including but not limited to putting it center stage on a cheerful and uplifting branded company blog post about resumes.
- margotleong 15y agoGood point! My understanding, from speaking with the SlideRocket team, is that it's kosher to use another artist's song as your presentation soundtrack as long as you attribute the song in your presentation somewhere. But if I were doing a similar project in the future, I'd absolutely love to work with a musician to record something - that's a terrific suggestion. EDIT: Just spoke directly with a representative at SlideRocket, Sogol Motiey, who says, "Nope! No copyright issues."
- tptacek 15y agoPretty sure that's totally not true, but, boy would I ever like to be proven wrong about this. As I understand it, and excuse the language, but attribution has fuck-all to do with the rights to music. There's a whole market for "royalty-free music" (all of which costs money, but at least doesn't cost money per view) that exists entirely --- again, as I understand it --- because you can't just use random copyrighted songs in presentations, on websites, &c. Sliderocket even links to some of these sites on an article about adding audio to presentations: http://www.sliderocket.com/blog/2010/07/incredible-presentations-5-amazing-audio-resources/ http://www.sliderocket.com/blog/2010/07/incredible-presentat... Note conspicuous lack of "and if you like Apples In Stereo, just drag an MP3 into this window and make sure to say thank you in your presentation". :) In any case, so I don't sound too much like a message-board-crazy, let me at least commend you on your taste in music. At least it wasn't Ke$ha.
- pitdesi 15y agoWe've found that candidates who submit a dynamic resume are good because 1) it shows personality 2) it shows initiative and 3) a willing to think outside the box, all of which we value. Obviously the content of the resume has to be great and everything else has to line up too, but this gets you a lot of facetime that not everyone gets. We were looking for a UI guy and got a ton of interest from folks (thanks HN!), but one applicant stood out to us because he went through the effort of making a site focused on getting the job with us (http://jaredhardy.com/fee-fighter/ http://jaredhardy.com/fee-fighter/). We hired him.
- medius 15y agoLooking at all this incredible talent makes my mind boggle with amazement. It's more than just the skill, it's being able to reach out to people in innovative ways that make the best impression. Pumping up a resume seems to be less and less relevant than showing what kind of person you are.
- TomGullen 15y agoUnrelated but something that irritates me with company blogs is no easy link to view to product/go to homepage. I keep clicking logos on the page trying to reach their homepage and see what their company is about, but it's all in vain, I get frustrated and leave. I know I could manually type it in but I'm too stubborn.
- jasonshen 15y agoHey TomGullen, sorry you had that issue! We have a blue bar that says "Find friendly people to share rides with at Ridejoy.com! ►" and another link on the sidebar in the about section. Let me know if you have ideas for how to make the link more clear! EDIT: We just edited the blog layout to make our logo go to ridejoy.com!
- TomGullen 15y agoLots better!
- timjahn 15y agoI've noticed this more and more too. Blogs often have the same design/layout as the actual site, but when you click on the company logo in the top left, it links to the blog home page, not the company site home page. Hate that!
- jasonshen 15y agoGreat feedback! We just edited the blog layout to make our logo go to ridejoy.com!
- harrisreynolds 15y agoThis was absolutely brilliant. Great work @margotleong!! ... and great work RideJoy too!
- vbl 15y agoToo long, didn't watch. Seriously though, she could learn a thing or two about brevity and efficiently communicating a message. I lost interest quickly.
- tptacek 15y agoYour patience apparently didn't carry you to the part of the post where she got the job because of this presentation.
- TheCapn 15y agoAnd reading a few page resume is quicker? I don't think you have a strong grasp as to what the presentation was aiming to accomplish or how the presentation stood out from the rest.
- tonecluster 15y agoSeriously, perhaps you could learn an thing or two about focus. And paying attention.
- devmach 15y agoWell, it's boring but also it's good resume : she shows her interest and passion. If someone send me such a resume for " engineering position ", i would probably stop watching after 10 seconds.
- locci 15y agothis reminded me of http://web.me.com/agueniot/Data/Flash/cven.html http://web.me.com/agueniot/Data/Flash/cven.html
- jacques_chester 15y agoI was more impressed by the content than the presentation. I guess that's why I and my local marketing organisation don't always see eye-to-eye.
- soosh 15y agoyeah, I'm too old for this.
- lrobb 15y agoThat's a lot of work to go through just for an application... How to "woo" a startup? What was that about a shortage of tech talent?
- georgieporgie 15y agoI'm curious how many other startups she sent basically the same template to...
- dmragone 15y agoPerhaps this is a dumb question, but what does it mean to "Mainline RSS Feeds"? (slide 12 from the link)
- pinchyfingers 15y agoTo consume them intravenously, as one would cocaine or heroin.
- dmragone 15y agoOh my. And here I imagined some nifty webapp for easier rss reading. I suppose that would work as well.
- steve-howard 15y agoI did that once, but a typographical error landed me in the hospital for months.
- davidtyleryork 15y agoGreat resume, seriously. Pictures are worth 1000 words, as they say
- henry_flower 15y agoDidn't like the resume (too slow). Very boring, imo. Changed my mind after seeing her photo.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- nato1138 15y agoStartups need to "Woo" the incomer, not the other way around. Sheesh.
- gcb 15y agoIs she the author of all the power point emails my mom forwards me?
- xpose2000 15y agoThis is one of the few times I've disagreed with hacker news. Sorry. Not a fan. :(
- alexwolfe 15y agoIt's not the best resume ever but a terrific example of using some creativity to make a connection. I'm surprised more people didn't take that away from this slide show. It's about hustle, creativity, putting yourself out there. The essence of this is doing something to set yourself apart from the 10 other people looking for the same job.
- jasonjei 15y agoThis is a sort of weird criterion, but I'm partial to the CVs done in LaTeX...
- mseebach 15y agoThat not weird once you pick it apart. Chances are that you're not actually partial to LaTeX CVs, you're partial to someone who shares your willingness to invest the effort in learning the right tool for the job (and, boy, is LaTeX ever the right tool for many jobs?), rather than shying away at the first sign of difficulty.
- kyrsey 15y agoWhat happens when this "best resume" becomes "best practice" and people really take it seriously that this is "How to woo a startup"? Do companies really want to sift through video slideshows for, say, engineering jobs?
- bdg 15y agoMy firewall blocked your slides because all the requests were sent with null content-type headers.