
Student Engineers: Apply to work at 170+ startups with one Common Application - jkopelman
http://redeye.firstround.com/2012/12/commonapplication.html
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ig1
I've had extensive experience in this market (i.e I've spoken to >1000 student
developers) and I think this is the right approach.

From a students perspective most students have close to no-idea what kind of
company they want to work for when they graduate and often have a very limited
concept of the reality of what working at different companies would involve.

From a startups perspective it's very hard to target students, a typical
serious recruitment campaign would cost 6-7 figures to run and is really only
an option for companies who are hiring a large number of candidates (as you
can ammortize the costs of having presence at careers fairs, etc.) - I would
imagine Google spends in the millions if not tens of millions in student
recruitment every year.

Most startups aren't Facebook or DropBox. Look at First Round's portfolio
page, chances are that as someone who's familiar with the startup scene you
still won't recognize most of their consumer facing startups let alone their
b2b startups.

Most students will never have heard of these startups. Even if a student cares
about the domain of the startup they probably still won't have heard of the
startup.

You can't be the candidate's first choice if they've never heard of you. But
once you've got their CV and you've decided that you want to go after them you
can sell them on your company and make it their first choice.

I'm also willing to bet that most startups would rather hire a stellar
engineer with average passion about the domain (but cares about the tech) over
someone with stellar passion and average talent.

~~~
dbyrd
As a student/developer I'm excited about the idea of companies I've never
heard of who match my interests approaching me.

I am a little worried though that this could end up like the common app for
colleges and I'll become nothing more than an application.

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habosa
I'm not sure how to feel about this.

On the one hand, this is something I have always felt needed to exist. In
today's weak job market it's important that we do whatever we can to match
talent with openings.

On the other hand, I think startups are the wrong type fo companies for this.
If I'm hiring for a small (<50) person company I want to make sure the person
wants to work on my particular product and help with my particular vision.
This would be great for big tech companies though, where they just need
development talent and there is sure to be some internal project/product for
which you're a good fit.

~~~
HistoryInAction
I disagree.

This is a third approach—and a more public one—than we see from A-H and
Greylock to help funnel talent to their portfolio companies. It's intended to
serve as a first pass and binning for the company to then look for culture fit
and second-round interviews.

This process lets FRC centralize talent and reduce at least some amount of
time that founders have to spend on recruiting, at least beyond employees 1-5,
mainly coming directly from personal circles.

~~~
zanny
As a recent college grad in CS looking for a leg into the industry, besides
the HN monthly "who's hiring" threads, I feel like I'm missing out on probably
95% of potential companies I could work at just by them not using online job
boards to recruit from. I feel like having some situation where employers can
get a list of candidates in advance can open up opportunities better than my
current workflow:

Read email for responses -> check linkedin groups for various languages ->
read rss feeds of Dice, Careers 2.0 -> write some cover letter emails, attach
resume (with links to github, etc) -> hope for something back.

Having some place to put myself in public view to _possibly_ be contacted
first sounds really nice.

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justjimmy
I think one of the most important differentiation of a traditional company vs
'startup' company is the culture. And in order to understand the culture,
you'd have to research each individual company, which this service doesn't
seem to offer.

The students may be better served if there was a list of tags/terms for the
all the companies so the students can go through them and check/tick the ones
they want to apply to. Shotgun mass spam doesn't ensure a cultural fit.

(Should +100 (for how many people in the company) even be an option? Is a
company still a startup at that point?)

~~~
feniv
I've done something similar with Sequoia Capital before. You applied with one
application at their website and they forwarded it to the startups the were
funding. The individual startups then contact you for an interview if your
application meets their criteria.

For me personally, hearing back for an initial interview has always been the
struggle. This approach broadens the reach of my application and gives me a
better chance to demonstrate my skills. Once they've considered my application
and contacted me, then the ball is in my court and I can scrutinize the
company and culture before replying.

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whitewhim
I'd love to have something like this. As a student at a small school in Canada
it is very hard to make connections in the industry that are often facilitated
by larger schools.

~~~
zanny
This is exactly my problem. I live in rural PA, went to a moderately close
liberal arts school on a full boat (in reflection, I wish I applied to some
bigger name schools like Carnegie Mellon), but now that I have graduated I
have 0 contacts in the industry and the career center never has companies
contact them about software jobs. So I've just been stuck using online jobs
boards and they haven't proved effective yet.

~~~
corford
Bit late to the thread but in your case, sticking some contact details in your
HN profile wouldn't hurt :)

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Trezoid
For those who missed the links (I know I certainly did):
<http://www.university.firstround.com/>

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adrozdov
I feel I need to comment on a couple topics that really stand out from First
Round Capital's approach, but no one appears to be touching on:

Firstly, this is an application to be matched with a company in an investor's
portfolio. What makes this is essentially different from just a common app is
that interviews and work you do for any of these companies on this list may be
shared with the entire community/portfolio, and there will be opportunities to
move to a place to a better fit or position after establishing yourself (I
have seen this done before, an acquaintance of mine worked for a startup in SF
this summer, and at the end of the summer he was offered a full-time position
at a different company in the same portfolio after hearing about his prowess
as a web developer/designer).

Secondly, this is a beautifully put together application. Not only is it
aesthetically pleasing, but the questions give a lot of hints to the applicant
about what qualities a startup is looking for in a future worker. For a first
time applicant, this is particularly helpful.

I definitely support this approach. It has been done already by KPCB Fellows
(a bit like a common app, but with less questions; they ask for a portfolio
still, but also ask for the applicant to complete a programming or design
problem depending on the iteration of the application), and by a16z
(Andreessen Horowitz takes a similar approach where you apply with them and
are matched with a company in their portfolio based on fit and need), and by
Sequoia Capital, just as feniv mentioned. On a similar note, it's been a
particularly hot year for recruitment websites like Readyforce, which did
Hacker Tour, and Seelio, a portfolio site that just launched a jobs posting
section.

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arupchak
The success of this will depend heavily on the people doing the parsing of
applications and matching them to the right company. While I like the idea of
lowering the barrier for applying for jobs, I cannot help but think that many
students will look at this as another opportunity to focus on quantity of
applications they send out. Instead, I would rather that students take some
time to research and figure out on their own what they want for an internship,
rather than just sending out a bunch of applications/resumes.

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malandrew
I think this could be valuable for little known startups that have a hard time
being seen and will take any decent talent they can get, but for any startup
that is sought after, why would I want a candidate that doesn't want to work
for my startup specifically? Someone who is open to applying to 170+ startups
at once is not someone I want on my team. To produce a great culture, you want
to be every single candidates' first choice, not their second or third choice.

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cfontes
Would be nice to have one of this for foreign Engineers too.

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mhp
We do the same thing at Stack Overflow Careers. Except it's a lot more
companies.

I really like this part: "our Talent Team will review your submission and if
you're a fit, we'll follow up directly and connect you with relevant
companies". They step in and do the work to connect you with relevant
companies which is a great value add opportunity for a VC.

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dhruvbird
Don't do this please. It's the total opposite of what startups actually want
applicants to do I guess... If I were a startup CEO, this would be a bad
thing, but I'm not, so I don't know what the reality is.

~~~
stephengillie
If a company signs up for this, how does that reflect their culture? Does it
say they're a "top-down" organization which is just looking for intelligent
cogs to fit in their machine?

~~~
zanny
If it can filter candidates better than the generic post job opening on
craigslist / linkedin / dice / careers 2.0 / ycombinator jobs board / slashdot
jobs board / etc, get resumes + a few paragraphs of personalization from
candidates, then have to go to their online repos and look at code samples
before contacting them then it is probably better than the status quo.

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leoh
Something about this feels predatory

~~~
loceng
Well, there certainly is competition for engineering talent.

