

What effects do startups have on your resume? - psogle
http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/sandbox/startup-effect-your-resume/

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edanm
Interesting article, but I'm actually more interested in what effect having
_started your own_ startup (and failed after, say, a year) has on your resume.

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enjo
I was in exactly that situation a couple of years ago. It definitely closed
some doors for me. At every single interview I was grilled about my desire to
start another company. It definitely cost me a job I really wanted. They
freely admitted that I was well qualified, but their concerns over my bolting
for another run at my own thing kept them from hiring me.

Of course, they were right. I was out on my own again within 6 months:)

~~~
jacquesm
It's all in the presentation. If you write 'programmer for xxx.com' on your
resume that's one thing, if you put 'CEO of startup xxx.com' on there then
that's quite another.

In both cases you do the same work but the first is not going to raise too
many follow up questions.

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jarek
Then when you are asked about your work as a programmer for ___.com, do you
entirely neglect to mention you were the founder?

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jacquesm
If they don't ask you are under no obligation to volunteer.

As a rule though, those that have worked for start-ups and/or were founders
will not normally go back to big-corp to do a 9 to 5, and in the age of google
even if you don't disclose it you may be found out anyway.

Yes, that's illegal in plenty of places but it happens quite frequently
regardless of that.

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bconway
_As a rule though, those that have worked for start-ups and/or were founders
will not normally go back to big-corp to do a 9 to 5,_

You'd be amazed how things change when you get into your 30's and start having
kids. ;)

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jacquesm
> You'd be amazed how things change when you get into your 30's and start
> having kids. ;)

Yes, that's pretty much my situation, only you can add another decade.

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SteveMorin
I have worked with a number of people in the industry over the years and have
seen a bias against startup founders, more than a desire to hire them. But on
the flip side people want to hire engineers from startups. Basically being at
a startup is desirable because they often think it bring good qualities (of
course evaluating the position and individual too) but being a found brings
the concern of them being discontent with the job and leaving to do their own
thing again.

I think you have to look at the individual, their specific fit and how old
they are.

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zeemonkee
> I think you have to look at the individual, their specific fit and how old
> they are.

Isn't that descriminatory ?

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ultrasaurus
Neither here nor there, but I've found government programs that only fund
people under 30 (Canada's Youth Employment Program) for enough that it would
be foolish to look at anyone over-30 for a lot of positions.

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lincolnq
Perhaps, other things equal, it's better to have a big-name company on your
resume. However, consider that you'll probably make more contacts doing a
startup which may be useful when you need to find a job later on -- you'll
never be sending your resume "cold" again.

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strlen
> you'll never be sending your resume "cold" again.

That's the takeaway. If ten years into your career (baring a situation such as
a move to a new area or wanting to work on something completely different from
what you're doing now), you're sending in your resume cold to HR you're doing
something wrong. You should have made connections in the industry: people who
can vouch for you, whom you respect and want to work with. A good resume (with
interesting projects as well as companies which do interesting, technically
challenging things) _can_ make you a more lucrative target for passive
recruiting. However, a resume is a representation of your experience, not the
other way around: it gets you in the door, but if you can't pass a technical
interview an impressive resume won't save you.

Go where you'll be working with the smartest engineers (you _can_ tell that an
interview, based on what questions they ask and how they answer your
questions) and the work (specific projects you'll be working on) is the most
challenging and interesting. If out of all the places you've talked to, the
place that meets that criteria is the a startup, go there; if it's a big
company (but with serious technical DNA) go there instead. Don't join a
startup for the sake of joining a startup, don't join a big company for the
brand-name.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Agreed. 10 years in Silicon valley, I have never had need to submit a cold
resume for a decade. That includes 5 job changes including 3 startups.

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gamble
The only purpose of a resume is to get you past the first round of screening.
Name recognition trumps everything else. A job at a well-known and respected
tech company like Google or Facebook gives you an automatic pass to the next
round. Right or wrong, this doesn't include many startup companies unless
they're already successful enough that it's debatable whether they're still
startups.

Once you've got an actual person on the phone, the company you worked for is
much less important than what you did and your ability to relate it. Still,
speaking from personal experience, you should be prepared for interviewers to
question whether you worked for a 'real company'.

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chuhnk
My first and only job has been at a startup. I've been here 3.5 years and gone
from junior tech to senior sys admin. I hope this reflects nicely on me for my
next jump. One thing I am afraid of however is a lot of what I've learned is
self taught, I'm not entirely aware of the way big business handles system
administration. I dont know kickstart, veritas, san arrays, perl, etc. Im all
about open source and if it doesnt work then I'll write it myself.

To answer the question, I'm not sure how it will reflect on me when going for
something in a banking environment, however for another startup, the
experience with open source might be appealing.

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amirmc
I saw a slight division where the startups/small companies seemed to place
less emphasis on the brand-name employers than the larger/traditional orgs
would. For both, it's just one more data point. Is it just me that read it
that way?

~~~
jamaicahest
Good point, when applying for a position at a traditional corporation coming
from another traditional corporation might be a positive on the resume, if for
nothing else you are accustomed to all the office politics of a big
corporation.

As a side note I came from a 3 developer software company a few years ago when
I got my current job with a major television broadcaster and to this day I am
baffled with the amount of office politics people employ.

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johngalt
Scale matters more than name recognition. If you worked at a 50,000 employee
F100, your skills aren't going to be suited for a 10 person startup, and vice
versa.

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jacquesm
Why not?

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johngalt
The environment at a large shop is more constraining, and the people are more
specialized. You'd go from being a small cog in a very large machine to being
the entire machine yourself. At a large shop it's like being in bootcamp,
everything is systematized. Transitioning from that to a green field can be a
shock when you have become too reliant on the rest of the machine.

Conversely someone coming from a startup wont understand working in a large
team where progress is more methodical (slower). They will seek to circumvent
processes they see as slow or useless. Perhaps they will try to 're-engineer'
towards things they are more familiar with. In the process they may cause a
net loss for the entire team.

In general I'd say its easier to go up than down. If you're used to the
functions of a large organization it would be difficult to scale that back
(network engineers that can't work without Cisco gear for instance). Someone
coming from a startup is likely to be adaptive, and I'd rather have a
generalist in a large organization, than a specialist in a small one.

Although I'm from an IT background not Dev so YMMV. The limit of my
programming is single page perl/python scripts.

~~~
jacquesm
People that have worked in start-ups are very well suited to being trouble-
shooters in a large organization, and people that have worked for a big
company stand a chance of running a start-up that interfaces / sells to big
companies because they can relate to the party on the other side.

I'd think that it's a net win to have experience about the other side of the
table, and that your skills are actually worth _more_ by having been 'on the
other side of the line' for a while.

