
Ask HN: How do I write a resume after five years of a startup? - boxcardavin
I&#x27;m asking this for several founders on our team who are getting deeper into our thirties and starting to think about moving to a larger more stable company. We have been working together for 4 years under the same company name during which time we have done 4 major projects that we were hoping would take off. We&#x27;ve been profitable the entire time and we all make decent salaries, and 3 of the projects still generate modest revenues.<p>The problem we are facing is that our resumes and Linkedins do not look impressive (to our eyes) because you don&#x27;t see a progression through multiple companies with inflating job titles (example good profile https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.linkedin.com&#x2F;in&#x2F;saadkhan02).<p>So, how does one communicate that they are hirable after running a semi-successful startup for years? Or, perhaps, is this undesirable?
======
otoburb
Do not fixate on job title progression alone; your co-founder titles are
impressive enough. Outline your area(s) of responsibility on each project,
especially if you all rotated roles once in a while.

Focus on growth of both top and bottom lines, and highlight margin
improvements over the 4 years and 4 projects. Try to quantify your
accomplishments in dollar figures since they stand out more. Statements such
as "Grew revenues 50% YoY from $0 to $X million over 36 months" will quickly
catch anybody's attention.

Throw in some specific, targeted technical phrases that are keyword friendly
and you'll easily be an outstanding candidate.

Be prepared to explain why you'd want to join the target company and not stay
at your current company.

TLDR: Hiring managers hone in on results, not only titles. Quantify your
business impacts and list your technical accomplishments.

EDIT: Regarding my comment about quantifying your margin impact, for those
that don't know, "margin" and "markup" are _not_ equivalent[1]. Thankfully
it's really easy for technically inclined folks to grasp this insanely useful
financial concept.

[1] [http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/whats-
differe...](http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/whats-difference-
between-profit-margin-and-markup.asp)

~~~
hashkb
> Hiring managers hone in on results, not only titles.

A lot of them kind of don't, but you don't want to work at those places
anyway. This is good advice.

------
AustinBGibbons
Hey! I'm an engineer involved in recruiting at Periscope Data. We see
resumes/LI from people who've been doing startup things all the time. It's
definitely not an issue, usually the opposite - I love talking to people with
less structured backgrounds, they usually have interesting stories to tell. We
recently hired someone who had been "technical co-founder" of a successful
startup for the past six years. He wanted to join a larger team, and we were
totally comfortable with him having been in a more jack-of-all trades scenario
because he is very obviously brilliant.

Shamelessly, don't hesitate to reach out if you might be interested - we're
hiring in all areas, and I would especially love to chat if you or your co-
founders are looking for engineering, PM, or marketing roles :)

------
lloyd-christmas
> So, how does one communicate that they are hirable after running a semi-
> successful startup for years

The fact that you've held a job for more than just 6 month stints is enough to
push you all the way to the front of the line. Most applicants we see just do
6 months here and there. I refuse to hire anyone that hasn't stayed at a
company at least 2 years (excluding new grads). 4 years is pretty much a
unicorn nowadays.

~~~
cableshaft
Here's what the last 6 years of my resume look like:

* 1.5 years - Startup I joined crashed and burned

* 0.5 years - Contract work for web design firm while I went back to university, they couldn't get their clients to pay their invoices

* 1.0 years - Worked for the university while I finished my degree

* 1.0 years - Startup I joined crashed and burned

* 1.5 years - Small company that was doing well, but proceeded to have one of its worse years as it lost all but one of its clients, eventually laid off 75% of its staff

* 0.75 years - Contract work for department in enterprise corporation that decided to cancel its own internal development and fire everyone after the lead developer quit

* 1.1 years - Current job, Fortune 500 corporation, still going well for now, but I'm expecting the sky to fall at any minute considering my luck.

~~~
SmellTheGlove
Hey now, keep your head up. I worked almost two years for a _government
agency_ that went out of business. :)

------
tapanmittal
I was in the same boat 1 year back. I had very diverse work experience across
my 10 yr career, none very deep, none very relevant to my desired target
industry (ecommerce)- I had worked majorly in manufacturing and finance. In my
30's, family and toddler to support, bootstrapped hardware startup failed
after 2 yrs.

For the resume I focused on the journey's small wins, just bulleted. I had no
revenue numbers to share, so just highlighted what was achieved in what time.

It was very hard, but what I figured quickly was that the resume mattered way
less than the people i pushed it to.

What worked:

1\. Sent linkedIn connects to a crazy number of startup founders (50-100
daily), apart from the usual HR connects. side note : i bought linkedIn
premium subscription at about $40 a month to cover my search limits.

2\. Whoever connected back (10-15%), I shot them a crisp email telling them
I'd like to meet for startup advice and/or opportunities with a one liner.

3\. Whoever responded with 'No', I politely asked if they could recommend
someone they knew who'd like to connect.

4\. Whoever responded with maybe/Yes (5-10% of the connects), immediately
tried to set up a time within the next 2/3 days. Could be a
call/meeting/skype/anything.

Note: the eMail always

a) had a touch of personalisation.

b) was no more than 3 lines

c) included my product snapshot as an attachment

d) ofc, had resume attached and contacts+linked in profile link included in
signature.

Met great people along the way, will surely help in future. And met one of the
best founders in my country - he made me join his company Nearbuy (Groupon
India). The hunt took me 6 months, partly because I had 2 hard filters a) not
going to wear a suit to office..so consulting/finance was out b) no
politics..so most corporate jobs were out.

Takeaways: Seek help like crazy. Your passion and hardwork at your startup is
your resume, nothing else will matter.

------
ecesena
I had a similar experience. My suggestions are:

\- have a clear, simple story to answer "why are you (single person) leaving
the startup". You'll be asked at every interview (and if multiple people apply
to the same company, you want a coherent answer). Include that you all are
leaving if this is the case -- the risk is that you (single person) are seen
as one giving up

\- list down 4-5 main achievements. Make sure there are 1-2 which are not co-
done, but you can state "this was mostly my own achievement". This is the
hardest part, but if you're still working together you can easily agree on how
to split

\- make sure to clearly tell 1 story, which doesn't need to be the one of the
startup, but the one for which you're seeking the new job position -- if I'm
looking for a position as data scientist I'll focus on my research experience,
if I'm looking for devops I'll focus on security, etc.

\- in linkedin specifically, if it applies, link some press or some blog post,
or anything I could spend time digging in to get to know you more -- if you
feel that the list of jobs is not enough, help me finding more info about you

From the other side of the table, when I look for people to source/interview,
I look at the total working experience. Wether it's 4y in a single company or
2+2 it doesn't make any difference. I _personally_ (I see others can disagree,
but this is me) see as a yellow flag a 1+1+1+1 experience, simply because I
fear you'll leave my company after a sole year.

(If you'd like to chat more feel free to ping me via email.)

------
sharemywin
You can also break out job titles under the company. So, if you worked on one
project as the tech lead and program manager as another. or break out
responsibilities under job titles. Hiring managers could respond to this but
seems like:

Awesome Great Company I started: 2014 - Present

CEO/HR - I was responsible for ...

CEO/VP Sales - I successfully sold 4 large projects which resulted in ...
sales ...

CTO/Tech Lead - I designed, built, tested ... Also, created a complete
automated test suite... using NoSQL, Android...

------
Taylor_OD
I'd be happy to spend ten minutes giving you pointers. I've a tech recruiter
in Chicago and I've worked with a number of CTO's from 1871 (local co working
space/tech incubator) to transition from their startup to a new role.

But like many have said here if you write on your resume what you have
actually been building over the last couple years you should be fine. Being
able to clearly talk about your experience is more important.

~~~
radley
I'm open to such advice as well (going through similar experience). Feel free
to ping me at radley@cloud.tv

------
amorphid
Figure out the intersection of what you want to do, and what you can do, and
emphasize that. So, for an experienced technical founder at a successful
company, think about...

\- this job for which I'm applying, what do they REALLY need, and which 3 to 5
bullet points capture my competence and accomplishment in this area

\- how is this company like mine, and how can I communicate the similarities
to my experience working w/ others, building a certain type of product,
applying domain expertise, etc.

\- what story will I tell if/when they ask, "So do why do you want a job when
you've been your own boss for so long?" Maybe something like "You know, what I
really like to do is make an impact doing X, and that's something I get to do
in any position with responsibilities A, B, and C."

And my generic resume writing advice is... try writing your resume without
adjectives. It forces you to focus on highlighting what you've really done.
Let your awesomeness sell itself. Calling yourself awesome doesn't do much for
you.

------
lintiwen
You don't need that. Anyone with basic understanding of how business works
will know that you have far more profound experiences than most corporate
ladder climbers.

~~~
curiouslurker
Not true. To most corporate recruiters 'doing a startup' for a couple of years
is almost the same as being unemployed. I faced this myself after years of
slogging away at an unsuccessful project and then trying to get back into the
job market.

~~~
riskneural
I have heard it referred to as being in a band.

Things that people in start ups don't know: getting technical things done in
complex environments. I would focus my CV on showing interaction with
corporates outside the firm - show you have some game.

------
moondev
I don't think it matters as much as you think. If anything it shows that you
are a more stable employee that won't jump ship.

Put all 4 projects on there and try to sell them as technically as possible.

I was at an unknown company (nationally) for 7 years before I left. I had no
issues whatsoever getting interviews.

------
dvcrn
It's weird, my experiences were more the opposite to what most people wrote. I
only did my own gig (2-3 people) for a bit more than a year but until now it
affects my career to that level that I want to exclude it from my resume, or
at least make it look like a normal company.

When people talk to me about what I did they think it's impressive and love
the technical challenges I tell them about, but most of the times the
rejection happens only because of fear that I will create my startup again
after a short time of working at company x. I got this confirmed multiple
times after asking about the reason.

I'm living in Asia and it might be a thing here but it is very frustrating.

------
Silhouette
For what it's worth, I think your experience is a strong point to have on your
resume. You have collectively demonstrated an ability to run profitable
projects, over an extended period, doing everything that is necessary between
you since there was no-one else to hide behind. That is more than many people
in our business will achieve in their entire career. As long as you were all
contributing substantially and can show that, just to avoid any perception
that your team was actually built around one key person or anything along
those lines, I expect you'll do just fine.

As an aside, not everyone is on LinkedIn, and those of us who aren't
apparently can't see the profile you linked.

Also, full disclosure, it sounds like I'm a bit older than you but my
background is somewhat similar, so my views here may be biased. But having sat
on the hiring side of the table in various roles, I'd take demonstrated
ability to get things done and build successful projects over some random
progression of short term jobs with increasingly impressive-sounding job
titles any day of the week.

------
bwooceli
Just do a "functional" resume. instead of titles "from 2010-2016", do
"Selected Accomplishments" and categorize them.

Technical

* Implemented xyz process to reduce pdq by x%

Leadership

* Developed market strategy for team of y teams to improve market share by z% in 3 months

etc

------
LargeCompanies
If your a developer with a good amount of experience and stuff/projects to
show then you have nothing to worry about.

If you didn't pick up any coding or tech skills during running your start-ups
you may or may not have issues.

For me my start-ups were like going to school to pick up a new/in-demand skill
that I could fall back on if my startup dreams fell flat.

------
gorbachev
Do you know your shit? If yes, you have nothing to worry about.

If no, work on that.

There're so many unqualified job candidates out there, you can rise above the
crowd just by being good at what you do.

~~~
jmtulloss
As a former hiring manager at a company that got way more resumes than
qualified candidates (Rdio), I totally disagree with this. Candidates have to
be able to communicate why they are good at what they do concisely, otherwise
their resume won't even make it to the hiring managers inboxes at most
companies.

This is pretty similar to the elevator pitch for a startup. I'm amazed that
anybody has a hard time keeping their resume to a single page when any founder
can describe their startup in a paragraph. In both cases, you're just trying
to get a meeting, not tell your life story.

It's not enough to be good, you have to be able to say why you're good.

~~~
raverbashing
> has a hard time keeping their resume to a single page

Last time I did that I got complaints that my CV was not detailed enough

~~~
dpark
I am not clear why people think a resume needs to be one page. I tend to
prefer about two pages. That's enough room to list where you worked along with
the highlights. One page normally means just a list of employers and almost no
detail. Three pages typically feels rambling or padded.

I don't consider a resume and a CV to be equivalent, though. A CV is generally
a lot more exhaustive than a resume. I would put together a CV if and only if
applying for a research or academic position.

------
jest3r1
I went through this a few years ago.

Ran a semi-successful web / mobile app development company. We were a small
team of four, hitting early to mid thirties. From the outside anyone would
have thought our company was successful. Good brand recognition in our
geographic region, finding clients was easy. They found us.

We paid ourselves decent salaries, paid the bills on our dev infrastructure,
we all worked in the trenches, at our own pace, and we all generally loved
what we were doing.

However, after about five years we got that itch. In a way we were too
comfortable. Our finances looked the same year after year. We purposely
weren't growing. Or maybe we just didn't want to take that risk. I guess we
peaked early and got comfortable staying there.

At first no one really talked about it. You could feel it though. As we got
older. Being so close to the business administration became a chore. Planning
summer vacations with a small team became a chore. Riding out December became
a chore. Maintaining apps over a five+ year lifecycle became a chore. Dealing
with dev infrastructure maintenance became a chore. Wearing too many hats
became a chore.

Life outside of work becomes more important as you get older. Family and that
sort of thing.

So we decided to shut it down. Lots of emotion, soul searching, panic, joy.

Anyhow ...

I personally had the same feeling you did. Does co-founder look good on a
resume? What the hell did I do for the past five years? Will I fit in with
corporate culture? How do I transfer my skills to the corporate world?

What I learned is that you've got nothing to worry about.

Working on a small team, and staying profitable, and paying the bills means
that you understand the value of money. You wear multiple hats. You're skilled
at sticking to a budget and meeting deadlines. You had to "show up" every day.
You worked the trenches and enjoyed getting your hands dirty. You worked twice
as hard and twice as fast. You stayed the course for four years. You're loyal.
You're reliable. You understand the entire lifecycle of building something
from start to finish. And you've done it successfully multiple times over. You
understand failure too, and know how to bounce back. You have an amazing
combination of business savvy and technical smarts that's difficult to find.
You're entrepreneurial. You've got vision. You're an ideas person. You've got
real-world experience. And a track record of success. Most startups crash and
burn early, you didn't, and you're leaving it on your own terms. Knowing when
to exit is an extraordinary skill in itself. You understand how it all works.
You haven't lost touch.

Don't scare potential employers with big fake C-level job titles. In a company
of four you never really had a specific job title anyways. Use that to your
advantage.

Custom tailor your resume for different roles. You've got so much to offer
your challenge will be figuring out what to "leave out". You've got volumes of
specific examples and accomplishments to draw from, which you can talk about
for hours.

You're still young. In fact you're in your prime. You'll be a massive positive
addition to any team.

Look for a larger (than yours) company that hasn't lost their entrepreneurial
spirit. You'll be right at home. Don't settle and don't be surprised if five
or six years from now you get the itch to embark on another startup.

It's all good.

~~~
justincorbett
I'm partners with @boxcardavin (OP) and this is pretty much us exactly. Thanks
for a great response!

------
fecak
I'm someone who has recruited mostly for startups for almost 20 years, and two
years ago I launched a resume review and writing service (resumeraiders.com).
My focus is on tech resumes, and I've done work for at least a few HN readers.

You don't need to show a ton of progression. You just need to know how to
market the skills and experience that you have. If you've been profitable and
are getting paid well, and have four substantial projects over four years,
you're marketable.

Feel free to inquire if you'd like professional help.

------
barnacs
Just skip the resume. They're worthless anyways.

If you find a position you like, send an email. Tell them why you're
interested, what you could bring to the table. You can mention your history if
it's relevant, casually, just like you wrote it up here.

If they don't like it, fck them, their loss, try a different company.

edit: Just to be clear, i'm not suggesting you skip the resume because of your
specific history, rather because the whole concept of presenting resumes is
utterly inhumane and counter-productive.

~~~
MyNameIsFred
I can only speak for myself, but as someone who interviews developers for a
small-medium company (<20 in my office, ~100 total), I have to say that this
is bad advice if applying to a place like mine.

I need some formalized experience document, even if your resume just looks
like bullet points. It gives me discrete
items/events/projects/education/skills that I can consider and discuss with
you. If I don't have that as a reference point when talking with you, all I
can say is "So, tell me why you're awesome", which is not useful.

If I'm not starting out with some idea of what we can drill down into, some
table of contents, I have too little to work with and I'm not going to bother.
Perhaps more relevantly, HR probably won't even bring you to my attention.

~~~
barnacs
I'm not suggesting that the applicant should withhold any relevant
information. Obviously, the whole point of the application process is to get
to know each other.

I believe if I see your job posting, research your company a bit and get in
touch describing why I'm interested in that specific position and what I think
I could bring to the table, that's a better starting point for a discussion
than me sending a generic list of buzzwords, positions, qualities, etc. trying
to sell myself.

And maybe the next step could be grabbing a coffee rather than an overly
formal interview where we're both trying to see through each other's
distortion of reality.

We're human after all.

------
hartator
I've noticed given absolute numbers works great also. Like "Built a back end
for a video game that was doing ~5M active players"

------
nilram
Are you guys all agreeing to disband? I have heard that selling yourselves as
a qualified, functional team can bring a higher value than each person solo. I
guess acqui-hires are an example of that; maybe some of the recruiter types
that have responded here have thoughts about how to initiate that dance.

~~~
boxcardavin
I think we're going to apply for Stripes Bring Your Own Team where they hire
functional teams. Haven't decided to disband yet, we based it on time and
revenue requirements for ourselves.

------
withdavidli
recruiter/sourcer, 4 years exp.

\- don't worry about inflated job title, especially in the bay area.

\- resumes are targeted to its audience.

\- know what you want to do (engineering, product management, etc).

\- reach out to managers at companies that you'd like to work at. ask them
what they need (don't go by job postings, too generic most of the time). fill
resume with relevant info if you have them.

\- communicating that you're a desirable hire is done in the interview stage.
resume is a tool to get you the interview if you have zero connection inside
that company (don't blow it off though, since it's usually shown to a hiring
board for final decisions).

------
santiagobasulto
Are you behind snap2print.me? Looks super cool. A good idea for sure.

~~~
boxcardavin
Yep, it is pretty cool but the decision-makers at most of our client companies
are slow to approve budgets for Snapchat. It has been fun to work on, it's our
first big push into hardware so I've had a ball. We'd like to push our prices
way down to hit weddings but our hardware needs to be overbuilt as all hell to
handle the rigors of being shipped and handled by half-drunk wedding
photographers :P

~~~
xophishox
We shipped our hardware in Pelican Cases. They are indestructible, and they
come with foam liners that can pretty much be custom molded or "plucked" to
fit the object your are shipping.

I could almost guarantee what we were shipping was more fragile than your
printers, (not a pissing contest) but it was precision instrumentation that
needed to not get jittered around. Pelicans worked great for us.
[http://www.pelican.com/us/en/](http://www.pelican.com/us/en/)

And they arent even that expensive.

~~~
boxcardavin
Oh yes, I love our Pelican's, we use them for our printers as well. The
problem was the first few iterations of our printer were fragile once outside
the protective cocoon of the pelican and in the hands of live-event people. As
a result, we've beefed up our gear but it's expensive to do as such a small
scale (dozens not thousands).

~~~
antoniuschan99
Have you reached out to snapchat about your product? Anything come out of
that?

Product looks really cool!

------
somberi
I have started startups before and now, am in a senior role in a large
corporate. My gentle suggestion is that don't sweat it and just reflect what
you have built in your resume.

Your work will speak for you, and discerning employers will find you.

More and more large corporates value what you have, and in cases, are willing
to pay a premium for startup skills. They are also sophisticated enough to
separate the company's failure from your skill.

Really, don't sweat it.

All the best.

------
highCs
I've been there, and this is a real concern. My cofounder and I both didn't
succeed to get our experience really recognised and we both got to start again
with entry level jobs. However, we've found that we got up in the ladder
quickly. My cofounder is almost CTO again now after _only_ 4-5 years.

~~~
77pt77
How old were you when you switched?

~~~
highCs
28

~~~
77pt77
That's still rather young.

Thanks for answering.

------
blhack
I guess I'm really naive.

Isn't 5 years at a startup doing [presumably] technical work pretty much the
_best_ thing you could possibly put on a resume?

I guess if you were a bizdev-type, then maybe the negative here is: why was
still a startup after 5 years?

5 years at a startup, for a technical person, sounds awesome.

------
bsbechtel
Tell the hiring manager that companies aren't built to show career
progression/build a resume, they're built to fill a customer need. You prefer
to spend your time thinking about how to better fulfill your customer's needs
than checking off boxes for your resume.

------
jdoliner
I have a very small company / startup mindset but to me co-founder is really
as impressive as titles get. I'd just focus your resume on what you did there.
To me that experience counts for a ton since founders have so much less
supporting them.

~~~
onion2k
I strongly suspect most people here on HN have a startup mindset. HN's direct
and obvious connection to YC filters for it.

When my startup failed and I was looking for a new role most hiring managers I
spoke to were impressed enough with my resume but also had reservations about
hiring me as they thought I'd get bored and want to do another startup within
a year or two. Playing up the co-founder title might not be such a good idea.
Everything else is spot on though - experience is far more important than
anything else.

------
danenania
I built a project-focused résumé builder geared toward exactly this problem.
Perhaps it can help out! [https://makerslate.io](https://makerslate.io)

------
ashwinaj
It depends on where you are located? I've found recruiters/HR in silicon
valley being cognizant about the fact that titles do not really matter if you
are in a startup.

------
gwbas1c
I think this is very desirable. 5 years of solid engineering under the same
title / company is desirable when looking for a mature developer.

------
kriro
"""we have done 4 major projects"""

+

"""We've been profitable the entire time"""

Just communicate that and you should be fine.

------
jchrisa
Do some marketing of your brand, if technical team members are excited about
you the titles and stuff don't matter as much.

------
beachstartup
personally i don't think it's that big of a deal. on my resume i just call
myself a co-founder of my company, X years. i don't even put a title on my
linked in because i don't want people to try to pitch to me.

otherwise, give yourself a different title for different periods of time, and
list your co-founders or customers as references.

------
codecamper
I'd say you make it very short, but be sure to study up on algorithms,
algorithms, and more algorithms.

------
matco11
the definition of impressive resume depends on the purpose you want to
achieve. There is not such a thing as THE impressive resume.

If you are looking for a certain job, you don't want a resume with a bunch of
empty titles. You need a strong resume addressing the specific requirements of
that particular job, in terms of skills and relevant experience.

Large organizations need both people that take care of the "ordinary business"
and people that take care of "special projects", that are the doers, that
figure things out by themselves: your startup experience automatically
qualifies you for all the activities that require this second type of people.

------
known
Customize your resume to the relevant opening;

