If recruitment is like dating, recruitment for startups is like dating while being blindfolded. Both participants know little about each other, are taking huge risks, and are kind of freaked out by the whole experience.
Yet, startups are arguably the best place for young and old candidates to grow. So, how can you shine during this unusual recruitment process? Here are the tricks.
Dig up anecdotes that show you are SPECIAL
Start-up founders are, for the most parts, a bit weird. And they are looking for other people like them to enjoy the ride. You went to Harvard? Had a high-paying job at the biggest oil company in the world? Who effing cares? What I want to know is who you are. So tell me a story.You failed miserably trying to import cheap shoes from your home country? Good. You created an association to save the cats in your district. GREAT. You tried to create your own podcast, but it turned out terrible and you wasted hours to produce some useless piece of audio? AMAZING.What we want to know is precisely the weird choices you made, why you made them, and how they changed you. Because that’s the way entrepreneurs and startupers see life: as a series of weird choices which turn into something interesting.
Focus on the particular, dismiss the general
If you are applying for a Fortune 500 company, your recruiter is going to take a lot of variables into account: your degree, years of experience, name and fame of your previous employer, and many other signs of a good “pedigree”.A startup recruiter will likely not give much of a sh** about these same lines of your CV. There are two reasons for that:
– The Fortune 500 HR needs to cover himself. If he recruits you, and you happen to be a complete failure. He can still argue: “Well, but how could I know, he was from Harvard!”
– The startup recruiter has very different needs. She wants you to do an amazing job right away (or very fast), and doesn’t care so much about fancy credentials.
So the rule is: focus on the relevant details. What are the specific skills you have? What were you doing in your previous job, on a day to day basis? Don’t be afraid to go into excruciating details about the one experience which made you the awesome person you are, instead of quickly brushing over a memorized self-promotion pitch.
Do your homework
Startups have to mind their every single decision. They would be taking a huge risk by having you onboard, so show them that you REALLY care. How to do your homework?
Check the company website in details
Study their social network strategy. Which one do they use? How?
Analyze their search pagerank. Do they use Baidu? Google? How do they promote?
Look at the background of the core members on LinkedIn
Have a close look at the previous case studies and clients from the company
And of course, bring these up in the interview, I promise this will make you stand out from 95% of the crowd.
Show bottom up purpose
Working in a startup is like being on the front-line of a war. You are running with your colleagues in an open field to reach your clients, hopefully before your competitors shoot you or the market busts into your face.What kind of people would you NOT like to have with you in such a situation? The kind of people who don’t know where they’re going.When you interview with a start-up, you must show bottom-up purpose. What is bottom-up purpose? Purpose is knowing what your goal is. Bottom-up purpose is being able to explain the reasons behind this goal down to its very source. Your goals should be like the branches of a tree, with cute branches which people can see, but with foundations going DEEP into the ground. Because the first thing a good startup recruiter is going to do is give a GOOD KICK into the tree and check whether or not it falls apart.
If you are able to explain why you do what you do, in much details, down to the deepest aspects of your experience and personality, be sure that your recruiter will be delighted to go to war with you.
Start doing entrepreneurial things before the interview
Actions speak louder than a zillion boring words. The best proof you can prove that you can join a startup is to DO something related to it.
Here are a couple of examples:
Want to join a startup in digital marketing? Start your own WeChat account! Send a few messages, explore the WeChat back-end, figure out the ways to increase your traction!
Interested in doing sales for a startup? Bring back some goodies from your home country or province and try to sell them around you! Maybe set-up a small online store to see if that helps!
Fancy a career in event management? Throw your own event! Find one or many charities in Beijing who are eager to have you support their next fundraising spree. So you’ll do good both for you and the ones around!
Conclusion
Interviewing for a startup is not like interviewing for a big company. And working for one is also something completely different.
But both in the interview process and in the work, something will happen. It will force you to reflect about what you do and why you do it. It will force you to understand your core strength and work on them.
It will make you a better person. And that, at the end of the day, is what being part of a startup is about.
source: www.jingjobs.com