Gobble Up Your Dream Job: How to Land a Startup Role by Turkey Day!

JOB SEARCH STRATEGY
Pass Me the Job Offer, Please.

Everyone wants a dream job by Thanksgiving.

For some of you, it’s so you can rub it in the face of your old high school sweetheart to show them they made a big mistake by dumping you.

But for most, it’s because they want to land a job before businesses slow down everything, including hiring, as the holiday season approaches.

Thanksgiving is only 12 days away.

So, if you aren’t already celebrating with a killer offer letter clutched tightly in your victorious fist, we still have some work to do.

Let’s stuff you with good information so you can mash those interviews and land a sweet job before Grandma pinches your cheek and asks, “So what’s going on with work?”

THE HIRING LANDSCAPE
Turkey Day Trends.

As Thanksgiving rolls around, hiring feels like it does outside.

A little chilly, and you might want to wear a sweater to be safe.

But what does the data say?

Pulling data from the past four years, this feeling holds up.

There were tens of thousands fewer job postings in November than in October 2019, 2020, and 2022.

• Nov 2019: -12% (-49,431 job postings)

• Nov 2020: -22% (-60,959 job postings COVID)

• Nov 2021: +3% (+9,537 job postings)

• Nov 2022: -6% (-23,654 job postings)

We haven’t received the November report for 2023 yet, but the October trends added more jobs than expected, which is promising.

We saw a moderate increase in October, so I expect that to be followed by a moderate decrease in November.

But what you need to know is that people are still hiring.

In the Early , we have people deep in final rounds and expecting offers, as well as just starting the interview process at startups and big tech.

Over this month, the number and frequency of those interviews have been increasing, not decreasing.

That is a great sign!

So, how can you give yourself the best shot of landing a job in the next 12 days?

We don’t have time to waste, so let’s dig in.

STANDING OUT
Be Visible.

Rule number one of the job search…

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

It’s important to remember that you are not the center of the universe, and no one is thinking about you as much as you are thinking about yourself.

If you think you are being annoying by sending a follow-up email or LinkedIn DM, I can almost guarantee you that you’re not.

When in doubt, send it!

For Existing Interview Processes

If you are currently in any interview processes, make sure you:

• 😃 Send A Follow Up: After each conversation or interview, email every person you spoke to. If you don’t have their email, ask the recruiter. If there’s no recruiter, send them a LinkedIn DM or use a tool like Hunter.io to find their email. I cannot stress enough how important follow-up is in the interview process.

• 🤔 What to Include: In your follow-up, thank the person for taking the time. Reference specific topics you covered that you found interesting. Highlight some of the opportunities where your experience is relevant to the role. If you do all that, you’ll be a B+ candidate. To become an A+ candidate, you must provide value.

• 🤯 Provide Value: B+ candidates send follow-up emails. A+ candidates take problem areas in the business that were uncovered during their conversation, craft a quick solution based on their personal experience, and send that resource to the relevant members on the team. 99% of candidates won’t do this. It shows you have tons of value to provide and you take initiative. These are the people they want.

• ⏰ Ask About the Timeline: After every step in the process, email the recruiter you’re working with to let them know how everything went. In this outreach, always ask about the timeline for the next steps or how long they expect the team to take to decide. This allows you to create an outreach reminder as that date approaches. If you are in the interview process for any other roles, mention it here to speed up a decision.

If You’re Not Interviewing

If you’re not interviewing, put your creative networking pants on.

• 💡Post Content: If you haven’t started posting content on LinkedIn, now’s the time. It shouldn’t be something you spend hours on. Find something interesting about your target company and post about it. Share a story, framework, or principle you wish you would have known two years ago that showcases your skills, ability, and results now. This isn’t a must-have, but it’s a way to significantly increase the eyeballs on your LinkedIn profile. Bonus points if you end the post with a call to action to DM you. ex: “Looking for an expert energy operator with a passion for CleanTech? Send me a DM, and let's discuss how I can help take your team to the next level.” If you have a job, include a CTA to speak with other industry experts vs that you’re looking for a job.

• 📧 Send Emails: Not everyone is scrolling through LinkedIn every minute like you are. You know what they are scrolling through and checking constantly? Their email! So craft a compelling subject line using ChatGPT and send emails to people at your target companies. Highlight:

  • Your similarities to them

  • Any connections you have in common

  • What you find interesting about them and the company

  • A specific question you would like to speak to them about

  • A call to action to set up a 30 minute call

  • An out recognizing that they’re busy and if they don’t have the time you completely understand.

• 🎥 Use Video: Most people aren’t comfortable recording themselves on video. This is why if you do… you’ll stand out. I highly recommend using a product like allUP. I spoke to the founder this week, and he said he got a message from one user saying she had landed interviews at every company she sent her profile. Why does video work? It lets people see who you really are. Plus, if a photo speaks a thousand words, a video referral speaks a million. (This is not a sponsored plug, I genuinely think the product is unique and can be a job search game-changer).

• 🧑‍💻 Engage with Content: If someone is active on a social media platform, it’s the perfect opportunity to get their attention. Comment on their post and provide your insight. Do this early and often, and they’ll recognize your name, picture, and profile. This will increase the likelihood of them responding to a message asking them if they would be open to connecting so you could ask them some questions.

  • In LinkedIn, click the Search bar at the top and hit ENTER

  • Select Date posted Past week

  • Click All filters

  • Scroll down to the bottom

  • Click Author company

  • Add all your target companies

  • You just found all the posts from people at your target companies to engage with. Happy hunting!

• 🛝 Slide into the DM’s: Once you identify people with connections to your target company, slide into their DM’s with a relevant message. Make sure you show them you know who they are, you know what they do, you find it awesome, and you’d love to speak to them. Make sure you highlight something specific you want to learn vs “picking their brain”. A mentor told me, “Don’t ask me to pick my brain. It makes it sound like you could waste my time.”

Just look at this story from a member of the Early Accelerator from this week.

This stuff works!

DONT MISS
Be Prepared.

Once you land an interview there is no excuse for a lack of preparation.

Zero.

If you’re not prepared, you don’t want it badly enough and that’s a separate issue.

So treat every opportunity like it could be the last interview you have in your career.

Here’s how…

Know the Company

• 💸 Investor Information: Look at publications like Pitchbook and Crunchbase for information about company funding, investors, number of employees, and what people who look for unicorns for a living are saying about the company.

• 🕸 Company Websites: Dive deep into the company website to understand what they care about. Know the company values. Know the products. Know the customers. Be able to show how your background relates to all areas of what they do.

• 📰 In the News: Read as many recent articles about the company as possible. You should know as much about everything happening at the company as the people inside. Referencing these things in an interview shows you’ve done your homework.

• 🎤 Interviews: Listen to and watch every interview with the founders, company executives, employees, and investors as possible. You’ll pick up on priorities, company lore, values, and most importantly, the language they use.

Know your Audience

• 💼 Work History: Look at their LinkedIn profile to understand more about their professional background. These are all useful when crafting unique personalized questions for the Q&A portion of the interview.

  • How long have they worked at the company?

  • Have they been promoted?

  • Where did they work before?

• 🌎 Interests: People leave clues into their interests on the internet. Do they travel? Are they a reader? Did they just run a 100-mile race? You can highlight their interests to show you know about them and think they’re cool and share anything you have done/seen/read they might be interested in.

• ✌️Similarities: A key aspect of sales is rapport building. The more similarities you can point to the more the person will like you.

  • Do you know the same people?

  • Are you from the same city or state?

  • Do you have similar background?

Practice

• 🤖 Use ChatGPT: Use ChatGPT to create questions you will likely encounter in the job interview. Paste your resume, the job description, and a description of the interview stage and interviewer and ask it to create a list of the questions most likely to arise in the interview along with what the interviewer is looking for as an answer and ideal answers using details from your resume.

• 👔 Mock Interviews: Grab a friend, former colleague, or mentor. Hell, grab anyone to help you walk through interview questions you’re likely to face. If you can’t find someone to practice with just speak your answers to the questions out loud. Practicing out loud in a simulated interview environment allows you to see all the flaws in your delivery and correct them before the big day.

• ✍️ Write It Down: Write out all your examples showing your ability and experience in each bullet of the job description ahead of time. Break them out into Situation - Task - Action - Result with the supporting data. Keep these in front of you during the interview so you stick to the script and don’t ramble.

OPEN ROLES
Who’s Hiring?

Melio

• What They Do: Melio is a fintech company that gives small businesses a way to digitally manage their business-to-business payments and receivables.

• Valuation: $4.00B 🦄

• Total Raised To Date: $517.46M

• Last Raise Date: November 9, 2023

• Recent Raise: $1.95B (Acquired by Bill.com)

• Series: C

• Number of Employees: 635

• Open Roles? Yes

• Pitchbook Success Probability: 97% Success

Enable

• What They Do: Enable is a FinTech SaaS startup developing a cloud-based software tool for business-to-business rebate management.

• Valuation: $1.12B 🦄

• Total Raised To Date: $275.14M

• Last Raise Date: November 7, 2023

• Recent Raise: $119.14

• Series: D

• Number of Employees: 627

• Open Roles? Yes

• Pitchbook Success Probability: 98% Success

Black Ore

• What They Do: Black Ore has developed a tax preparation platform to revolutionize tax operations. The platform utilizes AI to offer end-to-end 1040 tax prep automation for CPAs and tax firms, enabling clients to focus on advising their clients and growing their practice.

• Valuation: $60.00M

• Total Raised To Date: $79.50M

• Last Raise Date: November 7, 2023

• Recent Raise: $60.00M

• Series: A

• Number of Employees: <10

• Open Roles? Yes

• Pitchbook Success Probability: % Success

Look, it’s going to be hard to land a job in 12 days if you’re just getting started.

But if you follow the tips above you’ll put yourself in the best position to land offers at the companies where you’re currently interviewing or speed yourself toward an interview process after everyone recovers from their turkey hangover.

Nothing beats being visible and being prepared.

Let’s become career champions together 🏆

Kyle