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.
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:)
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.
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.
I've found you get questions about anything non-standard you've done for any institutional like job. I used to teach English in China, it was fun, but I'd never do it again. Still, it's come up in a negative light in interviews years after the fact: "How do we know you won't just leave for China?"
(I want to be generous and think it's because in large companies the how-we-do-it-here knowledge has to be taught, so it's more valuable than the how-to-get-it-to-compile knowledge and they need long tenures)
If you don't mind sharing, what kind of position was it? My feeling is that being a founder and then going back to apply for an engineering job is difficult, but trying to go from founder to a "higher level" position the experience might be advantageous. A lot of upper managament positions are looking for people with technical background and P&L experience, now with a failed startup you have a lot of L experience but I think it would help.
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
It's not being ignorant. Yeah I know it's illegal, thanks. But it's what happens, there are those that are bias both against the old and young.
But honestly IF your a individual whom might be a flight risk because they were a founder, who would you work about leaving at 20 year old or a 40 year old?
These aren't my opinion, I am just speaking about what I have often seen or heard about in the industry.
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.
Certain problems have to be solved by large teams, and the team dynamic is different when you get into the thousands of people. Contrast that dynamic with a small shop of only a few devs. Disregarding of the technical skillset, they are practically different jobs.
If you were interviewing a candidate that had never worked for a startup wouldn't you take that into consideration?
> If you were interviewing a candidate that had never worked for a startup wouldn't you take that into consideration?
People that apply to a start-up usually do so because it offers them something they can't get elsewhere. Freedom, responsibility and a smaller world. They've self-selected long before they applied because they're usually willing to take a fair sized pay-cut in order to be able to join. That speaks volumes about their motivation and willingness to adapt.
If a candidate had never worked for a start-up and didn't throw up any overt red flags if they're the most suitable guy or girl for the job I'd definitely give them a shot at it.
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.
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.
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'.
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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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 84.8 ms ] threadOf course, they were right. I was out on my own again within 6 months:)
In both cases you do the same work but the first is not going to raise too many follow up questions.
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.
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.
(I want to be generous and think it's because in large companies the how-we-do-it-here knowledge has to be taught, so it's more valuable than the how-to-get-it-to-compile knowledge and they need long tenures)
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.
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.
I think you have to look at the individual, their specific fit and how old they are.
Isn't that descriminatory ?
Congratulations on confessing (without a lawyer present) to breaking anti-discrimination law (and being ignorant).
But honestly IF your a individual whom might be a flight risk because they were a founder, who would you work about leaving at 20 year old or a 40 year old?
These aren't my opinion, I am just speaking about what I have often seen or heard about in the industry.
If you were interviewing a candidate that had never worked for a startup wouldn't you take that into consideration?
People that apply to a start-up usually do so because it offers them something they can't get elsewhere. Freedom, responsibility and a smaller world. They've self-selected long before they applied because they're usually willing to take a fair sized pay-cut in order to be able to join. That speaks volumes about their motivation and willingness to adapt.
If a candidate had never worked for a start-up and didn't throw up any overt red flags if they're the most suitable guy or girl for the job I'd definitely give them a shot at it.
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.
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.
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'.
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.