Most people are not big fans of conflict. Honestly, it’s always easier to run away from your problems. Sometimes though, you don’t have a choice but to take the bull by the horns and let everyone know they need to be taking you seriously. But that requires you learning how to advocate for yourself properly. How can you be sure you’re not coming across as a nuisance?
So you wanna work at a startup. You’ve applied, emailed back and forth a bit, and have become more and more excited about the position you can potentially fill. Fast forward a couple of weeks and you’ve knocked phone, coffee, and formal sit-down interviews out of the park. You know you’ve got some allies in the company, and you’ve made it past the startup equivalent of the Elite Four. You’re almost in, but it’s now time to face the end-game boss: the startup founder. Just one more successful round of schmoozing and you’re golden. The pressure’s on, and you need some stellar job interview tips to really set you apart.
Silicon Valley is revolutionizing education as we know it. Startup companies are creating and using technology to improve education, whether by providing more tools or making it easier for educators to focus on what's important -- spreading knowledge. With hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital for just edtech startups, it’s no wonder that education is becoming a booming industry.
So you’ve been on the job for a while, and things are going well. You like your team, you’re learning a ton, and your responsibilities are growing. You’re finally moving in the right direction, at the right pace. But there’s just this one tiny thing you could do with a bit more of. You know what we mean -- we’re talking cash money.
Everybody’s got their own battles. Life is a complicated and messy thing, and we can’t pretend to know what everyone is going through. But what we do know is that investing in mental health is just as important as physical health (and one is often tied to the other). We wish an apple a day would keep the stress at bay, but there’s no magic fruit that will make anxiety and depression disappear.
Mentors are like parents, but without the nagging. They can help you find direction in your life and give you insight on what it’s like being a responsible adult. Most people figure out a way to navigate their careers without a mentor just fine, but if someone is willing to sit down with you and talk you through your life, why not take advantage?
New York City is home to yuge buildings and even yuuuger companies--but that doesn't mean that startups aren't #thriving amidst the yellow cabs and halal carts. Quite the contrary: coworking spaces are being overrun by leagues of startup employees rethinking the worlds of business and tech. The best part? They're looking for vibrant individuals like yourself to drive their growth into the stratosphere. Here are some of our favorite movers and shakers taking their bite out of the Big Apple.
We’re celebrating 20 years of magic this week--the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is upon us! You and your co-workers have definitely been influenced in some way by J.K. Rowling’s literary wizardry (whether you like it or not). There may or may not be a few of us in the startup world who grew up with Harry Potter, who considered themselves a part of Dumbledore’s Army. Some of us might want to name our future children after Severus Snape. Maybe we wrote our honors theses on Harry Potter. So, in celebration of this hallowed anniversary, here are some important lessons we learned from The Boy Who Lived (and his squad) that you can apply to your new startup job if you want to win those 10 points for Gryffindor.
We get it. Bosses can be some of the most intimidating people in your life. As we’ve all experienced during our time being the youngest, smallest fish in our workplace ecosystems, it’s all too easy to freeze up and communicate awkwardly and ineffectively with your boss, particularly if you really envy their position and experience. But talking to your superiors shouldn’t have to feel like you’re toeing the line with a drill sergeant or translating hieroglyphs in real-time. That’s why we’ve thought up a few strategies to take you from workplace Urkel to office Fonzi in no time at all.
If you melt into a giant pile of feels and goo every time you see a pupper, we’re right there with you. Dogs don’t care if you forget to wash the dishes or pay the cable bill, and they don’t care if you spend days without showering or wear the same shirt four days in a row. They love you unconditionally for you, and that’s why we love them back. So it should come as no surprise that there are startups out there that set out to improve the lives of all the floofers and woofers, smol and lorge.
Being young is awesome. You (hopefully) have fewer responsibilities, you’re bounding with energy, and you don’t need to ask your younger coworkers how to convert next week’s presentation into a PDF. But it also has its downsides; you’re often taken less seriously because you’re young and inexperienced. It’s not uncommon for older folk to think of you as lazy and over-protected just because you’re a millennial. Apparently, baby boomers were given explosives as play toys--hence the name.
While the stereotypes attached to millennials are false, reductive, and, quite frankly, condescending (millennials are recognized as the hardest working and most well-educated generation in history), we have no choice but to work with the cards that we've been dealt. Here are some tips to make sure that no matter who you meet, you'ill be taken seriously and given the respect you deserve.
Let’s state the obvious: job hunting is kinda hard. No matter how accomplished you are, you’re inevitably going to get a whole portfolio of rejections. This is the first time you’ve received this many rejections in a row since joining Tinder. You might have started to doubt yourself. You might be experiencing lower self-esteem. But what if we told you that rejections are a normal part of the job search? It’s important that you find a way to stay positive and not let those rejections get to you. As Rocky Balboa once said “Life isn’t about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
Drones are quickly becoming the hot new commodity of 2017. From taking awe-inspiring photos to enhancing the safety of civilians, startups are creating drones that can do just about anything and everything. Within the next few years, you’ll have drones dropping off pizza at your doorstep and taking out your trash. Startups are proving that drones aren’t just one-trick ponies, and they’re coming up with new and innovative ways to use them to solve society’s day-to-day problems.
If you ever wanted to work at a drone-related company, now is your chance-- no technical skills necessary! We’ve compiled some of our favorite drone startups from around the country. Every company on this list is hiring for nontechnical positions, so no matter what your background is, there’s a company in this list with a job for you!
Social media is great for documenting some of the best and coolest moments in our lives. But while we might look back at our photos and tweets and laugh at the things we did, potential employers might look at them and go “aw HELL no.” We’re talking about that photo of you when you were clearly plastered at 11pm in the pub, or that snarky tweet you sent mocking that one company or celeb after a PR blunder. Believe us, we’ve all been there, and it’s okay if you’ve done these things. The problem is that first impressions matter, and if your employer’s first impression of you is negative, they’re not likely to spend any more time on your application. Employers aren’t like your friends who understand what your lifestyle was like. They don’t know that you’re a very kind and helpful person 99% of the time. All they know is what they saw online when they went to see if you were a real person.
Have you ever worried that you don’t quite fit the description of someone who works at a startup? Are you secretly afraid that you’re destined for corporate life because you just can’t seem to nail the interview process? Do you have questions about startup life that you’re too afraid to ask? Well--worry no longer, because we’re not ashamed to ask those questions (and then some) to get the intel for you!
We’re so lucky we got the chance to pick the brains of some awesome hiring managers at very cool companies (including SeatGeek, Zola, Sweeten, CourseHorse, and LiveLike!) last month during the Breaking Into Startups panel, hosted by Planted and General Assembly. The panelists shared with us the things they had wished they’d known when they were making their moves into the startup world.
