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Comment by michael_nielsen | Hacker News Reader

"Inexperienced founders... try to convince with their pitch. Most would be better off if they let their startup do the work—if they started by understanding why their startup is worth investing in, then simply explained this well to investors."

This advice applies to many things in life -- getting a job, proposing marriage, networking in general.

For instance, I've occasionally met people who obsess about crafting the perfect CV. For many of those people (not all) if they'd brought the same level of intensity to doing good work in the past, they'd be fighting off would-be employers, without any need to sprinkle pixie dust on their CV. Ditto people who try to find some magical method for networking. Do awesome work, and networking becomes mostly a matter of showing up and saying plainly and understandably what you've done.

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I think there is a subtlety here where the effect can reenforce itself and become the cause.

When we were raising our first round of capital, we didn't know what we were doing. We weren't good at analyzing markets, managing product, or managing people/dev process. So to raise money we were forced to lift with our back and do it on the strength of the pitch/story telling, rather than the strength of the company.

Working through the pitch and raising capital helped us get good at all the aspects of building a company. Now that the company can stand on its own two feet, it's much easier to just tell our story and simply explain what we're doing without worrying about the pitch too much. It wouldn't have been possible if we didn't do the first round on the strength of the pitch (since we wouldn't have raised money, wouldn't have gotten good, and wouldn't have built a company that speaks for itself).

I guess the moral here is that it takes a while to build enough confidence to spread your wings. It's an iterative process. You fake confidence while you have to, which in turn gets you the resources to get better at what you do. The next time you don't have to fake as much. The time after that you have to fake even less. Until eventually you're knowledgable enough and confident enough that you can just tell your story and not worry about the pitch at all.

I feel like this may be a tech-centric phenomenon, unfortunately. In a lot of industries, omitting the right keyword from your CV will exclude you from interviews.

The over-focus on resume is true across all industries. Missing a keyword on the resume can be symptomatic of a bigger problem. If you're impressing the right people (through work, networking, etc) your resume gets put to the top of the pile without going through HR or an on-line keyword search.

"omitting the right keyword from your CV "

Agree.

Even omitting the right word from you web page if you are a freelancer will cost you business. Outsourcer looks at qualifications and if, say, they are looking for php and the page doesn't list php the freelancer might not get a call for the particular project even if it seems reasonable that they do know php.

Similarly if you are looking for a plumber and you need a water heater put in having "we install water heaters" is much better than "we do all sorts of plumbing". People key into specifics and hot buttons.

I feel like this may be a tech-centric phenomenon, unfortunately. In a lot of industries, omitting the right keyword from your CV will exclude you from interviews.

Thing is, past the first N years of your career, your CV / resume doesn't (or shouldn't) matter much. Ideally, you are connected to important people in your industry, who know what your work (or portfolio) is, and what you are best suited to do.

In such a situation, a person who wants to hire you would make the decision in advance, coach you to put in the right keywords so that your resume passes all the necessary and appropriate HR tests, and make the hire happen.

It's all about networking, who you know. What you know is obviously important, but if nobody knows in advance that you can do it, it's harder to prove such a thing in an interview? (Of course, this is less true for new grads or newer professionals, who haven't had time to build up a professional track record.)

Some people do great work but aren't connected to others. They don't immerse themselves in their field, they aren't vocal publishers or active members of organizations.

True, and if the work is "great enough", then it will shine and be recognized (e.g. virally, through being discovered through sharing links or github or similar). Not everyone can do this, of course.

"Ideally, you are connected to important people in your industry"

That's why being suckered into backend positions with little or no contact with customers or other parts of a company is often not a good idea, even if the pay is good and the tech interesting.

Doing postgraduate studies, participating in events, speaking, all of those are very important, yet, at least in my case, I only learned about those relatively recently.

I know some good people that don't do this, and they get outsmarted in the career ladder by the more gregarious types (which, in some cases, did worse work, or even worse, some sociopathic/liar types). That's also a reason not to work in big companies :) unless you're a good hand at self promotion and office politics yourself (and there are some toxic companies where not even that can save you. Usually monopolies or oligopolies).

Completely second this.And office politics are a nasty thing. One day you are the king pin at it, the next day some restructuring a new boss or a only a little slip in a project and you can be dead in the water. And yes, big companies tend to be more prone to be like that.

EDIT: And after that happened you may just realize that all you can show is some experience in office politics. By trying to sell that in the next interview you just turn into the next CV optimizer. Kind of a vicious cycle.

> Thing is, past the first N years of your career, your CV / resume doesn't (or shouldn't) matter much.

I completely agree with this.

I remember one of the most shocking things one of my professors said was "If you're sending out a resume past the age of 30, you've done something wrong."

This might seem a bit arrogant but I think his point that at some point your achievements and network should be sufficient to stand alone.

I lost out on an otherwise positive interview for a plum job because I hadn't encountered the acronym 'ITIL' before - which was a shame, because I'd effectively done the same thing at a previous job that made medical gear and was frequently audited by the FDA.

My man on the inside said that it wasn't so much that this one thing killed the prospects, but that it caused enough uncertainty that the decision was delayed... during which time they decided to go another way.

I think you are talking about the average Joe. The Parent Poster is talking about industry elites. Not everyone does awesome work that get word-of-mouth. This applies to any field (tech-centric, medical, accounting or what-ever).

The people I've met who've obsessed over the perfect CV. were also, more often than not, the same people who gloated over how much success they've seen with minimal input work. Maybe they're related.

Absolutely. Pitch is a place holder for your understanding about the business you are building - the market, your team, product and your growth strategy. Just like a resume is a placeholder for your skills and experience.

That is something I've been trying to apply in my life (and apply it to other people as well)- words are cheaper than actions, so let your actions do the talking.

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