Jobstart – Personalized, expert guidance to land your next software job
jobstart.co
jobstart.co
Creator here (shamefully submitted myself, haha). Happy to answer any/all questions or ramble on and on about the problem.
We basically think there needs to be a legitimately trustworthy service out there. Something that acts more like a a career coach instead of a position spammer. Something that understands your needs and specific situation.
Along the lines of "doing things that don't scale", we're completely human powered but technology assisted. There are a lot of things that are involved with career coaching or recruiting that are simply tedious -- we automate them away so we can better focus on relationships.
or am I missing something?
We make deals (recruiting contracts) with companies who really want first dibs on top talent. When a candidate comes through, we'll discuss all their options, but mention that we also work with some companies and talk about those companies as well. If they'd like an intro, awesome! If not, totally cool.
We're sacrificing potential revenue to build the most trustworthy brand. The economics of recruiting let us do that... just an insane market right now.
Also, what's your geographical range of companies you're working with? Companies all over the US? Only SV? Only West Coast? Worldwide?
This was a pivot -- we started off as a mentorship platform, so we're not actively using all of our expert pool at this time. After realizing the nuances of mentorship were making us solve the mentorship problem instead of the job placement problem, we moved onwards. Fun fact: we didn't have any female experts until we had about 30 male experts. But that changed quickly! The first one liked helping out so much she personally invited all of her friends, and all the sudden we were nearly 50/50 for short while. :D
We have contracts with mostly Silicon Valley startups, but there are a couple in there from NYC and even Georgia. The fact that we don't force our candidates down our own funnel though, and will help them attain a job anywhere, is our real uniqueness.
Getting a good candidate:expert match sounds integral to your model, so it may be useful to have a process for leveraging your expert network to review the pairings (including the advice they produce and candidate feedback) to identify places where the coaches may need coaching, or the fitting process may be able to improve.
Solid question.
2) We'll still help you land a remote position.
Based upon what you're seeing:
1. Please rank these in order of importance:
- technical skill in one (or few) technologies
- broad technical skills
- years of experience
- raw smarts & ability to learn
- user/customer domain knowledge
- soft skills (project mgmt, systems analysis, etc.)
- cultural fit
- attitude & determination
3. What % of a "typical" programmer's energy should be spent presenting themselves better vs. actually getting better?
4. What makes your coaches/experts so special? Do they have last names?
Nice concept. Best wishes to you and all your candidates.
2. Remember we're open to helping you get anywhere. We've placed people at both startups and large companies already, but most of our contracts are with startups. Large companies don't do recruiting deals unless you're pumping them huge numbers or giving some crazy insightful data.
3. This depends on the programmer. I think, unfortunately, a lot of getting the right job is knowing how to present yourself better. In addition, I think most programmers already know how to get better at programming, but few learn the tricks to land more interviews and get more offers.
4. The status quo is pretty terrible. I like what some of the new companies are doing (Triplebyte for example), but recruiters are still the predominant factor in hiring. Some of them are good, but most of them... nope. Our coaches are all engineers. Our experts are all engineers. Our coaches have a full-time job -- that job is to understand the job market, understand the candidates they work with, and help them out however they see fit.
I'll also mention that since we're still only 3 people, we, the founders are also doing a large portion of the coaching. Gotta love startup life!
Whenever you reach the point when you can use the point of view of a non-SV, non-tech industry programmer with heavy enterprise & SMB experience, let me know how I can help. Contact info in profile.
I can agree with you here. One thing businesses are constantly telling me: "We are flooded by unsuitable candidates, because recruiters are playing the numbers game. Their strategy is submitting large lists of candidates in the hope that one or two are suitable."
The status quo has evolved because employees don't feel qualified, or like they have the resources, to conduct an initial candidate search. They don't think they have the networks, but they need a new hire fast. So they outsource to 'experts', but the incentive is all wrong.
Good luck to you. I'm on the other side of the Pacific thinking about what we can do to take recruiters out of the mix, focusing on better marketplaces, but you've certainly piqued my interest.
s7.addthis.com
stats.g.doubleclick.net
s-static.ak.facebook.com
cdn.optimizely.com
2762420311.log.optimizely.com
cdn.segment.com
1) Addthis is what we use for sharing. It's helped us a lot. 2) Google analytics puts in doubleclick. 3) Facebook sharing... yup. 4) We're currently running an A/B test with Optimizely. 5) Segment.io is a great analytics tool.
I'd recommend all the above services. That's my opinion on the above!
However, the point remains. They all do user tracking.
If you're worried about this- use an adblocker or don't go to corporate sites.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdf...
I wonder why FB isn't being blocked. Anyone any ideas?
Cheers!
Jobstart can help negotiate offers, for which they charge the candidate 20% of the difference between original and accepted offer.
I'm an independent agency recruiter, and it sounds a lot like what I do. I don't charge candidates for negotiating services though.
I agree that most recruiters aren't very good at what they are supposed to do. Positioning yourselves as coaches is a marketing strategy to differentiate from those recruiters, but what you are doing is basically the same thing as what a good (both skilled and 'benevolent') recruiter might do, no?
1) All of our coaches are experienced engineers. 2) We're much more involved than recruiters. We're going to run you through in-house interview gauntlets if that's what you want and need (detailed feedback included). We'll rip apart your resume and start from scratch if that's a smart thing to do. I've found 0% of the recruiters I've talked to can do those things effectively -- perhaps you're different, but we've never met. :] 3) We help you network. 4) We'll actively help you look at companies outside our recruiting contract scope. We'll recommend companies that we don't work with. This is not a "sometimes candidates get jobs at non-clients" sort of thing. This is more of a "let's put you first, no matter what" sort of thing.
Most experienced recruiters can rip apart a resume and are usually willing to help make changes (specifically when it's for their own client). I've seen recruiters that claim ownership of the resume they modify for their candidates, which seems tacky.
I understand that you will recommend companies that you don't work with, although your business model has all the same incentives that the traditional contingency recruiting model has.
You have two ways of making money. 1 - Getting paid when a candidate accepts a job at your client (standard contingency model). 2 - 20% (of difference) paid by candidate for negotiation
You can recommend candidates to companies you don't work with, and you can make money off these deals by providing a negotiation service.
I respect that you are trying to provide a superior service to what most recruiters are providing. It's a sad state for the recruiting industry when companies are reluctant to even use the term "recruiting". I'm as critical of the recruiting industry as anyone, so I do wish you well.
My email is zach@jobstart.co!
2) Recruiters won't rip apart a resume. They'll advise you on how to improve what you already have because they'll respect the time and effort you put into creating it in the first place.
3) Is this is short-hand for 'we'll tell you what meet-ups/events to go to'?
4) Again, neither a distinct nor a unique advantage. Recruiters constantly spec candidates out to companies they don't have contractual agreements with. It's how they win new business.
I respect the fact that you're attempting to create a better experience for candidates but ultimately, what you have created is simply a traditional recruitment company that acts and behaves the way a recruitment company is meant to behave.
1) You're right it doesn't immediately qualify you, but it does give you a better understanding as to what position requirements actually entail and what people mean when they say "I want to avoid all non-linux dev environments". We just use it as a base filter and then build coaches into the most qualified people over time.
2) Some people need light changes, some people need harsh truth. Recruiters ignore the latter and treat them as lost causes. I don't mean to say we'll disrespect people -- sorry if it came across that way!
3) We're building a network of helpful experts (see https://jobstart.co/experts). We'll give people tips on how to explore their own network, connect with our experts, and do generic things such as attend meetups/events. Depends on the coach and the candidate.
4) Hmm, I'm trying to figure out how to explain this part properly and it's admittedly a bit difficult. Have you ever been sent a specced candidate by a company? What was that experience like -- good or bad? In our experience, it's almost always been bad. Usually it's so bad they don't even get the position requirement and candidate aligned properly, let alone send an outstanding candidate. I think some of this comes back to point #1, having the engineer-coach understand the specs, and letting the candidate themselves even do some initial contact. We don't run the entire job search for you -- we'll intro you to some companies, sure, but we're also going to teach you how to get better conversion % on your own efforts.
"that acts and behaves the way a recruitment company is meant to behave". I disagree with everything in that sentence. Everything is temporary and no company or service is meant to act in any such way. Startups thrive only by finding creative ways of doing things.
It's up to the developer to accept it, though, right? They can back out at any point, right?
TBH, we can't take credit for the 20% thing. It's been done before (by itself).
One thing recruiters are useful for is that usually have a list of interview questions their past candidates got from each company. But usually this list is not as comprehensive as even just careercup or glassdoor.
But every company I have worked at had an internal wiki of interview questions and guidelines for evaluation. The number of questions is usually very small and study-able. With just the knowledge of my company's current wiki (and some past experience as the interviewer) I am pretty confident I can train even the weakest of candidates to pass the interview.
Probably due to legal or ethical reasons though, I haven't seen anyone try to collect these database of questions from each company. Is it that risky to ask your candidates to leak them to you after they get hired?
The juicy part is just how you plan on procuring those questions. Careercup/glassdoor? Getting previous engineers who had access to those interview question wikis to be coaches? Surely the most effective way is to just get access to the actual list interview questions/grading rubric (at the past 3 companies I worked at they were accessible to any fulltime employee). Of course you shouldn't answer me if that's what you're actually doing since it's probably illegal. But if you have that kind of data I would use your company and recommend it to all my friends.
The biggest problem with contingency recruiting is when the recruiter feels that the size of the fee > the value of a recruiter's reputation. This issue caused me enough angst that I created my own business model that eliminates these incentives to cheat.
I personally have never considered asking about the specific questions/answers for my clients' interviews. I may be in the minority on that.
But it doesn't hurt anyone other than other people vying for the same spot (but they are not paying you, so fuck em).
Your candidates get to take out variance by passing interviews they can clearly pass if they "by chance" prepare for it ahead of time.
And the company will just see you as someone who refers a lot of high quality candidates in terms of interview skills. And it's not like pure deadbeats can pass even with studying all the questions ahead of time. The work being done at tech companies is nowhere near as hard/interesting as the interview questions themselves so they will do just fine on the job.
I might be just a tad jaded. :P
I'm sure other recruiters may be inclined to try and let their candidates cheat. My reputation is worth more than that, and since my work isn't contingency I don't have the same incentives to cheat as contingency recruiters do.
As a CTO of a successful startup, I would sign up as an expert if you were a non-profit in a heartbeat - and I don't mean that you don't charge your clients, just a B corp or something that aims to solve this problem without getting rich. If you are successful and have a solid network that works, you will still prioritize paying clients over non-paying ones, no-matter how hard you try not to. Convince me otherwise?
At http://InterviewKickstart.com, we're trying something similar, but from the other size viz. Candidates.
Our hypothesis is, that if someone showed candidates how to prepare rigorously for interviews, how good engineers actually do things, and how to think about things the right way, then they'd avoid making several mistakes in interviews and at work.
We're taking a very hands-on detailed human approach. Because interviews are more like a date, than they are like a test.
How do you help the hiring companies choose the right candidates?
In my experience, the best recruiters are those who bring in ideal candidates without being pushy or overselling. Do you have some objective way of ranking candidates? Do you filter out unqualified candidates?
(Snaps fingers) PiZZaZZZ!
I think there's a spectrum when it comes to recruiting -- some recruiters are good at their job, no doubt, but the majority of people get left behind by the industry. Helping people become better versions of themselves simply isn't a value recruiting firms hold dear.
The best recruiters, as you said, take already ideal candidates and figure out how to sell them on their companies in an authentic way.
We flip the model around and start with the candidate, no matter where they're at. That's not just a "snap fingers pizzazz" - that's changing the core process.
We'll build tools internally to rank candidates and companies eventually, but right now it's goodm old-fashioned human power! (We have a couple tools already built, but nothing game changing is live)
How open are you to sharing general guidelines (that are insightful and not already available everywhere) ?
It would also help if you could ask the people who are successfully placed to write their learnings along the process. Similar to how the Insight data engineering fellow and others at coding schools share what they learnt/built.
Some UI feedback - the 'I agree/disagree' buttons on your mission component are kind of weird. I clicked on both just to see what would happen.
I think the CTA to sign up as an expert was a bit hard to find - perhaps due to the colors?
I'm also not sure why I would want to become an 'expert'. What's in it for me?
The "what's in it for me" question is a good one. While very unintuitive, we've had no problem signing people up who are simply helpful types. There's a large population out there of talented people who enjoy helping others and this is the most impactful, time efficient way to do it.
At first we were thinking about offering money, but the economics of the model don't really work out. No matter what we do, since we're not guaranteed money, we can't guarantee experts money. Under that situation, we could offer them on average less than $60 an hour... at which point 1) it feels like work and 2) the people who become experts usually make 3x that.
After we worked on this for months, it turned out the best system was simply a volunteer system. Strange, eh?
It's tough to find good mentoring when you're a n00b to intermediate.
Will fix. Little nervous pushing changes right now, hah.
Founder of http://InterviewKickstart.com here. We do something similar, but with two differences:
1. We do it from a bootcamp angle. Candidates join us for rigorous (re)training in CS fundamentals.
2. Our revenue comes from candidates and not from companies. That helps us stay on candidates' side.
Let's grab coffee some day? We're in South Bay.
Our goal is to eventually scale the coaching model so it's financially sensible to expand into other positions and eventually industries. The expert network is a big piece of that!
"empower all people," "help they deserve," "status quo is unacceptable," "they have had decades to find a solution to help the masses. They have failed," "facilitate this _movement_," "increase the rate of innovation across the world"...
Who do you think you are? MLK? You're a fancy-pants version of "Goodwill" that literally caters to just the 1%, get over it.
If you understand the mission and what we're trying to do here though, we're really aiming to help everyone. Starting with software is simply a foothold that works when you're an early stage startup. It lets us focus the business and run the model against an industry that moves so ridiculously fast, we are forced to keep up. As we can build tech to scale coaching, we'd like to achieve price points low enough to help everyone.
That's the plan at least. Not over it! Will keep dreaming!
This sounds like a new twist on the same old recruiter workflow. Is that an unfair judgment?
Also, what if you don't think we are good enough? Do you still offer help?
2. If you're not good enough for those companies, we'll figure out why and still help you out. Granted, we won't help you for months and months -- but we're not going to leave you hanging there. We think helping everyone is going to build a strong brand and service.
Good luck with expanding the service to other cities!
We can help people understand the skills for all ranges of software jobs, but prioritize people looking in tech.
Good luck!
We don't message it, but the last two fields are optional. Truth is we won't be able to handle every candidate that comes through yet so we're working in batches. The more information we have on people, the more we can prioritize them.
That being said, I'd love to chat -> zach@jobstart.co. I'll make sure you don't fall through the cracks.
Just wanted to clarify!
Thanks.
To some extent, if you don't have a LinkedIn you don't really exist within the job market - which is fine I guess if you never intend to change jobs but might be something you do want to do some day :)
I'm actually curious why you wouldn't have a LinkedIn?
Besides finding engineers, what does LinkedIn provide you as a hiring manager that a resume would not? (Assuming an online resume or a pdf has links to company information, references, etc.) I can't imagine anyone actually puts stock in LinkedIn "endorsements" or "recommendations".
Cool idea.
Sounds like a great fit for my partner.
Do you work with remote workers, non-US citizens?
She just signed up.
Thank you friend, she is a winner.
If you meet Alicia, say hello!
When we see a candidate come through who is a shoe-in for a company on that list, we'll let the candidate know that's an opportunity for them but not pressure it. If they'd like to chat with the company, we'll make the intro. If not, cool.
Our model prioritized creating a trustworthy brand over everything else. Everything. Including revenue at this point. We'd much rather be the first place candidates think about heading when starting their job search than converting 20% more inbound.
It uses the Google Lato font for that text