Ask HN: Does any company want to hire me?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1176236

by espadagroup • 16 years ago

1 4 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

My Situation:

So I am a senior in college graduating in May and I have been offered a job doing business development for a pretty cool venture backed startup when I graduate. I think this is an awesome accomplishment since I figure it is hard in general for a business guy to get hired at a startup with less than 15 people let alone one right out of school.

I've ran a web development company throughout college and am pretty good at SEM, landing page optimization, social media marketing, and love all things business in the tech world.

The rub is that while this job is pretty much perfect and probably the best I could do for my overall life, I am getting a relatively low salary and have been instructed by the parents to search for other options just to hopefully have choices. So this post is my solution.

I can pretty much move anywhere and most considering me a pretty eclectic guy who was seemingly born with more hours in my day than most. I've played the bagpipes, published bio research papers, won business competitions, named Mr. February in a calendar, and looove sushi.

My personal site is:

MichaelPlaterII.com

Most of my info/resume/links are there.

RiderOfGiraffes3• 16 years ago

Clickable: http://MichaelPlaterII.com

OK, question: why didn't you put in this comment to make your site clickable? If I were looking to hire, I'd want someone with impressive credientials, and who showed some initiative. You've made it harder than it needed to be for me to look at your CV. What does that tell me?

Secondly, can you negotiate options with the new company? If it's a hip, happ'nin' place then options could be worth a lot of money. Getting a stake in the company could placate your parents.

Having said that, it's certainly true that you should look around, but don't waste your time. If you're going to take time to do it, do it properly. Bend yourself to the task as if the result really mattered.

It might.

ADDED IN EDIT: Why didn't you link to your earlier question: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1105565

RiderOfGiraffes3• 16 years ago

Context: I employ people. I have 22 employees, and the last three hires were because I saw someone that impressed me and put them on, even though neither of us knew what they would do. I knew they would be of value.

I'm not hiring at the moment, but here are some thoughts about your resume:

When I read a resume I want to know what value you will bring to my company. I want to know what you can do, and then I want to see the evidence to support your claims. I want to know why you are going to bring in more money than you cost. Your CV on your web site has to be generic, I know, but I can't easily see from it what you can do.

There are some impressive things there (teaching in Ghana, running your company, etc.) and they will lend support to your claims, but first, what will you do for me?

Secondly, I know it's unusual for a senior director of two companies (yes, I run another company as well) but I don't use Word. Yes, most people who will read your CV will, but it would be nice to have a plain text version, and a PDF version, and an HTML version. Make some effort to make it easy for people to see what you have to offer.

Finally, one of my colleagues just read this and my other comment and said - "Harsh." Yes, agreed. But still, these are things I believe to be true, and I offer them in the hope that they are of value. They might not be, feel free to ignore them, but perhaps they will help. They are offered in that spirit.

And I wish you good luck.

espadagroup• 16 years ago

Thank you for the advice and constructive criticism, and I do take what you say as that. Most of my counterpoints you addressed already (I guess that's a sign of a good leader :); yes my web site CV is more generic, and yes it is unusual for you to be without Word.

The truth is I really respect the leadership at the company that gave me an offer and I WANT that job. My lack of attention to detail to this could be a reflection of that.

Thank you again.

RiderOfGiraffes3• 16 years ago

Good reply.

> The truth is I really respect the leadership at the > company that gave me an offer and I WANT that job. > My lack of attention to detail to this could be a > reflection of that.

Quite possible. Let me offer this thought though - if you tried really hard, maybe you could find an offer that's even more attractive. If you don't try really hard, you'll never know if you simply took the first thing that you liked the look of. Maybe there are things that are even better.

But whatever you decide, I do wish you the best.