Not a YC startup, but jobs I've posted recently had over a thousand applicants in the first few weeks. I post multiple places, including HN. There's a huge culling process to find the 20-30 most applicable candidates, then to narrow down from there to the 1-2 that fit best.
The best way to stand out (for me) is a real application not written with AI. Everyone uses AI now and it all sounds the same. Express your honest enthusiasm for joining the company/mission in the cover letter (maybe 20% of applicants submit a cover letter, and a smaller fraction of that was written by real people, and smaller fraction of that gives authentic enthusiastic vibes). Use your real voice in your writing. I give the AI applicants a chance if their resume makes sense, but it's a minefield.
> Express your honest enthusiasm for joining the company/mission in the cover letter…
I just can’t muster honest enthusiasm for all the companies/missions to which I must apply to get even a call from their internal recruiter. I have enthusiasm for creating viable, efficient, maintainable software. I can adapt those skills to the mission du jour. But apparently, that’s not sufficient - if it were, my 30yrs of experience would get me hired.
If, by chance, a company or mission are reprehensible to me, I just won’t apply. If I’ve applied, I’m certainly willing to apply my skills to your project.
I'm in a mission driven organization so I pay more attention to that than other companies might. Regardless, a little authenticity and enthusiasm can go a long way. The bar is low.
That's a given. Many tech jobs still pay well enough to have a luxurious life. Some jobs pay more because they have to. The biggest nightmare for me would be seeing 7 years go by and accomplishing nothing.
When we do our job, we very rarely interact directly with the "mission".
We are coders, if we like the project/technology and the team is fun, of course we will be happy to do our job well.
On the other hand, what does the mission matter if you are unqualified and can't solve the problems at hand.
Yes, a good mission is always a plus, but most capable coders code because the problem/implementation is interesting. They won't magically code better if the code is intended to be used for some Earth-saving purpose.
> When we do our job, we very rarely interact directly with the "mission".
And this is the problem, if I am hiring for a startup or in my case green field initiatives, I don’t need just “coders”. I need people who understand the business and can give prescriptive insights and deal with the ambiguity that comes with any green field initiative. If you are just a coder, how do you plan to stand out from the literally 1000s of applications that every company gets?
You can still stand out by being an outstanding coder and good person/communicator.
In my experience, companies tend to avoid people that know or pretend to know too much about the company/vision. I'm not sure why that is, but likely because they want someone for a specific role, not a generalist. They want someone who will be happy doing their job, not have their focus spread across disciplines. In the (really incipient) start-up environment it's good to have generalists, but such jobs are kind of rare.
Plus, when it comes to mission, people can just say what the company wants to hear, a lot easier to fake interest than the coding and communication skills.
> You can still stand out by being an outstanding coder and good person/communicator.
There are tens of thousands of “outstanding coders” and even if you are one of the best, how do you communicate that through a resume to stand out from the crowd? Honestly, most companies don’t need great coders.
Historically I haven’t cared about the mission of the company except when I was working for a company that sent nurses to the homes of special needs kids and when I was consulting for state and local government during COVID.
But, what triggered me is the thought “I just care about coding and not the actual business value of what I’m doing
Yeah, that's true, it's very hard to stand out or know how good someone actually is through a short CV.
> not the actual business value of what I’m doing
Assuming that you are not willingly going to work for a company that does harm (i.e. gambling, borderline scams, etc.), most businesses should actually provide some sort of value to some people (otherwise they wouldn't have revenue).
Yes, working for a medical company who tries to cure cancer is a meaningful mission, but so is for a company creating entertainment (games/movies), educational content or even for companies that simply aid other companies in achieving their goals, or slightly improving people's lives.
I think the least meaningful type of work is actually the one that has a meaningful but unachievable mission. Like "web3 decentralization". Yes, the idea sounds nice, but if it's impossible or impractical to reach the goal, it doesn't really do any good either, or can even turn it into a harmful process.
Meaning doesn't only come from the business goals themselves, but also from the people you work with. You can still find meaning in helping those around you.
I am not disagreeing with you, but I was raised and spent my life being a coder. If my sole goal in life was to help people (instead of enjoying the coding/creation process), I would have become a medic or something with a clear purpose.
Agreed on the "no AI messaging". And keep it incredibly short. Like 140 characters short. The messages that stand out look a lot more like tweets than they do cover letters.
AI messages are always 500 words of rehashing the JD, so your goal is to not look like that.
Just an FYI: every single career/job search coach I've worked with or read advises either to use a generic cover letter (basically referring the reader to the resume) or to skip it entirely.
RE: "the enthusiasm" part, you obviously decide who you hire as a hiring manager, but you might be overlooking a LOT of qualified candidates if you're looking for "enthusiasm" on the resume...
The best way to stand out (for me) is a real application not written with AI. Everyone uses AI now and it all sounds the same. Express your honest enthusiasm for joining the company/mission in the cover letter (maybe 20% of applicants submit a cover letter, and a smaller fraction of that was written by real people, and smaller fraction of that gives authentic enthusiastic vibes). Use your real voice in your writing. I give the AI applicants a chance if their resume makes sense, but it's a minefield.