Getting a job in a startup in 5 easy, actionable steps

A step-by-step process for using Google and LinkedIn to find startups who are hiring and the people you need to contact about getting a job.

Forget about the wishy-washy inspiration stuff that you normally get from postings about finding a job — I’m here to share with you an actionable process I’ve developed over the last year so that you can land a job in a startup, even in the current climate. I’ve tried-and-tested this process with a number of people from the ERIC community I work with. This will make you feel way less anxious about getting a job right now and will help you regain control of your situation.

Step 1: Make a spreadsheet

This is going to be where you store all the data from the next steps. You’ll be collecting names of companies, names of people to contact, email addresses. You need to be able to store them effectively.

1. Lists of industries / types of businesses
2. Companies to apply for
3. Email drafts

Step 2: Identify the different areas you want to work in

List them all in the spreadsheet under the ‘Lists of industries / types of businesses’ tab.

This can be done by industry, job title, size of company, location… whatever you want. As many as you want. You just have to narrow down and clarify the areas you want to work in. This will make step 3 a lot easier. Keep adding to this list every time you come across a sector / department / etc that might be of interest to you. This should be an ever-evolving list.

Step 3: Find the startups who are hiring (i.e. the ones who have money)

There is some evidence to suggest that up to 70% of jobs are never even advertised — this is called the hidden job market, meaning that many jobs are filled through a person’s network. Hugely prevalent in the startup world, as lots of founders are inexperienced in hiring. Most advice given around solving this problem is ‘expand your network’. Utterly useless advice in my opinion. You can totally find some of these jobs with the help of pure logic and google.

Just think about it — when does a company want to hire people? When it has money. And when does a company have money? Well, for example when they’ve received investment. Or when they’ve won a new client. Or when their product has really taken off. Finding out if any of these situations has happened is so easy. Why? Because when companies do things like land investment, or a new client, or have a super successful product, they tend to want to tell everyone about it. So they ALWAYS try and get press around it.

This is where google comes in handy.

First, open the ‘Companies to apply for’ tab in your spreadsheet. You want 6 columns — Company Name, URL, Article, Contact, Contact title, Contact Email.

Then, you want go to google. Type in the industry you want to work in, followed by ‘investment’ and click on the ‘News’ sub category on google search. So, if I wanted to work in the health & wellbeing sector, I would type in ‘wellness startup investment’. Please note this works particularly well for startups in a booming industry, which is why the terms startup works best.

If you want to search for companies who have launched a new product instead, just type in ‘[industry] contact new client’ and click on the news tab.

If you want to search for companies who have launched a new product instead, just type in ‘[industry] company launches’ and click on the news tab.

Now you have the keywords and you can start filling in the first 3 columns on your spreadsheet!

Step 4: Find the email you need

This is an easy step. Again, simply logic. There are 2 parts to an email address [name]@[company URL] So for example:

sam@meet-eric.com

So in order to find out someone’s email address, you simply need to get the company website (which will make up the second part of the email address) and the name of the person you’re trying to target (which will be the first part of the email address).

So, this is how you find the parts you need. Let’s say you’ve found a company you want to work for via step 3. This is what you do next, in order to find the next 3 columns on your spreadsheet:

1. Go onto the company website. The URL of the website is the second part of the email you need.
2. Now you need to find out the name of the person. Gooogle the company name and the word ‘linkedin’. If they have a linkedin page go on it.
3. Click on the ‘see all [number] employees’ link on the top right of the company page.
4. Now go up to the searchbar and type in the job area you want to work in. So if you want to work in marketing, type in ‘marketing’. If the company is under 10 people, or doesn’t have a department in the area you want to work in, I recommend finding the CEO or Founder. The head of department is the name of the person you want.
5. So, now you have the name of the person you want to email and the URL of the company, you have all parts of the email.
6. 9 times out of 10, the email formula for startup emails is either ‘firstname@company.com’ or ‘firstname.surname@company.com’. So you have all parts now!
7. Follow this formula for all the companies you’ve listed and fill out the spreadsheet.

Step 5: Send them an email

This needs to be short and to the point and adapted for the different types of companies / recipients you’re emailing. Here’s an example:

Hi [first name of person],

I wanted to get in touch as I understand [name of company] has recently received investment (congratulations!) and I wanted to drop you a line to see if you’re considering expanding your [department] team?

I’m a huge fan of [name of company] and I’ve been following you for a while and keeping an eye out for roles available but none have yet come up I’ve seen. I have worked in [department] for a while now for a number of companies at a junior level and absolutely love the pace and dynamic of the work. I’ve built up a portfolio that I’m hoping you might be able to take a look at and consider me for any roles that might become available soon? I am very passionate about the industry, a great team player and hugely intuitive and I’d love to be able to challenge myself and accelerate my learning with you all at [company].

I’ve attached my portfolio and CV for you to take a look at — I’m hoping that even if you aren’t planning on advertising any roles just yet that you’ll consider me and see I’ll be able to bring a huge amount of enthusiasm and hard work to the table!

Best wishes,

[your name]

You want to keep adding to the spreadsheet for every time you tweak the email to fit a certain target and add tags next to each email so it saves you time. For example, if you want to apply to companies in both the music industry and fashion industry, you will want different emails for each one. You will also develop subcategories under each industry, hence the tags — it makes it easily searchable for you. This is why you need a spreadsheet — if you’re organised about the different email templates you have, it’ll save you so much time in the long run.

Rest assured, these startups will be hiring. Most of them spend almost all the money they get on expanding teams, so this targeted, logical approach yields results. Good luck!

This article has actually been turned into a workshop by the author Sam and her business partner Mae. Watch or listen to them chat through the reasons for creating the article and how they’ve actioned these points in their own lives here.

This workshop is the first in a series titled ‘The Career & Self-Development Series by ERIC’. All are action-focused and designed to not only help you know what you want from a career but also find companies that are hiring, get in touch with them, interview with them and find people who can help you get the future you want.

Mae & Sam run ERIC together, a community that empowers Gen Z creatives through career & self-development content.

ERIC are launching a career and self-development app. Sign up to be an app tester at meet-eric.co/app.