AMA with YC: Job Searching During an Economic Downturn (Event Summary)

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Hey everyone, I'm Paige from Y Combinator, where I help people get jobs at YC startups through Work at a Startup. We hosted an event last week focused on job searching during an economic downturn, and especially considerations when looking at startups. We decided not to record the event because we wanted people to have an open environment to ask questions and to have them be anonymous if they wanted.

Even if you couldn't make it this time around, we'll be hosting similar events in the future, and I will link them below, or you can find them at workatastartup.com/events. So in case you missed the event, here are three of the best questions we got.

One: What is the best way to stand out when applying for jobs? The context behind this question was like, hey, I'm applying to a lot of jobs, but I feel like my application is either getting ignored or maybe it's getting looked at and I don't hear back. So the short answer to this one is to personalize your outreach messages because no one likes spam. Companies will know if you're kind of using the same one or two sentences to paste into every application. So definitely take a look at what the company does, think about what you can do to help that company specifically, and take the time to really personalize your application to that company.

Question number two: What are good questions to ask to gauge things like company stability and runway while interviewing at startups? This is a great question because it highlights how interviewing is a two-way street. As a candidate, you need to really sell yourself, but you also need to be interviewing the founders and interviewing the company to learn more about what you're getting yourself into and whether it's a good fit. I'm not going to answer the question fully, but that's something for you to think about.

And then, three: Does an earlier YC company, so say from like winter 2019, mean a better opportunity than a newer YC company, like from summer 2022? This is an interesting question because it kind of opens up a whole other discussion topic about personal preferences and risk tolerances. I think the main point for this question is that there's not a better company, so to speak. There are companies that will be better fits for you, and that all depends on what you're looking for, what type of job you want, what risk tolerance you have in joining an early stage company, etc.

So we're actually hosting an event about startup stages—what's the difference between a seed stage company, growth company, pre-IPO? How do the roles change? How can you think about what is the best fit for you? That event will be on August 3rd. I can share the link here, and you can also see it at workatastartup.com/events.

So thank you for listening in. I really hope to see you at the next event.

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