You just spent 4 years grinding:
through a good college
learning the fundamentals in classrooms and on Youtube
going deep on everything from web-dev to operating systems
spending precious weekends at hackathons on 0 sleep
Society promised you a job; perhaps one at a startup. In fact, you probably came into university filled with spirit, telling yourself things like,
"I can't wait to graduate and work for an exciting startup in the heart of Silicon Valley"
"I can't wait to find a mission, do my life's work, and potentially make boatloads of money that could retire my parents."
You've gotten good grades. You did what everyone told you to do. You're not getting a callback.
Information Asymmetry
A simple truth, from the founder's side: good talent is, and always will be, in short supply.
What I've found is that many young graduates come into the job market with a great deal of imposter syndrome, thinking along the lines of, "nobody will want to hire me because I lack YoE & I don't know anything."
Asymmetry #1: It's true—you lack the YoE AND don't really know much—but founders are actually still eager to hire.
So why is it so difficult, even for candidates with a great background and a genuinely solid resume?
Asymmetry #2: we don't know anything about you, other than the words on your resume.
Standing Out
The following is a bit of trite advice—but I'm surprised at how little it's actually implemented.
Again, your resume mean very little, if anything. None of the words on your resume carry any real weight because it's just improbable for you to have the amount of impact you claim in your 2-month internship over the summer.
What we do look for are signs of initiative and spikes. We ask ourselves, "does this person have a clear spike?" "Is this person taking initiative with side projects or other interesting rabbit-holes?" "Does this person show high slope, with good work ethic?"
In short, signs of spikiness, initiative, slope, and work ethic.
That's really it.
Trying to convey any/all of this in a resume effectively is an insurmountable task. By relying strictly on your resume, you're also playing the attention lottery of a given founder. Founders are stretched thin; they're juggling a million things in their minds at any given time—a stack of resumes from recent graduates is not going to command their top-of-mind.
Stop treating resumes as lottery tickets. Decide your fate and take agency!
So what can you do?
Provide value. Value is the currency of the world of business.
And guess what—it can be incredibly simple. Here are some really easy examples:
"Hey I asked 10 people at my college about the copy on your website and this is what they said: <>"
"I just tried your product & have some feedback on the onboarding flow. Here's what I would do instead: <>"
"I read through your blogs and ended up doing a little bit of research on my own. Here's what I found: <>"
The reason such a simple exercise is so effective is because it's actually incredibly rare to see. And because it's so rare, it immediately grabs attention—your highest-leverage move for landing at least an interview, if not a job.
The bar for standing out is, in reality, very low.
As an aside: I think the reason graduates (or even industry folks) don't do this is because of the information asymmetry that exists, as previously alluded to. They're afraid it'll be wasted effort and time—and perhaps they believe it's embarrassing (to others, but mostly to themselves). Don't be like this.
Second aside: don't BS this with some AI slop, especially if you're trying to work at an AI company. We can tell, and if it's seen as slop, it'll probably mean the end of your candidacy at that company.
The Playbook
So what does this mean, concretely?
Really, it comes down to quality > quantity. Here's what I would do:
First, find companies that you would actually enjoy working at (look at the product, people, online resources, etc.)
Talk to a couple of founders (at any stage) & ask what their problems and their days are like. Think of them as your "customers". Go beyond surface level so you can find value-adding tasks.
Make sure the company is actually hiring (duh).
With your homework above, find literally anything that you think would provide value to that company's founders.
Send an email with said value + connect with them on LinkedIn.
Wait, go touch grass.
If you have a personal website, link it too—give folks any reason to want to chat with you; the more transparency of who you are, the better
I guarantee you'll find a job in <2 weeks if you take this seriously. If this doesn't work and you've actually gone through all the steps above with integrity, DM me and I'll personally match you with all the best founders I know.
Caveats
I'll leave with some caveats, especially with AI coding in today's age:
AI has raised the bar (perhaps too high rn) for engineers. What you're expected to produce is higher than what it was 5 years ago—but it's not astronomical.
The default expectation is for you to be AI-native (or embody AI-native behaviors).
AI slop projects won't impress founders; find more creative things to show off your skills. The cost of software is going to 0.
The market is much tougher than when I graduated from college—but business competition itself is much tougher too; it's truly the Red Queen Effect.