A new beginning

I recently accepted a job offer to join a healthcare technology start-up called Medivo. This concluded my 4 months job search. It was actually the first time I  had to find a job after since graduating from college. Before this, I  ran my own tech start-up called Fleetbit. Compared to my experience applying for internships as a student,  I found that I had to work much harder to get that initial interview. In hindsight, this made sense. In college, the pool of competition is much smaller and the firms have a mandate to hire young talent every year through campus recruitment. Those rules don’t apply anymore once I am out of school.

Looking for jobs is hard!

During the first month of my job search, I had very limited success. I mostly applied online. Out of the 10 jobs I applied to, only 1 of them got back to me for an interview. Despite several iterations of improvement on my resume and cover letter, the conversion rate did not improve at all. After a month, I concluded that my resume was not the issue. Instead, I needed a different way to get the employer’s attention and establish credibility.  Going through the regular recruitment channel was not a good option.

Having started Fleetbit, I knew I had a unique and compelling story to tell. My hypothesis was that if I can make my case directly to the decision maker instead of going through the recruiter, my success rate will dramatically improve.

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