Startup experience on resume
Would you consider having experience with a startup to be a positive on your resume when applying for finance jobs?
I founded a startup that got funding and have it listed on my resume (I'm still the President). I work on it on my free time.
I had a HH tell me that worries him because he thinks I may be distracted and/or may leave when the startup takes off and sees success.
That got me thinking, so I wanted to put the question out to you guys. Do you think leaving the startup experience on my resume is a good idea? Or should I just leave it out
I'm in a similar situation and have mine listed because I have little internship experience. I've also received the same question before but if you spin it off, suggesting that it is just a side hobby for you, you'll be fine. Everyone has a side hobby or something they enjoy doing in their free time. Although you like putting your creativity to the test, your work, job, position comes first and foremost. You can probably say you've exemplified this with college.
If they press this, tell them why you enjoy working in finance. How, although the life of an entrepreneur working with little benefit is romantically appealing, you find joy only in building it as a side hobby. If it does become successful I would say that I would find a buyer or hand it off to a co-founder. And emphasize again why you want to work where you're applying.
Hope it helps and congrats on funding.
Take it off- when it comes to having a little something on the side, it's much safer to practice "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
From my experience, it can be a very good thing so long as you shape it the right way on your resume. It sounds like you may have it listed under work experience? Perhaps you should make a section for it called "Startups and Leadership/Extracurricular/etc". Put your startup and whatever other extracurricular activities you do there. I think that the logic behind all this is to isolate your finance work experience in a way that shows that that's what you're bringing to the table, and that your startup, while invaluable in your development, is just something you wanted to show rather than the centerpiece of your resume.
Check out Joyce Meng's resume - google the name and the website will show up - since I'm pretty sure she saved the world a few times and put that on her resume without drawing attention away from her actual finance experience.
I don't know if this helps, but I met a guy who had only failed startup experience before B School and is now a IBD Associate at a BB.
Really depends on the experience / the amount of funding you received for the idea. I think the general assumption is that if you received a decent amount of funding, you wouldn't be considering a job working for someone else. In which case the start-up experience can detract from your resume.
thanks for the great tips guys. it looks like the right answer is not to remove it completely but to position it in the right way.
my fear was that financial firms may view it as a distraction and/or way out. but i didn't want to remove it since it was an accomplishment and does say something about myself.
for the record, the funding wasn't a very large amount and this was listed under Extracurricular Activities in my resume.
I had a friend who had a similar situation when applying to MBB consulting firms. He didn't put it on his resume, but because it was such an interesting and formative experience, and one that showed a lot of his work ethic/creativity/intelligence characteristics, he made sure to weave it into the personal/behavioral part of the interview in some way -- for example, describing a time that you failed at something, describing a time you were passionate about something, describing a time when you had difficulty with teammates, etc. This might be a cool way to get the best of both worlds.
I met with a director at CS yesterday and actually brought this issue up. He said most large firms take reputational risk very seriously and would likely not allow any activity in a startup once employed. Not sure how true this is but its another perspective.
I'm guessing the solution is to try and target the resume towards the position. For example, if going for a strictly financial position, maybe best to leave it off. If its a position that would appreciate some type of entrepreneurship, maybe then you leave it on.
Might be putting too much thought into this, but it is currently on my resume and I have not been having much luck in the search for a new job so I'm wondering if this has something to do with it.
I think it will show initiative and drive to have something like that on there. If anything, you can downplay it in your resume by not making it sound too much like a full on company or a start-up, but more like a project that you worked on for fun in your personal time.
I don't know if downplaying it would work best. I think the solution I've come up with is to be honest about the great accomplishment but downplay my current involvement in the company. I can say I'm no longer a majority holder and my work is extremely minimal, etc
Most banks will require you to report your outside directorships, and there is a non-zero fraction that will outright bar you from providing professional services to any other business during your employment. It's fair to say that they care about having the whole of your attention.
spinning startup experience for an IB Resume? (Originally Posted: 06/15/2011)
I've been working on a team building a start up company for the past year or so and have since realized that It isn't really for me. Things have worked out pretty well and I've got to do some very interesting things but I'm doubtful we will ever have a decent exit and I don't want to put all of my eggs in one basket. Based on the recent funding we received in exchange for some equity we've got a 5million dollar valuation but lets face it what idea hasn't been over funded lately.
Can anyone give me any advice it leveraging this type of experience to my advantage ?
It is VERY tough to make the transition but not impossible.
On one of the deal I am working, we are working with an Investment Manager that was for a while a successful entrepreneur, then he worked in BB as an Associate and worked his way up to M.D.
In my own opinion: It is not impossible, but keep in mind that the best bet for you would be to actually manage to raise this money, stay in the company long enough / gain some financial exposure and then leverage this experience.
Also, it will be difficult for you to convince Bankers to hire you since you choose the road to entrepreneurship (which is very different from IB).
Keep hustling!
I apologize for not making this clear. I'm only a rising sophomore in college. I'm also the one who put the pitch together for our funding (750k) which I realize is extremely small potatoes in the grand scheme of things but could that be compare to putting a pitch book together for sell side IB ?
this sounds like a great experience that any prospective employer would be highly interested in learning more about. not sure why you think you need to "spin" it some way to make it more "applicable" to IB????
why the hell do you want to do IB when you have been successful this far in a start-up? I'm trying to do the exact opposite.
I'm getting cold feet about being just another kid with a failed internet start up. I still plan to stay involved but I would like to prep for IB on the side just in case
talk about how you prepped the company, statements, and documents for approaching VCs.
Thats what I did
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