> Got direct feedback from one that I lacked skills in fast growing startups and two feedbacks that I wasn't a fit ...
Hilarious - Are they right?
Consider the source -- frankly, many startup leaders lack the executive seasoning and managerial savvy to make a balanced scorecard assessment of talent. Their hiring criteria often boil down to 'hot or not'.
Get clarity on your targets -- specifically, WHO is the Founder, Co-Founder, Early-Stage manager YOU can most help? That's the person you want to speak with.
How would one find out? If as OP stated, their skills lined up and matched the job requirements, how will they ever know?
Startup recruiting seems a lot like modern dating: a lot of terribly communicated expectations resulting one party effectively "ghosting" on the other, ending in a lot of frustration and apathy from one party at the other because of said terrible communication-and that resentment or 'baggage' being unknowingly carried with them to the next interview cycle.
"Not a good fit" can mean anything from asking too much salary, to being just a month short of the necessary 5 years of experience for a tech stack that's been around for 3, to not wearing the right color shirt to the interview. You'll never know what "not a good fit" means because it seems like once a company decides you're not the perfect unicorn, rockstar candidate with a pocket full of ninja stars, you never hear from them again.
But don't worry, your resume is kept on file for other roles.
> How would one find out? If as OP stated, their skills lined up and matched the job requirements, how will they ever know?
Job hunting as a software engineer has just become a literal grindfest. There’s very little signal you can obtain from the entire process, but you can gain a lot of noise.
It doesn't help seeing people give hiring managers and recruiters so many excuses for just plain shitty behavior at large.
I have to painstakingly detail and format my resume so YOUR job software can parse it, make it easy to scan and read but the job advertisement itself looks like someone let their cat walk on the keyboard?
Granted it's a minor thing in the grand scheme of how much cruft jobseekers put up with just to get noticed and have a snowballs chance in hell of even getting a screening call-but I'm beginning to hold a lot of contempt for the job hunt. More than just the stress of needing a job and the people involved who seem to-by many indications-look at job seekers as subhuman.
It is amazing to me how hard it is to be hired and at the same time how many folks are "hiring". I wonder whether the Aziz Ansari issues around dating have spread to the startup world:
Hilarious - Are they right?
Consider the source -- frankly, many startup leaders lack the executive seasoning and managerial savvy to make a balanced scorecard assessment of talent. Their hiring criteria often boil down to 'hot or not'.
Get clarity on your targets -- specifically, WHO is the Founder, Co-Founder, Early-Stage manager YOU can most help? That's the person you want to speak with.