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For many job seekers, startups hold a special allure.There's the chance to help build something from the ground up, gain experience that might take years to acquire at a larger company, and, if things go well, share in the upside through an IPO or other liquidity event.Getting a foot in the door, though, can be difficult, especially now that startups OpenAI and Anthropic have reached eye-popping valuations. Consider that Andrew Benson, founder of pre-IPO trading platform Hill Markets, estimated the SpaceX IPO will mint 4,400 new millionaires, Business Insider previously reported.We asked the people making hiring decisions at Harvey, Lovable, and other buzzy startups what candidates should do — and avoid doing — to improve their chances of getting hired.Here's what they had to say:Join the community before you applyDon't wait until you're job hunting to engage with a startup, said Stacey La Torre, chief people officer at Replit, an AI-powered software-creation platform. Participate in its user community forums, attend virtual or in-person events, and become an active user of the product.This can help you build relationships inside the company, gain a deeper understanding of what it does, and potentially get noticed by hiring managers, she said, adding that the strategy helped a grade-school teacher with no sales experience land a sales job at Replit.Do deep researchRyan Stanford, a people leader at the prediction-markets startup Kalshi, advises job seekers to read founders' blog posts and media coverage to gather talking points for interviews.
