Looking for a job? Why not work at a startup?
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One thing I've noticed since leaving uni is the lack of other graduates that have gone into startup jobs. Having done a business degree and knowing many on computer science courses as well I found that many who didn't have a job 6-12 months on hadn't applied for jobs in startups. I think this is mainly because the mentality seems to be go for a 'safe' job in a big company (what about the mass job losses in many corporates?) or to go for a grad scheme, which few startups offer.
I think this is because of the lack of startup jobs on the major job sites and the lack of awareness about startup jobs. They are also often as being less well paid. Well it's true it often does pay less but you also often get more job satisfaction, share options & more responsibility.
There are many job sites now that specifically advertise startup jobs such as Enternships (UK) & CoNotes (US). As many startups grow bigger they are offering proper graduate schemes.
Silicon Milkroundabout brings together 100+ UK startups offering 500+ technical jobs. It is organized by the startup Songkick and the companies which are attending or have attended include the likes of Shazam, Last.FM, MindCandy, Moo & Huddle.
The next event is taking place near London's tech scene in the east of London on Sunday the 30th of October.
The Startup community in the UK is growing rapidly and so are the number of jobs on offer, with the lack of jobs and high competition for jobs in mainstream positions it might be worth considering jobs at smaller startups where your likely to gain more experience and have better career progression opportunities.
Especially in the tech jobs there is an abundance of job roles ready to be filled by hungry graduates, they just need to know where to look.
Here is a nifty infographic detailing the 2011 tech job trends and comparing working in startups vs banks by Adzuna and Silicon Milkroundabout. All the data was collated by Adzuna, a comprehensive search engine for job ads used by hundreds of thousands of jobseekers every month. Adzuna was founded by Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro, who I interviewed a couple months ago.
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