Risk vs. Reward - Choosing Your Startup #2

For the next few weeks, we're going to be featuring a five part series by Sally Bolig, Head of Talent Acquisition at Yotpo. Stay tuned to learn more about how to decide if the startup life is for you!

First-Tier
These are the key components that you want to prioritize. All of these first-tier questions are not only appropriate to ask, but interviewers will respect that you have thought to dig so deep. It demonstrates your commitment to understanding the ins and outs of their organization.

1. Does the company want to be purchased or to IPO (go public)?
There isn’t a right answer but depending on what you’re hoping to accomplish at this company, it matters.

If a company is working toward being purchased, this purchase could occur in 4 years but it could also occur in 6 months. There is a lot to be said for being with a company that was acquired and therefore successfully demonstrated true value. You knew how to choose a high-quality company and contributed to the company’s accomplishment. But it also means that your company is no longer a startup. This could result in you now having a gig at a big name company, or losing your job all-together.

An IPO typically takes a longer time to attain. As long as you’re happy and performing, you’ll have the ability to work with this company for the foreseeable future as it grows and proves value. Typically companies looking to IPO are extremely passion based. However in order to IPO, a company needs to demonstrate a value-add more appealing and accepted than any competitor of theirs does and, of course, there are few companies that successfully do so.

2. How long has the company been trying to fill the role you’re interviewing for, and why is it open in the first place?
Much of the time the reason will be because the organization is going through a growth stage and this is a purely new position. Sometimes, it’s not so simple.

It’s important to understand whether this position has been open for a long time. If so, why is that? What about the other candidates proved to not be a fit? Has the spec for the role changed a number of times? Dig.

It’s also important to understand whether the previous person in this role was fired or quit. If so, why? What has the company learned from the departure of that employee? How has that impacted who they’re looking to hire this go round? Dig.

3. How often do people leave the company of their own volition? How often are people fired?
In many startups, there is high turnover. Those are not the sorts of startups you want to join. Ask questions around who is leaving, how often and why.

Also, if you’re interviewing for a sales role and are told that the reason people are leaving is simply because “it’s sales” and “a hard job,” know that you’re being misled. There are many companies where salespeople remain for a long time.

4. Talking sales roles, how many reps are hitting quota?
When it comes to any sales role, you will never find a company where 100% of the team is to quota. If you do, either the person you’re speaking to is lying or leadership has done a haphazard job of creating goals. Look to hear that somewhere between 70-90% of reps are hitting quota. Those are healthy figures.

5. Are promotions tenure or merit based?
If you’re exploring startup, the answer you want to hear here is that promotions are merit based. Of course there will always be guidelines around how early you could expect to be eligible for a promotion (9-14 months is typical), but in a startup environment you should be somewhere with management that takes into consideration not only tenure but performance, hard work, initiative and positive influence within the organization.

6. Will you have at least one key manager who has done your job before and who has influence in creating your goals?
In simpler terms, if you’re a SDR, is there someone who has actually cold-called people for a living who is a key player in making decisions about your future quotas and growth?

This is important because you want to be led by individuals who know the reality of your day to day. They can sympathize with your struggles and be your champion, but they can also call you out when you’re making excuses.


7. What is the company’s anticipated growth in regards to head-count?
Look for growing companies but be wary of companies that are growing too quickly. But what does realistic growth look like? There is no true rule of thumb, but if a company of 100 employees is telling you that they’re scaling to 400+, that’s reason for concern. It isn’t a deal-breaker but ask probing questions around what has inspired that growth. There is such thing as growing too quickly and sometimes it can result in layoffs.

Risk vs. Reward - Choosing Your Startup #1

For the next few weeks, we're going to be featuring a five part series by Sally Bolig, Head of Talent Acquisition at Yotpo. Stay tuned to learn more about how to decide if the startup life is for you!

Yotpo has been visiting a number of career fairs this year and whether at Fordham, or other colleges we visited, something we quickly learned was that the idea of working in startup was something very foreign to most students we met. Some people thought startup sounded fun and exciting while others worried the risk was far too high.

This makes a ton of sense. Startups are synonymous with accelerated growth, but they’re also synonymous with risk. What are the areas of the organization that you need to dig into in order to figure out whether the startup you’re interviewing with is going to be around a year from today, and whether the management truly knows what they’re doing?

We heard from students a question that we often hear from candidates interviewing at Yotpo: how do I go about making an informed decision around joining a startup? Hearing it again from entrepreneurial driven students inspired us to create a post that could help.


Before the Interview
1. What is their funding status and what does that even mean?
Your first stop should be to check crunchbase.com. This website provides an enormous and very helpful database of companies, their funding, their investors and even information about the leadership.

Typically, startups with less than $5M in funding are considered exceptionally early stage. They’re probably either in Seed Funding or Series A. The risk would be higher with companies of this size.

Companies with more $100M in funding are very far along in their rounds of funding and whether they’re still even a startup is questionable. The sweet-spot when it comes to high-growth, but healthily funded, ranges from about $15M-$70M in Series B or C.


2. While you’re on the site anyway, who are their investors?
Investors have a key stake in the companies they invest in, and every large decision a company makes is run past the board of investors before any action is taken. By clicking on investors within crunchbase, you can actually access their portfolios and get a feel for whether they have invested in other successful startups in the past.

Internship Experience at The Dr. Oz Show by Elle Rose

     My name is Elle Rose, I’m a senior English major at FCRH, and I just spent the last semester working as a production intern at the Dr. Oz Show!
     I found the Dr. Oz Show internship program through Fordham’s Career Link service, and applied in April to be an intern for the Fall semester. We had our first orientation session in early August, and I met the 13 other interns I’d be working with for the next four months.
     Working as a production intern meant that you could work in one of several departments on any given day. Every week the interns would work in their assigned departments: field, office, booking, studio, audience, post-production, or producing. The show would tape two episodes three days out of the week. If you were scheduled to work on a ‘taping day’ — then you’d most likely be placed in the studio working in either the studio, audience, or producing departments. On a non-taping day, you’d be in the office, working with either the field, office, or booking departments.
     Taping days meant early call times. All staff had to be at the studio, or office (depending on where you were scheduled), by 7 AM. There were a variety of daily tasks the interns would work together on finishing up before we all went off to work with our own departments — like distributing dressing room assignments, printing out show rundowns, and setting up dressing rooms for show guests.
     While our morning tasks were communal, each intern had a different set of tasks to work on within their specific department. Working with studio meant that you got to be a part of all studio rehearsals — usually standing in for the guests scheduled to be on the show, for blocking purposes. Working with audience meant a lot of time up on your feet, helping out with audience load-in and load-out and answering various questions from audience members, and guiding them through the maze-like studio to their seats. Working with producing meant preparing script cards for all guests on the show, and making sure that all appropriate release forms were signed by both guests, and audience members that were featured on the show.
     Thankfully, not all of our days were as early as taping days. On non-taping days, everyone reported to the office by 9 AM. All the interns were expected to help with restocking the pantry, and making sure coffees, plates, napkins, and silverware were properly stocked in the office kitchen. Field interns often had to transcribe videos, and some even got to go on out-of- office field shoots. Booking interns had a variety of tasks — including researching contact information for possible guests for the show, researching recently released health and wellness books, and preparing informational spreadsheets on upcoming guests. Office interns usually helped out with any department that didn’t have a pre-assigned intern — which typically included researching stock photos and clips, putting together spreadsheets, and sometimes sitting in at reception.
     Before working with the Dr. Oz show, I thought I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do post- graduation — but having the opportunity to work with so many different departments allowed me to expand my interests and skill set! I now have a greater understanding of just how much goes into making a television production, and a clearer picture of what it is I’d like to do when I graduate from Fordham in May!

Internship Experience at Rebecca Taylor by Nicole Cruz

Ever walk out of an interview feeling defeated? That’s how I felt after I interviewed for the Buying Intern position at Rebecca Taylor, a luxury women’s clothing brand.

I had done my homework on the company and read up on the candidate requirements for the role days in advance. I felt confident and thought I would blow my interviewer away. But once I sat down and my interviewer started to ask me questions, things started to go south—or at least I thought so. She began asking me questions about retail math and Excel formulas that I had no understanding of. It became clear to me that I wasn’t exactly qualified for the position.

Much to my surprise, I got an email a few days later from HR offering me the internship.

My time with Rebecca Taylor has taught me so much about the fashion industry. I have learned the huge role that buying plays and how closely it is related to marketing and sales. In addition to the technical knowledge I have gained, I have also discovered a lot about myself as a professional. I learned that whenever I have a challenging project or am unsure of something, my time at Fordham has provided me with an answer. What do I mean by this? I mean that my Fordham education has taught me valuable life lessons that are applicable to any workplace. I have learned how to collaborate with others, how to analyze a situation or document, how to quickly learn new systems and skills, and how to come up with innovative solutions to problems that arise. All of these things I’ve learned at Fordham helped me to be a stand out intern, even though my technical experience was lacking at first. My supervisor has even asked me to stay on for the Spring semester!

By relying on the knowledge I’ve gained at Fordham, I was able to prove myself to my supervisor and show her that I can handle anything. I hope that all Fordham students can take my experience and apply it to their own lives. Never be scared to apply to a job where you’re lacking in technical qualifications. Rely on your experiences from Fordham and spin them in a way that will set you apart in an interview setting. A Fordham education will always give you a leg up in the working world, especially in NYC! Thanks to the chance my supervisor took bringing me on, I have been able to grow as a professional and I hope that you will all be given the same chance.

Information about Rebecca Taylor and other positions like this can be found here.