🚀 First JobSoftware Engineer2 min read

Bad Grades, Cold Emails, and Landing at a Toronto Startup in 2011

A new grad with zero experience and poor grades spent 2-3 months targeting startups with looser HR filters so he could reach developers before transcripts came up. He cold-emailed every company on a 'Canada's Top 100 Start-Ups' list and landed at one where he still works years later. Now a hiring manager himself, he shares what actually moves the needle when evaluating new grads.

Key takeaways

  • →Target companies with lighter HR filters so engineers evaluate you before transcripts or GPA come up.
  • →Cold-email systematically: cast a wide net from a curated list and follow up on every positive reply.
  • →Have every project on your CV demo-ready; if you are not excited to show it, cut it from your CV.
  • →Sell learning agility over specific tech stacks; hiring managers assume new-grad experience is shallow.
  • →Follow up with engineers you meet at events; a quick email a few days later revives a forgotten conversation.

It was summer 2011 in Toronto. I had zero professional experience and bad grades coming out of school. I knew that at many places, HR would ask for a transcript before I ever got to talk to an engineer who could actually judge my potential, so I focused my energy on companies where the process seemed lax enough that I'd reach developers first.

At the start of my search, the Star/Globe ran an insert called 'Canada's Top 100 Start-Ups.' I cold-emailed every one that seemed interesting. A few got back to me, and the one that did is where I'm still working.

Now that I'm on the other side of the table at a roughly 25-person dev shop, here's what I actually think about when evaluating new grads:

Passion as a proxy for potential. Most new grads won't be a valuable contributor for at least six months while I get them up to speed. I'm betting on long-term upside, so I want to see genuine enthusiasm for the craft.

Show your work, literally. If your CV mentions a mobile app, have it installed on your phone. If it's a web app, have it bookmarked and walk me through it. If you're not excited to show it, I'll assume it's bad or unfinished. These don't need to be sophisticated; I'm checking that you can apply technology in a non-academic, self-motivated context.

Communicate well. I'm going to spend a lot of time teaching you things, so I'm probing whether you can absorb it emotionally and socially.

Don't oversell your tech stack. I'll assume your experience is academic in depth. Instead of boasting about Scala from one co-op term, sell me on how fast you'll pick up whatever I need you to learn.

Follow up after meetups. The engineer you spoke with probably wasn't being polite and forgetting you; they just forgot. Email them a few days later to remind them you exist.

Adapted from a public post by JimmyL on Hacker News. Read the original →

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