How to get a job in VC: the college student edition
Originally written for the Hamilton College business connect newsletter in response to a series of questions geared towards current college students. I graduated from Hamilton in 2007.
Being an investor was never something I planned to do. I’d never even heard the phrase “venture capital” while I was at Hamilton. Actually, the first time I remember it was from the movie The Wedding Crashers with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn: the two of them show up at weddings with believably self-important cover stories like “we’re two brothers from New Hampshire and we’re venture capitalists.” It was the kind of job title that made my younger self’s eyes glaze over. But now that I’m here, I realize how fascinating, impactful, and unique a career it is.
My path in brief: relevant hobbies throughout my life (video gaming, podcasting, blogging), plus psychology/English undergrad degrees at Hamilton → JD from UConn Law → working at multiple venture-backed startups → non-investment job at VC firm → investment job at VC firm.
A typical day for me might look like this:
As you can see, VC isn’t a 9–5 job. It doesn’t really “end.” For me, it’s more than a career: it’s my life. Many of my friends work at startups and at venture firms. I spend nights and weekends educating myself on new technologies and companies, writing blog posts, flying all across North America (and sometimes to London), going to conferences, and putting out various metaphorical fires.
So it’s not easy, and yet there are a lot of misconceptions about what it is. Venture capitalists in general aren’t great developers of junior talent. It’s not like a normal job function where there’s an ascending ladder of neat titles and constructed programs where you move up, like with investment banks or private equity firms that siphon up MBA students. Venture doesn’t really have that. Although some of the big firms might have associate programs, most don’t.
The number of jobs that come up annually is just a handful. There are roughly the same number of open U.S. professional athlete positions as there are available VC positions nationwide. And because of that scarcity, those jobs are always going to people who already have context around startups, their own deal flow, strong networks, unique talents, advisor or angel roles, or as many of the above as possible.
So how do you get a job in VC? It just kind of…happens. You don’t pick venture; venture picks you. But you can increase the odds by doing some of the following:
For those who want more info on how to get a job in venture capital, check out my longer blog post on the topic.
How to prepare while you’re in college
I’ve always been obsessed with a few things since I was a kid and until today: human psychology, technology (especially via gaming and sci-fi), fitness, and reading/writing. Thus I entered Hamilton without certainty about what I wanted to do for a living, but steered toward my interests with a major in Psychology, a minor in English, and four years on the track and field team. During my senior year I ditched the idea of being a clinical psychologist (I’m too impatient to listen to people’s problems because I just want to solve them) and applied to law school. It seemed like a more efficient route to solve problems, and the day-to-day of law is a ton of reading and writing. (Spoiler alert: having a law degree is barely relevant in VC, but it certainly didn’t hurt. More on that here.)
Looking back, the skills that make great early-stage venture capitalists are exactly those I honed at Hamilton. Early-stage VCs are evaluating people and ideas. It’s less spreadsheet models and investment banking than it is the messy psychology of people and their relationships, the unrestrained vision of imagining what future technology could be, crisp reading comprehension and writing, and a tireless curiosity to learn (mostly through reading) and work hard.
Here’s a list of the areas I focused on while at Hamilton that helped me, followed by additional areas where I would have focused if I could go back in time.
What I did to (unintentionally) prepare:
What I would have done if I could go back in time:
What is the role and culture around women in VC?
It’s an interesting time to be a woman in venture. The #MeToo movement and Harvey Weinstein debacle had far-reaching effects on other industries outside Hollywood, including tech. There’s a palpable feeling that the lack of women in VC (and as CEOs, and founders, and C-suite executives, and in STEM) is unacceptable.
I’ve seen this feeling manifest in several ways. First, there’s a movement underway to hire and promote more women in VC. If you’re an all-male, all-white VC firm in 2019, there’s real pressure and shaming to diversify. Public diversity rankings and targeted journalism are making it harder to hide when you aren’t hiring women or minorities.
Second, female venture groups are taking off. Groups as large and public as All Raise and as small and private as several of us women investors in Boston tech having dinners at each other’s houses every few months are happening everywhere. My own contribution to this movement was to co-found Rev Boston, an annual event/award that honors the top 20 women in Boston tech at the VP/director level of their careers and teaches them how to become angel investors, founders, board members, advisors, and more. Rev is now on its 5th year with 80 members.
Third, there’s a lot left to do. It’s common for me to be the only woman and the youngest person in board rooms, which is not a comfortable situation. Imposter syndrome is real and it disproportionately affects women. We’re still facing a significant wage gap. There’s still an unfair double standard where a man who says what he thinks is brazen and respectable, whereas a woman who does the same is crazy or a bitch. There are far fewer women engineers, execs, investors, and founders in the tech startup universe than men. And sexual harassment, abuse, and just plain uncomfortable situations are still rampant. I don’t mean to end on a negative note, but despite positive growth for women in tech in the past few years, now is not the time to sit back and relax.
How to get a job in VC: the college student edition
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