College juniors and seniors are under a lot of pressure to succeed in classes this fall – and that pressure doubles if they want to go on to a career in the technology or startup world. The level of competition for these jobs is intense , with tech recruiters racing to scoop up the best and brightest from universities year after year. While tech companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple consistently take up the top 5 spots in lists of companies college grads want to work for, others dream of success and fame in the startup world. In effect, there’s a new gold rush in California: it’s called the Tech Scene.
So what does it take to get a job and succeed in the Silicon Valley, Austin or New York tech hubs?
We asked executives at Course Hero, and education technology start up backed by Silicon Valley legends Steve Chen (Founder of YouTube) and Innovation Endeavours (the venture fund of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt), what advice they would give to a college student who was laser focused on working in tech.
Course Hero CEO Andrew Grauer, who founded the company as a student at Cornell University in 2006, knows what it takes to make it in the industry. Course Hero has now expanded to serve a community of 10 million students and teachers and employs a staff of over 100 people in Redwood City, CA. The platform supports a massive resource library featuring study materials from courses at 11,000 schools, along with additional features like real-time tutoring services. All of this is in support of Grauer’s mission to build the largest library of course-specific questions and answers in the world.
Curated tips on the list include networking paths like joining a sorority, but also some surprising tidbits.
#1 TAKE ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101
If offered at your school, take an entrepreneurship lecture series course. This allows you to learn from actual, seasoned entrepreneurs. Andrew, for example, took a one credit entrepreneurship lecture series course at Cornell that invited alumni leaders to talk about their experiences with students. He calls it “valuable and inspirational.” And let’s face it, how cool would it be to go to a lecture led by Bill Gates or Sergey Brin?
#2 INTERNING IS YOUR TICKET IN
Interning at a startup has the obvious benefit of giving you a foot in the door to a technology company, by allowing you to get to know everyone on the team, including the important leadership folks. But there’s one huge benefit many overlook when they think about internships: learning and developing key skills you’ll need in the tech industry. “You’ll learn more in 3 months than you would anywhere else,” said Patrick Mork, CMO at Course Hero, and the former head of marketing for Google’s App Store: Google Play. Where else can you learn about top user acquisition methods or data science?
#3 GET OUT OF TOWN
This school year, you’ll be tempted to stay near the university so that you can focus as much as possible on coursework or local internships. Not so fast, says Andrew. Try getting out of town – as in the country – and spending a semester abroad. “The cultural experience is eye opening and will give you different perspectives on how people live, learn, work and have fun,” he advises. This valuable experience could help you as you create and develop international partnerships at your future tech employer. You might have to launch products abroad or deal with global challenges that require an international perspective.
#4 GET SOCIAL
Want to hone your leadership skills for when the day comes that you’re hired as a CMO? Joining a sorority/fraternity could increase your chances of landing a career in the tech world. Lynne Thieme, Vice President of Engineering at Course Hero tells us that the connections last a lifetime and it’s the best leadership training you’ll ever experience. The social skills students have to develop in these clubs are great stepping stones for skills required to lead a team or hire great people. The Greek network can help them in the tech job search, by tapping connections for openings. Indeed, a Forbes study once found that almost 25% of all CEO’s on the Forbes Super 500 list were, at one point, members of college fraternities.
#5 GO FOR THE GOLD
In the tech world, you’ll be dealing with some of the hardest challenges you’ll ever be tasked with. What can you do in college to prepare for the task? Go for the gold, suggests Josh Tyler, Chief People Officer at Course Hero. “Take the hardest classes you can find. What you learn, and how you deal with the challenges of difficult material, he says,” will help you years later in your career.”
So before you head into your first class for fall semester, take a second to evaluate these tips from the Course Hero team. Maybe it’s a matter of looking into studying abroad next semester in Spain, or maybe start thinking about a part-time internship to get some experience before a summer internship! And if you are unsure about what classes to take, Course Hero has a Course Advice page that provides insight from current students on each class. Either way, taking one of these five tips will definitely push you towards success and a killer resume after graduation!
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