6 Creative Approaches to Tackling the Start-Up Job Search

For those looking to leave their corporate grind and wanting to join a start-up, here a few tips on where to start.  Prospecting for start-up jobs is a completely different ball game.  Many of these opportunities are harder to find and will require a more creative approach.  If you've already tapped out LinkedIn careers or The Daily Muse jobs with no luck, try looking into these alternatives.

1) Venture Capital Firms - Check out the top leading venture capital firms, and look through their job portfolio section. Some have portals where you can submit your resume and the in-house VC recruiter will match you with roles from one of their portfolio companies. Others will have a general careers email where you can send over your resume, and someone will respond back if there is a fit.

2) Subscribe to start-up funding news - Sites like CrunchBase Daily give their subscribers daily updates to funding news and acquisitions. It's a great way to get exposure to what's happening in the industry.  Chances are, a company that recently raised an impressive amount of funding will be looking to hire more people. Keep those companies on your radar and keep an eye out for interesting opportunities.

3) AngelList - This website is like the LinkedIn of the start-up world, and it's quickly gaining a lot of traction. You can find tons of information on up and coming start-ups on AngelList, and they also have a jobs board section. Be sure to fill out your profile!

4) Niche job boards - Smaller companies may not have a huge budget to throw money on expensive job boards like Monster or LinkedIn.  Even if they did have the money, it might not be the right type of demographic they are looking to target.  Instead, try niche start-up job sites like Startuphire.com and Ventureloop.  

5) Start-up Incubators - Look into start-up incubators like Y-Combinator and 500 Start-ups to see if any of their companies might be hiring. Some of them have an open forum where community members will post roles of what they are looking for.

6) Networking - Start meeting more people in the start-up community to learn about where they found their opportunity. Let them know that you are looking so if anything opens up, they can help connect you. If you currently don't have a network in the start-up community, you can start building that up by attending relevant meet ups and events in the area.

As always, you can Google any of those websites listed above and type in "competitors" to see what else might be relevant and related.