Venture capital truly is the wild west of the corporate world. It’s a microcosm of incredibly smart people and there are no rules — just you and what you make of yourself. I love its hustle and grind. But it’s also unstructured and inconsistent. Your success in the space is driven by your access to information — who’s raising, what are other companies’ metrics in the space, who’s the right person to talk to, etc. It is after all the private market so nothing is standardized. There’s much to appreciate and, at the same time, much that is deeply flawed. One such flawed part is its recruiting process. VCs have perhaps the worst talent processes I’ve seen (and I worked previously in Human Capital consulting). I understand where this comes from, even if I don’t agree with the output — HR is not a P&L-driving business and VCs don’t have the same competition for talent that corporations have. In a world where you’re keeping your expenses as low as possible, HR gets axed. This is a shame, however, because strong talent processes help you find, coach, and grow the best people. I know some VCs genuinely try but there’s definitely room for improvement.
I share all this to help you have context for the VC recruiting process — it’s opaque, inconsistent, and even nonsensical at times. Investors look for any reason to not hire you, and believe me there are plenty. You’ll get feedback from one fund and try to pivot in your next interview, only to find that the next fund doesn’t care about the feedback the first fund gave you and instead has an issue with something else. Getting a job in venture is not for the faint-hearted and while there is advice out there it really comes down to your sheer force of will, an unshakeable determination, and of course — just a little bit of luck.
In this 3-part guide, I’ll share what I tried, what worked for me, and where I fell flat on my face. Today I’ll introduce my VC recruiting framework and talk you through the first few sections focusing on you and figuring out what you want. In Part 2, I’ll dive into the mechanics of finding roles and interviewing. Finally, in Part 3 I’ll talk about the mindset you need to be successful in your recruiting journey and share some personal experiences.
This guide is by no means a rinse-and-repeat playbook. There’s no standard way to get a job in venture like there is for consulting, banking, or other industries. Take everything I say with a grain of salt and experiment on your own time to see what works for you. Everyone’s story and value add are different — and the way you recruit should reflect that. I’m sharing my experiences to provide one perspective and hope that it helps you — wherever you are in your VC recruiting journey.
Just a note: this guide is specifically for folks who are breaking into venture (i.e. have never worked in venture or an investing-adjacent role) and are looking for full-time roles. Internship recruiting looks a little different and is (generally) a bit easier, though there is a lot of overlap.
Introducing my VC Recruiting Framework
I’ve distilled the venture capital recruiting process into 5 big buckets: exploring, focusing, signaling, applying, and interviewing. They’re numbered to give some semblance of structure, but I wouldn’t call them chronological. In reality, you just have to start somewhere and constantly iterate on all of them. We’ll follow the path I’d expect someone who is just starting their VC journey to take in this guide, starting with exploration.
1. Exploring: What is Venture Capital?
VC sounds sexy and glamorous, but like any career you want to dive into, start by understanding what the heck the job is. Trust me, a lot of it is deeply unsexy and definitely not glamorous. The easiest way is to of course talk to folks in the space, but I’d also recommend some offline ways to engage in the space. The offline ways take time (you’ll probably only start to see them pay off after a few weeks) but helped me a lot.
- Start reading VC/startup newsletters: A few I like are Axios Pro Rata, Strictly VC, and Accelerated. I’d also recommend some industry-specific ones based on your interest. I’m personally a fintech kinda gal so I also read This Week in Fintech, Fintech Business Weekly, and Fintech Takes. Read these are often as you can (some are daily) and dig into the articles and linked pages. Pay attention to what stories/startups catch your eye and see if you can catch patterns in what you’re liking (e.g. “oh all of the startups I’ve looked into are in climate” or “wow B2B stuff seems way more interesting than consumer startups” or “hey this startup is solving a problem I’ve run into before”). It’s important to know what you like, and of course what you find totally and utterly boring. You don’t have to like it all.
- Get on VC Twitter: I know, I know. Twitter is whack these days. For better or worse, I see a lot of discussion and information sharing in the VC space happening on Twitter and I don’t think it’s changing even with the impending Elon-ification of the company. Twitter helped me understand who’s who of the VC world and also got me in the head of investors — what kind of stuff were they thinking about? What kinds of personalities did they have? I also found a lot of open roles on Twitter. Start by following any and every fund/VC you know of and just tweak your followers from there to get into Twitter VC. If you’re really not into Twitter, engage in some way even if it’s following funds on Medium, finding Discord or Signal chats, or joining some VC-specific communities. You just need to get into the flow of information.
- Talk to investors: once you’ve seen a fund, investment, or Tweet that’s caught your eye — reach out to investors there! Start with interns, Analysts, and Associates to get the lay of the land and feel out conversations. Cold DM folks on LinkedIn & Twitter — most will ignore you but someone will say yes to a chat and then you’re in business! Ask them about their job — what they like, what they don’t like, what industry they like to spend their time, what are they currently looking into, etc. Try to come to each conversation with unique and tailored questions — while I’m happy to say the same thing to everyone who has asked me a generic question, it’s hard to stay engaged in the conversation after I’m rattling off the same thing I’ve said 20 times.
After all of this — pulse check: do you still want to be an investor? I’ll highlight that there are many other ways to engage with VCs, founders, and the broader tech ecosystem. You don’t HAVE to be an investor to be in the space!
2. Focusing: What Type of VC Do I Want?
Next, it’s important to explore your own interests. I’d say the biggest things to get internal clarity on are what sectors you want to focus on, whether you want to work at an established or emerging fund, whether you want to work at a generalist or sector-specific fund, and what stage of fund you want to work at.
- What sectors do you want to focus on: you should have 1–2 sectors of focus that you dive deep into and spend a lot of time getting smart on. Everyone has their own personal journey to understand what excites them. It could be an industry you worked in before or one you are itching to learn about. If you have no idea, see my point above about reading newsletters and paying attention to what catches your eye. There is so much to know in every sector, so pick 1 or 2 because you cannot learn everything. You’ll be expected to share a few industries you’re interested in and why in every single VC interview.
- Working at an established fund or emerging fund: established funds are bigger, brand name firms like a16z, Bessemer, Battery Ventures, etc. whereas emerging funds were launched within the last few years. At an established fund, expect clearer workflows, more structure/bureaucracy, and focus on a specific section of a typical fund’s activities (e.g. just sourcing or just diligence). The name brand, access, and capital that these funds have are fantastic whereas on the flip side, it’s harder to drive your own investments (someone else has probably already looked at it already) and you don’t get exposure to the continuum of VC from thesis building to portfolio support.
At an emerging fund, expect to do everything…fund tracking, diligence, portfolio support, thesis building, hiring, admin, etc. You’re actually building a startup along with the team! So while you’ll get a lot of ownership & exposure, you’ll also be doing a lot of unglamorous and non-investing-related work. For a good breakdown of what working at an emerging fund looks like, check out this thread. There are a number of funds that fall smack dab in the middle — typically the ones that are on their 3rd or 4th fund — which are a good middle ground. - Generalist or sector-specific: this is again a personal choice and comes down to where you want to spend your time. If you’re all-in on healthcare and know you’d be impatient and irritated with looking at other industries, focus on healthcare funds. If you’re interested in a few different industries and want to spend time in each of them, a generalist fund may be a better fit. You can also pursue both but know you need to position yourself differently depending on who you talk to. It can be tough — I looked at both fintech funds and generalist funds that invested in fintech and fell into the grey zone of not being fintech enough for fintech funds and too fintech for generalist funds.
- What stage do you want to invest in: in general, there are early-stage (pre-seed to Series A) and growth-stage funds (Series B+). I’d also argue there’s a growing group of mid-stage firms (Series A-C) that focus on the teenage years of startups as they graduate from early to growth-stage companies. Early-stage funds tend to focus on the founder, vision, and market of the startups they evaluate. There is some financial analysis (e.g. market sizing and unit economic calculations) but it’s usually not enormously rigorous. Mid-stage and growth-stage funds also focus on the founder, vision, and market but have a much heavier focus on financial progress & profitability. This decision depends on your interest and skill set. I will say if you don’t have a quantitative background or a way in which you’ve previously shown financial analysis, it’s going to be tough to land a mid or growth-stage role (though not impossible).
The last piece I’d encourage you to think through is what kind of team you want. VCs are tiny so you want to enjoy the team’s working style. Funds are usually individualistic in their working style (investors source and diligence startups on their own before coming together to present and fight for their deals) or more collaborative (diligence and present together). Which do you prefer? These are also the folks who you’ll be learning from day-to-day, so what kinds of experiences do you want them to have — previous founders, long-time investors, new entrants to the space, etc.? It’s helpful to have a gauge going into interviews so you can ask relevant questions to suss this type of information out.
3. Signaling: What Experiences Do I Need to be Competitive?
Once you’ve nailed down your interest in an investor role and put some thought into what kinds of roles you want, it’s time to actively build your resume for that role. If you already have worked in venture capital or at a startup you likely don’t need to do this, but for someone who is net new to the space (regardless of whether your background is in consulting, banking, non-profit work, etc.) you’ll need to actively add to your professional experience. In my opinion and experience it’s at least a 6-month process if not 1–2 years.
This is of course very dependent on you and your background, so here’s what I’ll say: you should, at a minimum, have some kind of startup experience and/or venture capital internship to be competitive for full-time venture capital roles. It doesn’t have to be direct experience with startups or VCs — it could be some kind of platform or community role in the entrepreneurship space, an innovation role at a corporation, or doing market mapping/due diligence at a consulting firm. I’ll be real though: direct startup operating or venture capital experience (internship, part-time, or full-time) will make you the most competitive.
For reference, I interned with a fintech startup (Sequin) and with 2 early-stage funds (Concrete Rose Capital & Cowboy Ventures). In my full-time interviews, I only talked about those experiences. I can count on one hand the number of funds who asked me detailed questions about my prior consulting days. If your day job isn’t tied to venture capital, startups, and tech, I’d suggest actively pursuing a part-time role or doing something in your free time that gets you involved in the ecosystem. You need to do the job before you have the job, and if your previous work experiences don’t help you do the job you have to find another way.
Some thoughts on how to create or find those opportunities for yourself:
- Apply for internship programs with VCs (many but not all will want current students) or connect with a startup to see if they need help. I got my Sequin internship by DM’ing the founder and suggesting ways I could help them on my call. If you’re chatting with a VC, try pitching your own internship. Many VCs also are posting internships publicly — check out job boards like John Gannon, Accelerated, Gen Z VCs, and All Raise and follow funds on Medium as many funds will post intern positions on their Medium.
- There are a number of fellowships, scout, and angel programs you can join — Iris Liu put together a fantastic list here and Nicole DeTommaso has a couple of helpful Twitter threads on this here, here, and here. I love HBCUvc (a fellowship program I did), and a few others I’ve heard about for women and people of color include BVCC, Vencapital, and Future VC
Another option is the content path. Think about your brand and target role, and post content accordingly. This can be anything you want. You could write fintech blog posts as I do, launch a podcast, get into VC Twitter or TikTok, etc. Be creative based on your passions — one of my friends blogged about a road trip in the Midwest where he met founders and investors. Another one of my friends wrote about the investing strategies of celebrities. This is time you’re spending on your nights and weekends, so think through your brand, pick a content path, and decide what VC-adjacent topic areas are interesting to you.
A word of caution: be careful how you use social media. You’ll see some folks trying to gain followers and traction by posting spicy tweets. It does work — you’ll get profile views, engagement, likes, followers, etc. But when you’re starting in the space and don’t have a ton of social clout you want to be careful what you’re putting out there. You never know who’s watching and who’s reading. I admit to trying this approach and will tell you it caused me a ton of stress, regret, and panic. 0/10, do not recommend.
The last part here is your network, and building your network takes time…so start asap! Your network should consist of founders, operators, and investors. Try not to over-index on just investors or just founders. If you’re gunning for a sector-specific fund you should focus on finding SMEs (e.g. maybe a policy/compliance expert if you’re into fintech or environmentalists if you’re looking into climatetech, etc.). I wish I had a clear and structured set of steps for you but there’s no real path to building your network. Just start by chatting with folks at in-person events or DM’ing folks on Twitter or LinkedIn and go from there. As I mentioned earlier in the post, more junior folks at VCs are a good place to start. Early-stage founders too are usually willing to chat.
All networking best practices apply here — be respectful of their time, come prepared with thoughtful questions, and send a nice follow-up note. You want to focus on building genuine relationships so showing your personality and opening up space for them to do the same always makes for a better conversation. Your goal is to build a community around yourself that you then bring to funds — who can you tap for help if you’re assessing a deal? Who can you bring into a round to co-invest? Who’s going to send you deal flow? Ending the call with “how can I help you” is always a nice touch — sometimes even something as small as hyping someone up on Twitter or LinkedIn can be helpful. Think of your VC network as a social capital barter system — try to support and help those who make time for you and/or go out of their way to support you.
- Some ways I’ve tried to help VCs: sending live deals, sharing comps/data/articles that support their diligence, introducing them to other investors or folks who may be a good fit for their intern or full-time positions*, signing up for any events they’re hosting, amplifying them on social media, etc.
- Some ways I’ve tried to help founders: sharing any open JDs they have with my network, introducing them to funds who may be interested in their round*, connecting them to other founders*, sharing potential customers, etc.
*When you want to make introductions, remember to ASK both parties first and confirm they’re both interested (double opt-in intro). You will instantly lose any goodwill and actively frustrate folks otherwise.
This entire signaling section takes time and there’s frankly no shortcut to it. Know that you’ll make mistakes and that’s okay! Have some grace for yourself as you navigate and figure it out. Some folks you talk to or work with will be absolutely incredible and others will stink. Everyone’s personality, preferences, and working styles are a bit different so just pivot as best you can and keep at it. Two last thoughts:
- Play it safe: VC is a small space and folks talk. You’d much rather be forgotten vs remembered for something bad.
- Pay it forward: remember how folks supported you and make sure you help others once you make it!
Wrapping it Up
Again, the framework I’m using is not linear. You just need to start somewhere and keep iterating. You will, however, be asked in interviews what you want from your next role, why VC, why their fund, etc. — so it’s important to have mental clarity on these things before interviews. Having these mental guardrails on what opportunities to pursue also helps as you’re applying because VC applications are pretty involved and you don’t want to apply to absolutely everything. What you want and what you’re looking for can change — but start with something.
That’s all for now, folks — and make sure to check out Part 2 where I’ll dive into the application & interview process!
Thoughts or feedback? Please comment! If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, don’t forget to reshare and follow me on Twitter & LinkedIn!
Some of my favorite VC recruiting resources: VC Unleashed, Mike Devlin’s content, Nicole DeTommaso’s Twitter, and Rebel One’s Training Curriculum
