Weekly Brief: Are you ready to lend a hear?

This week we’re bringing you a piece on how to promote accessibility and inclusion in tech. Specifically voice recognition technology and how some big names are creating products for all. As usual we have a roundup of this week’s hottest jobs (too)! […]

Weekly Brief: Are you ready to lend a hear?

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Hey Google! Do you understand what I’m saying?

Voice-recognition software and smart assistants are becoming life (and energy) savers, but not all of us get as great an experience as others. Particularly those for whom English is a second language, who have speech impediments, or just plain mumble! Here in blighty, the good ol’ BBC is looking to uphold our weird and wonderful accents in a field largely catered toward ‘American English’ (whatever that is!) They plan to launch a rival smart assistant (‘Beeb’) that will supposedly understand even the most tricky regional British accent and obscurest patter. And this is not as out-of-the-blue as it may seem – YouGov reported that smart speakers are two-thirds less accurate for those who are not “white and male”. This is partly because speakers are largely developed by men (diversity in tech rears its ugly head yet again) and partly because AI finds deeper vocal tones easier to understand. Luckily Mozilla has a pretty cool solution for this: a crowd sourced data set of diverse voices. Common Voice aims to revitalise voice-recognition tech with entries from a diverse range of contributors. Feel free to contribute yourself (remember to add your demographic data), we certainly did! Maybe you’ll hear the dulcet tones of the Work in Startups team in your exploration?

This weeks hottest jobs:

We hope you like the new face of our blog, which is now the same design as our shiny main site. Do make sure to have an explore of both!

Get applying!
Isabel

Weekly Brief: We’ve got a Sixth Sensor

This week on the weekly brief we are discussing sweaty sensors, mind control and smart gloves. We’re exploring the interesting developments in the tech behind sensors. Plus: giving you a shortlist of our favourite startup jobs from the site this week! […]

Weekly Brief: We’ve got a Sixth Sensor

Move over Elon Musk, you’re not the only one who wants to read minds!

Facebook unveiled their Brain API Beta at F8, aiming to “integrate people’s thoughts into the next generation of apps”. Given the less-than-discreet reputation Facebook has earned, this is understandably putting some noses out of joint (would you trust them with your thoughts?) But putting privacy or morality to one side (*fingers firmly in ears*), we instead want to look at the awesome tech behind the project. Their team of scientists and developers are treading new ground in both BioTech implants and “neural machine learning”. Thinking as positively as possible, the tech could completely revolutionise treatment plans for neurological disorders. Seems a noble enough cause?

Another group using sensors to potentially tackle the way we treat debilitating disease (and pick up weapons in VR video games) are the team behind the ‘Stretch-Sensing Soft Glove.’ This glove accurately captures intricate hand movements without the need for optical tracking (watch them show off the product and absolutely slam their competitors below!) Meanwhile teams at UC Berkeley and Stanford have both developed similarly thin sensors to track even more biometric data about us “glamorously” through our sweat! Shows just how versatile and open this field is. So, whether you’re prepared to deal with the ickier privacy concerns of neural implants, or just want your sensors to be plain sticky, it looks like this tech will be a major part of future wellness and health. Really it’s just common sense(or)!

Check out this week’s hottest jobs

Want to work with us?
Check out our vacancy for a Sales and Operations Intern – apply on the site if you think you can be our next superstar!

How to write a good email

Whether you want to hit the ground running when you start that fantastic new startup job (sourced through Work in Startups of course). Or just want to recap the basics, this one if for you! In our fantastic startup learning and development programme, we have been discussing how to nail the basics. This week: email! We thought it would be a great thing to share with our lovely blog-readers, as email communication is still at the heart of the way we communicate. […]

How to write a good email

Whether you want to hit the ground running when you start that fantastic new startup job (sourced through Work in Startups of course). Or just want to recap the basics, this one if for you!

In our fantastic startup learning and development programme, we have been discussing how to nail the basics. This week: email! We thought it would be a great thing to share with our lovely blog-readers, as email communication is still at the heart of the way we communicate.

Here’s how to make sure the structure and content of your email is perfect:

First, is email the best communication? Would it be better to have a quick chat or meeting? Could it be pinged over via your preferred messaging service? More often than not, an email is an unobtrusive way of getting on someone’s to-do list, but if something’s more urgent or quick then do consider your options.

Subject line – always include a clear but brief subject header in your email so the recipient can prioritise. Don’t be afraid to hit them with a ‘high priority’ flag where appropriate!
Call to action – starting off with a “call to action” (who needs to do what and when) it really helps to cut to the chase. This is particularly helpful when lots of people are cc’d in!
- If you work in a UK startup you’re likely to be very busy, so help your colleague out by keeping it punchy! You can always say “see more detail below” and then include below your sign-off if helpful!
- This isn’t an invitation to link in everyone at the company! Only send the email to relevant individuals as you can always forward an email later.
The body – keep it concise and relevant. This is not the time for waffle and sharing your life story. General rule of thumb: don’t go over 200 words and ask yourself, “if I read this on a phone, would I have to scroll?”
Sometime you have to expand, we recommend making use of links and attaching documents. We love a bullet point… as you can see… make use of them in your emails!

Tone – we recommend adapting to suit the audience (but always be polite). You can, of course, be a bit less formal with a colleague that you know well!
- Remember your salutations, not to get all GCSE English on you but it does matter in a formal context. If you need to brush-up, or perhaps English is not your mother tongue, this is a comprehensive guide to salutation. This is also quite helpful when choosing how to end an email.
Requests – if you need something from your recipient (i.e. a new hire, training, information or support for something) try to cover the following:
- What you are asking for
- Why you are asking for it
- When you need it
- What is the benefit
- How much it will cost

We see lots of different email addresses at Work in Startups and we have some feedback: candidates we’re looking at you! Make sure your personal jobseeker email address is appropriate and contains a variation on your full name (you can retire that jazzy MSN handle you set up when you were 11!) That way you can start firing out the applications to all the amazing jobs on our site!

We have lots of training at Work in Startups; from basics like email-writing to the bigger issues like mindfulness in the workplace. It is one of the many exciting perks we will be offering our new Sales and Operations Intern! Check out the vacancy if you like the sound of working with us!

The Perfect Work in Startups Ad

We want our startup community to get the best out of our site. We also want candidates to be able to easily see what they’re applying to. So killing two birds with one stone we have produced this helpful guide (You’re welcome!) Good startup ad copy is a must for everyone! Read on about how to perfect your ads to maximise response-rate! […]

The Perfect Work in Startups Ad

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Work in Startups has had a bit of work done over the last few weeks. Now everything is shiny and new, we wanted to help you make the ads you post look as good as possible!

Given that our team have read hundreds and thousands of UK startup job ads, we think we’ve come up with the recipe to entice your perfect candidate, starting with…

About the Company

Up front, we think its always a good idea to include a brief overview of your startup and a look into what you do. Right at the beginning, if you can boast about your mission, milestones, awards, funding rounds etc, then you’ll (hopefully) have the candidate hooked. It’s all about selling yourself in the first 5 seconds! We also cannot recommend enough a “what we’re building section” including company goals and what everyone is working toward.

Remember to include a link to your company website in your admin account so the candidate can click through to your website easily (also its a free link for you!)

About the Role

The most successful ads on our site clearly display what the candidate will be doing on a daily basis. We recommend spelling out:

Specifically what they will be building/working on
Who they will be reporting to
Tasks and responsibilities they will be regularly undertaking
Things they might do in a few months time as they learn new startups skills

Categories

Now seems like a good time to acquaint you with some shiny new filters we introduced. We now have all the filters your little heart can dream of! Honourable mention to our new filters: Ops and Finance, Customer Support, Data and Product, and Other Jobs. These have been included to help candidates find startup jobs best suited to them, so make sure you pick the category that best matches your role!

General tip: By all means show personality and humour in your job ad (it always makes us smile when we see an eye-catching title) but be aware that candidates like to know at a glance what they’re applying to. E.g. “Sales and Marketing Superstar” is infinitely better than “[Your startup name] Superstar”.

Experience

There is an emerging trend in our favourite job ads on Work in Startups for experience; must have and nice-to have. We recommend splitting your experience expectations of the candidate into these two categories because it gives the candidate a better idea of the skill level required of them. We also think it’s a nice way to help them prepare for the interview (to save you time).

For example, you could say that a new junior developer must have 2+ years experience with Python, but a degree in computer science is a nice-to have addition. Easy.

Benefits and Company Particulars

We really recommend including all the fantastic perks your startup has to offer – now is the chance to show off that amazing co-working space in Shoreditch, team social calendar, or your unlimited flat white budget.

The key things to include in company particulars meanwhile (aside from the fun stuff) are any bits of salary information, potential for stock options (if any) and your startup office location. You can include details on hours too if they’re a bit irregular, but we recommend not bothering if they’re fairly standard or if the role is sufficiently senior – can make you come across as a bit too corporate.

Equal Opportunities:

We encourage all our employer community to promote equal opportunity practices in their HR and recruitment. Lots of our candidates have fed-back that they look for companies that value these principles when applying. The EOC has lots of information on these practices based on the Equalities Act 2010, both are worth a read if you want to promote diversity in your recruitment.

Application Information

We really recommend specifying what you expect your candidate to include in their application as there are many options available:

CV
Covering Letter
Essay or Application Questions
GitHub stuff (if a developer job)
Portfolio (if a designer job)
Their own website or projects they have created
Linkedin profile

We’ve found this helps weed out applicants who ‘spam apply’.

Note: if you want to have a chat about specifics or even partnerships, drop our team an email at contact@workinstartups – they will be able to help with bespoke options.

We look forward to reading your perfected ads, but if you’re struggling or want feedback feel free to contact the team! And finally don’t forget to pick a promotion if you want 4x the application number through! Happy Hiring!

Weekly Brief: Banana Fungus Slip Slidin’ AwayAI

Here is a write up of this weeks newsletter. Today we were looking at potential banana extinction and how BioTech, AI and CRISPR can be used to help! As always you can get this content straight to your inbox on our weekly newsletter – we always try to include some fun and interesting tech news! Go bananas! […]

Weekly Brief: Banana Fungus Slip Slidin’ AwayAI

How can artificial intelligence save the world’s favourite fruit?

Tropical Race 4 – don’t worry we aren’t talking about that purple hurricane game every kid seem to be playing this summer! Better yet: crop destroying fungus. Fusarium Oxysporum has come to public attention after it hit land in Colombia. Short banana PSA: a different strain of Fusarium almost obliterated bananas as we knew them 30 years ago, leaving the more resistant ‘Cavendish’ as top banana. This strain is already present in Asia and can survive dormant in the soil for many years. It is expected to sweep through Latin America, where 99% of the world’s crop is grown, decimating bananas left and right. But all is not lost! An international team is using AI to detect diseases in bananas, developing tech that could be deployed on an international scale to contain and control the epidemic. Opening up the GMO debate, CRISPR and BioTech options have also been suggested to modify bananas (or even the disease itself) to sidestep a potential biological catastrophe. Without getting all Swedish child environmentalist on you, it seems like a good time to think about how to promote biodiversity within the confines of practical and ecological production needs. Thankfully BioTech is positioned to lead this attack and protect our precious bananas! Let the fights in offices across the nation continue over (objectively) the best fruit.

Go bananas for our favourite job ads:

Want to work with us?
Check out our vacancy for a Sales and Operations Intern – apply on the site if you think you can be our next superstar!

Get the Weekly Brief straight in your inbox: Subscribe

Remote Working Jobs: How Work in Startups works remotely

We have a truth bomb for you: the 9-5 office job is dead (sorry, Dolly Parton)! Remote work is the way of the future. Good news though for all our baby digital nomads, we work remotely at Work in Startups (in a variety of different ways) so we’re here to share our wisdom. […]

Remote Working Jobs: How Work in Startups works remotely

Advantages of Remote Working:

You might be asking, “Why should I jump on the remote working bandwagon?” Let us sell you on the merits:

Productivity – we all know offices can be ironically distracting places. Between the inane Love Island chatter with your deskmates, and comings and goings of the team, sometimes it can be hard to maintain focus. The beauty of remote work is you can choose your workspace and tweak it for maximum productivity.
Make your own hours – remote work is inherently flexible and lends itself toward nontraditional working hours. So, finish when you’re done rather than at 6pm on the nose! Need to take two hours out of your day for an appointment? Provided you can still make any pre-scheduled meetings or call, just catch up with your work later on when you’re free! And save time on that slog of a commute as well.
Best person for the job – when you are a flexible workplace you can hire the most qualified person for your role (hopefully sourced on Work in Startups) rather than the best person who can also make it to your office. This is particularly true for London startups where not all the best talent is within an easy commute!
Promotes Diversity – remote and flexible working is perfect for those with caring or parenting responsibilities which makes it a great option for an equal opportunities workplace.

How we work remotely at Work in Startups

WIS Fun Fact: the Work in Startups team is split between the UK and Greece!

Given this, we’ve had to develop a really tight remote-working system that works for all members of our team. Here’s how we do it:

Tech and Software – we use cloud-based, remote messaging software to communicate in real time, and a ticketing system for asynchronous project work. We are very thankful for cloud-based productivity software as it allows us to work simultaneously on projects despite the ocean between us – this is a MUST!
Workload and Organisation – when remotely working as part of a team (like we do) making sure you know what you need to be doing at any point is vital. We have clear goals over a variety of timeframes so we always know what to crack on with, regardless of where we are working!
Support – the most important way we make remote working work is by encouraging all kinds of remote work: WFH, full remote work and flexible working. Remote is now commonplace! Making us more than just a group of digital nomads – a tribe, if you will!

Tips from one of our remote developers

Chris is one of our lovely developers, who is based in Greece, so is well-versed in everything remote work! Here are some of his top tips:

Your Space – “Space is always really important in my opinion. Realistically you are either working from home, a co-working space, or a cafe. Wherever you are: it needs to be a productive and calm place to work”
Working from Home – “For those that work-from-home, a good tip is to have a separate space for work only. Something like an office (if it’s possible) because it’s exhausting to stay in the same room all day, even after you finish your ‘shift’! I used to work in my living room which was a big mistake because I was getting easily distracted!”

Do you want to find a remote working job in a startup?

Yes? Check out one of our favourite companies who have a few remote roles on our site; CausaLens. They are working on technology that predicts global economic developments in real-time – pretty cool right?

Do you happen to be a Senior Python Developer? Good news, CausaLens is hiring for a remote one!

We are the biggest startup job board in the UK and we have a huge selection of remote working jobs on the site so make sure to check out the board!

Jargon Buster: The Work In Startups “A-Z” of Startup Terminology

Sometimes landing a new startup job in London (or anywhere in the UK) can feel a bit like making some new friends who already have a lottttttt of obnoxious in-jokes and references. Luckily, Work In Startups is here to help bust that jargon today. Have a flick through our quick A-Z so you don’t feel like an outsider at your local Shoreditch flat-white dispensary! […]

Jargon Buster: The Work In Startups “A-Z” of Startup Terminology

A	Angel Investor	A private individual who invests capital (usually in the early stages of a startup), generally in exchange for equity. Accelerator – investment-fund program that provide funding and mentorship to budding startups in exchange for a stake
B	Burn Rate	The amount of cash a startup is spending each month Bootstrapping – initial funding stage of a startup deploying only your personal savings or with help from friends and family (rather than angel or seed investment)
C	Cash Flow Positive	(The dream!) When a startup’s cash coming in is greater than its cash going out. Note this is different to being profitable!
D	Disruptive	A product or service that aims / is about to (hopefully) change or revolutionise an existing industry. A buzzword in the startup world!
E	Equity	Several geeky accounting definitions, but generally in startups equity refers to the relative amount (share) someone owns in the company
F	Freemium	When your core produce or service is free, but there are premium / non-free features available which are designed to improve the user experience even further Frontend – the pretty face of software engineering (obviously so much more that). In short: the bit on startup websites that you (the user) see and interact with! It runs in tandem with the Backend which does the heavy lifting behind the scenes
G	Growth Hacking	A startup marketing term focused around experimentation on growth strategy – working out ways to acquire as many users as quickly / cheaply as possible Gamification – implementing elements or features you would find in a game in a non-gaming product GA – (Google Analytics) this is the big boy for tracking just about anything activity-related on a website. Given its heavy use, “GA” is an easier term to spit out!
H	Hockey Stick	A growth curve on a chart – an initial dip (where you’re investing) followed by a strong upward trajectory, leaving the progress line looking a bit like a hockey stick!
I	IPO	An “Initial Public Offering” – the first time a startup (or any company) lists its shares on a public stock market
J	Javascript/Java/JS	One of the most commonly recognised programming languages – generally if you see knowledge of this as a requirement for a startup job and you don’t know what it means, don’t apply for it!
K	KPI	Key Performance Indicators – a measurable value tracked by a startup to gauge progress. When the name of the game is growth, we are slaves to the KPIs!
L	Low-Hanging Fruit	The easiest, quickest wins available in a given project. Essentially the fruit you don’t have to climb too high (or work too hard) to collect Liquidity Event – some form of opportunity for investors to cash in their stake, therefore turning some (or all) of their assets on paper into “liquid” cash Lifetime Value – the prediction of value you expect a customer (or supplier) relationship to generate over the whole of its existence. So hopefully more than just one transaction
M	MVP	Minimum Viable Product – the most basic version of the product that can viably work and be rolled-out, it often gets expanded with new features later on. Minotaur – a startup that has raised $1bn+ from investors (it might not necessarily be worth that much to prospective buyers!)
N	Ninja	A very startuppy title for a supposed expert in a field (e.g. after reading this article , you’ll be a startup lingo ninja!)
O	(Stock/Equity) Options	An agreement giving someone (most likely a startup employee or investor) the option to purchase shares in a company at a given strike price (which you can then hopefully sell later for a profit). You might well get offered these when you join a startup – take them! OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – tangible goal-setting framework. You set your objective and then pick the metrics (key results) that will quantify your progress
P	Pre & Post Money Valuations	Terms referring to the valuation of a startup before investment or financing and then after (after factoring in the new cash). Product Manager – the person responsible for developing the product, owning the business strategy, features and functionality! Pivot – a shift (quite often a significant one) in business model following feedback on / performance of an initial product
Q	QA Testing	Quality Assurance Testing. This is basic testing of the product, usually with an eye on user experience – think beta-tests and bugchecks a-plenty!
R	ROI	Return-on-Investment. At a very high level, and without getting too geeky about it, this is something that investors will monitor to determine the efficiency (usually financial) of a given investment. Bigger ROI generally means a better use of their funds!
S	Seed Round	The first round of external capital funding for a startup. SEM/SEO – Search Engine Marketing/Optimization – two distinct areas, but both relate to promoting a startup’s product by increasing its visibility on search engines. Best ask your marketing team directly if you want to learn more about the nuances (as there are many!)
T	Traction	A sign that all your startups growth efforts are taking effect, and whether people are actually buying or using the product..
U	Unicorn	A term to refer to startups that have been given a $1 billion valuation. Note this doesn’t have to have been realised in cash!
V	VC	Venture Capital. In a nutshell, this is financial investment (or investors) in startups that are looking for high growth opportunities in exchange for equity Silicon Valley – The name given to an area in the southern San Francisco Bay where lots of startups and tech companies are based.
W	Waterfall	The “last in, first out” order that investors often get their money in a liquidity event. Those coming later to the table have often had the opportunity to negotiate better terms for themselves since they can see what others have committed to!
X	Xenopus	A startup that has grown revenue at over 100% a year…. Just kidding (unless it catches on)! It’s actually a weird frog – it’s hard to find an X word for this list!
Y	Y-Combinator	Y-Combinator is a big seed accelerator with many ‘y-backed’ startups in their portfolio… (Cut us some slack, Y is hard too!)
Z	Zebra	A term used to refer to startups focused more on building a sustainable growth business than a “boom or bust” approach

The Worst Offender: Tech Startups

You’d hope that most of these are self-explanatory, but here are a few of the most common tech startup fields / buckets with definitions to help you out:

MedTech (Medical Technology), FinTech (Financial Technology), PropTech (Property Technology), FemTech (Female Technology), EdTech (Education Technology) and InsurTech (Insurance Technology)

We hope to hear you smashing the startup lingo at your next interview. Check out the site for some of the hottest start up jobs (we are the best site to find startup jobs in the UK after all!)

This weeks hottest jobs:

Check out this week’s hottest jobs

Here’s how to make sure the structure and content of your email is perfect:

About the Company

About the Role

Experience

Benefits and Company Particulars

Application Information

Go bananas for our favourite job ads:

Advantages of Remote Working:

How we work remotely at Work in Startups

Tips from one of our remote developers

Do you want to find a remote working job in a startup?

The Worst Offender: Tech Startups

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