“So you want to be a venture capitalist?”*

A number of my colleagues have posted discussions of how to find such work. It’s worth perusing the thoughts of: Charlie O’Donnell, Seth Levine (reprinted at Ask The VC), Vineet Buch, Fred Wilson, and Praveen Sahay.

But with friends tackling the search and PE Hub announcing its annual summer internship roundup, I thought I’d pull together a set of relevant resources with the hope that they help match talent with opportunity. This post will focus on finding openings.

As you might suspect, there’s not a ton of them. A good friend of mine who is attending business school was recently told, “Good luck. Every year there’s five spots on the east coast and ten on the west coast.” Stark terms, but not too far off for post-MBA early stage venture work in my experience. Of course there are a couple spots between the coasts and a growing set of international ones as well.

So how does one go about unearthing the opportunities?

Some subset of open venture positions are publicly or semi-publicly announced. They hit job boards, recruiter sites, or blogs.  Here’s where to look:

1. Job Boards

• Private Equity Job Search Digest touts itself as “The Definitive Source for Private Equity Jobs.” The site offers both “basic” (free) and “premium” ($60/quarter) subscription options.  If you’re actively in the hunt with few relevant contacts, sign up for the premium service if only to gain access to information on recruiters. It’s their job to take your call and will help start you down the road.  An upstart service operating in the same space that’s worth keeping an eye on is VC-Jobs.
• Doostang is “an invite-only career community” that has garnered a surprising number of VC position postings, perhaps a result of either its own venture-backed status or the buzz around its membership.  I first heard of Doostang this spring when asking a colleague in the industry how he’d found a new Analyst for the firm.  The site lists Bessemer Venture Partners, Spark Capital, DFJ Element, TA Associates and Summit Partners as firms that have made offers to candidates found via Doostang. Impressive.
• The PE Hub Summer Internship Rodeo (accessed via their MBA Forum) kicked off last Monday. In its fifth year, this service connects first-year MBA students with summer internships in the field. I’m told there are almost 90 job postings up right now, a fair number of which are in venture capital.
• Others - Indeed, Simply Hired, and Jobster offer nice meta job engines, culling posts from around the web. It’s worth playing with these to make sure you’re not missing an opportunity. Craigslist, which offers loads of startup positions but rarely an investing role, has notoriously evaded such “scraping.” If you want to comprehensively search Craigslist’s many city sites, try Craig’s Helper. And Monstertrak, Monster’s school-specific posting service, tends to house venture positions from time to time in my experience with Princeton’s sub-site.

2. Recruiter Sites

• The two recruiters that I’ve seen most active in the space are Glocap Search and Pinnacle Group International. Glocap is currently listing 12 VC positions and Pinnacle has two VC spots. Consider contacting these or other recruiters directly as well.  Hammer Haley and Forrer and Associates are two that tend to send me opportunities.

3. Blogs

• It’s rare for a venture opening to show up on a blog, but I’ve seen it happen a couple times, and posted myself once. I love that Union Square Ventures’ Andrew Parker applied for his position at the firm, advertised on Fred’s and the firm’s blog, with a single field: “web presence” (see third comment here) - evidence that Baris Karadogan’s assertion that blogs are the next resume carries some weight. If you’re interested in catching these opportunities, never mind that jobs may occasionally pop up.  Reading venture blogs will better prepare you for discussions and interviews than any other resource and offer unprecedented access to the professionals themselves. You can find lists of venture blogs here, here, here, and here.

Many of the venture slots, though, never see the light of day. They’re offered to folks that have been operating “in the network” for years, via a portfolio company, another venture firm, a large player in the firm’s investment sector, or simply via a referral. The best way to ensure you get the underground news is to be in the network, something you can work your way towards. Charlie’s advice along these lines is excellent. I’ll offer a couple useful resources to start networking:

• Venture Capital Conferences lists upcoming events. Head to the Advanced Search page of the site to find venture-related gatherings in your neck of the woods (or elsewhere). Not all of these have a high sticker price and meeting VCs at such get-togethers can help start the ball rolling.  Perhaps such a connection leads to a position at a portfolio company, and then down the road, at a venture firm.
• Angel Capital Association offers a directory of angel investor groups by region. As a prospective VC, it’s worth reaching out to angels for a couple reasons: (1) they tend to know the VCs in their region because they introduce VCs to their promising investments and end up as co-investors, and (2) they’ll have their own startup-related network, and may have more time to give than the average VC. Hopefully, you’re offering something too: a perspective on investments they’re considering, talent which lends them relationship brokering “currency,” and/or investment leads.

Lastly, consider applying for the Kauffman Fellows Program (KFP).  Though incredibly competitive, KFP offers two-year focused apprenticeships at venture firms with high retention rates thereafter, a great entrance to the field and worth a shot.

Good luck with your search! I’d appreciate hearing about additional resources you’ve found useful.  Leave a comment.

And once you’re “in,” don’t miss VCComp for industry compensation data.

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*Credit to Sierra’s Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero? for inspiring the lead-in, or so I thought until re-running across Rob Hayes’ aptly titled blog post from about a year ago which must have stuck in my head.

Photo credit: Acme giant kite kit, originally uploaded by Dystopos

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