How I Landed A Job As Uber Employee 250 - Part 1

Happy Saturday Everyone! 👋

(Read time 10 min 3 sec)

Welcome back!

Let’s land you a career-accelerating tech job faster and with less stress.

For some reason May has always been a pivotal month in my career.

• May 2013 - Landed a job as Uber employee 250 🚗

• May 2020 - Uber sells JUMP and lays off all staff (me included)

• May 2022 - Avo announces operational closure on my birthday 🥑

And with this being the 10 year anniversary of my Uber offer I wanted to share the play by play story of exactly how it went down.

I’m not just going to share my account of the story.

Oh no! I’ll be sharing much more…

I’m going to open the curtain to share the actual emails I was sending to my girlfriend (now wife), my parents, the recruiter, and the company where I already had an offer.

If you’re a job hunter, you can steal the exact language I use in my emails and the exact approach I used to land your next career-accelerating role.

So, pull up a seat my hungry job seekers, and let me tell you a unicorn tale 🦄…

👔 Part 1 - New Hustle In A New City: How I Landed A Job As the 250th Employee of Uber

I first downloaded the Uber app on Saturday, July 28th, 2012 at 10:33 AM.

Later that night, I used Uber to go from our rental house outside downtown Seattle to the bars.

That ride changed my life.

I vividly remember the feeling of watching the car approach our house through the screen of my phone and looking out the front window when it alerted me that my driver had arrived.

What I saw outside wasn’t the nasty yellow cabs we had grown accustomed to.

It was a sleek, sexy, shiny black limo.

A man in a clean black suit got out of the car, opened our doors, and whisked us away like we were foreign diplomats.

I was in love.

Uber in 2013

Let me set the stage for where Uber was as a company.

It’s important to remember that in 2013, Uber was far from the verb it is today.

It was live in a little over 20 cities in the world (that’s cities, not countries), but expansion was accelerating.

And it was getting there almost purely via word of mouth.

“The product is so good, there is no one spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing,” Bill Gurley (Uber investor).

The company was less than 250 people and had just closed its $361.2 million Series C.

Uber NYC in 2013

In New York City, like many cities around the country and the world, Uber was coming up against deeply entrenched legacy transportation operators and regulators.

Uber New York City launched its flagship black car product in 2011, and a year later, had launched a taxi product.

Both had received serious resistance from the NY Taxi Authority (NYC TLC) and the existing black car and taxi companies.

To try and prevent companies like Uber from operating in NYC, the black car industry filed a lawsuit against the NYC TLC to force regulations or a complete company shut down.

The Uber NYC team shut down the UberTAXI product while things settled in the courts.

But, on April 23, 2013, a judge dismissed the case against the TLC, officially opening a pilot program allowing Uber and other taxi ride-hailing services to operate in the city.

The Uber NYC Ops team was 6 young, hungry, ambitious people looking to change how people got around their city.

This is where I come in…

Me in 2013

After college, I made a brief stop in Washington, DC, to intern in the Senate.

But after 3 months, I decided the public sector wasn’t for me.

I would far rather be the guy doing the things than the guy talking about the guy doing the things.

After returning to Seattle, I accepted the first job I was offered.

The company’s global footprint and Fortune 500 customer list sounded sexy on the outside.

It turned out to be a soul-sucking cubicle data entry job and after two years of trying to make the most of that opportunity (and being rejected from the management trainee program 3x), I resigned.

I had met a girl who lived in New York City, we had been long-distance dating for 6 months, and I was going to give life in the big apple a shot.

I resigned in January, helped the company transition my accounts until March, and boarded my cross-country flight.

I arrived in New York City in March 2013 without job prospects or a network.

The only people I knew were my girlfriend, her 3 roommates, and a girl I had gone to high school with.

After two months of networking conversations, research, social media outreach, and interviews, I ran low on money.

To pay the bills, I interviewed for a job as a domain name salesman.

It was far from the role I wanted, but I got a verbal offer on April 26, 2013.

It would pay $40k per year (more than I was making in Seattle but not by a lot and not enough to keep up with the cost of NYC) with the potential of commission.

I wasn’t super excited, so I wanted to keep my options open.

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013: The Text Message

One of the only people I knew in NYC was a girl I went to grade school with (shout out to Kelsey Morgan).

She and I would talk about my job hunt relatively regularly, and she always tried to find ways to be helpful.

As it turns out, she was roommates with one of Uber NYC’s earliest employees, Andrew Chapin.

Andrew was one of the first 50 people at Uber.

He and I had gone to school and played basketball together but hadn’t been in touch in over six years since we had graduated high school.

UberTAXI was now ready to launch again, and Andrew needed a cheap way to get in front of Taxi drivers, tell them about Uber, and get them to sign up for the service before any other apps could get to them.

He needed cheap bodies to smile, shake hands, and spread the good word.

I had a body, and I was cheap!

Kelsey must have told Andrew I was looking for work because on Tuesday, April 30th, I got a text message.

I jump at the opportunity.

I knew Andrew worked for Uber, I loved the product, and I had no money, so with $25/hr I was rich!

He told me to report to the Uber office the next morning with a backpack, outdoor clothes, and comfortable shoes.

JOB HUNT TIP - TALK TO LOTS OF PEOPLE AND BE WILLING AND ABLE TO PROVIDE VALUE

In the months since I landed in NYC I had spoken with dozens of people about my job hunt and made it clear that I was hungry for opportunity and a chance to prove myself. I was willing to do the work to get noticed. The people willing to put themselves out there in whatever way possible to get the attention will get the opportunities. So get your name out there, let people know what you’re looking for, and be willing to roll up your sleeves.

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013: My First Hustle

I arrived at an old brick building on a city corner in Queens.

The place looked dark, dirty, and it wasn’t clear if anyone worked there.

I rang the doorbell and heard the buzz and door unlock, so I pulled it open and headed up the dark staircase.

After being confused for a Taxi driver looking to sign up for Uber (a new employee rite of passage), Andrew grabbed me and brought another TaskRabbit and me into the conference room.

In the room he:

• Shared details about the UberTAXI product.

• Told us that every UberTAXI driver would be given an iPhone for signing up (the driver app couldn’t be downloaded in the App Store). This was a major selling point to emphasize!

• Showed us the marketing palm cards.

• Asked us if we had any questions.

In no time, we were in an Uber SUV headed to Laguardia airport with backpacks full of marketing cards to sell the drivers on the Uber dream.

Thursday, May 2nd & Friday, May 3rd, 2013: Selling the UberTAXI Dream

I walked up and down the lines in the Laguardia taxi lot, speaking with drivers.

Most of the drivers were super friendly.

Some ignored me, keeping their windows closed and waving me to move on.

On the third day in the taxi lot, drivers start to come up to me to ask me questions about Uber.

They had heard a lot about the service.

Some friends had signed up.

What was it really like?

It was working…

Monday, May 6th, 2013 - Mentor Check-In

Even since I moved to NYC I had been checking in with a mentor, Tom Matzelle.

We had been introduced while I lived in Seattle because he worked at Expedia, and I was interested in travel and technology.

He was an experienced trainer and coach and provided useful insight and direction about staying focused on the job hunt in a new city.

JOB HUNT TIP - HOW TO CREATE A STRONG MENTOR RELATIONSHIP

To keep the relationship strong, I would take his recommendations, put them into action, and reach back out after I had results to let him know how it had gone.

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013: A Full-Time Interest

After working for the company for 4 days, I was hooked.

I was determined to do whatever I could to land a full-time role.

I had proven myself capable of selling to drivers in the Taxi lots, so Andrew pulled me into the office to help the Operations Managers create accounts for the stream of Taxi drivers now coming through the doors to learn more and sign up.

In my emails to my Mom, I highlighted Uber’s job openings for an Operations Manager and Community Manager.

Notice the language and excitement I use about the company, the work environment, and how she had never heard of the company.

JOB HUNT TIP - YOU KNOW IT’S RIGHT WHEN IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE WORK

You can hear the excitement in the work I’m doing through my email to my Mom. This isn’t complex strategy work. This is walking around handing out marketing materials, a job most people would hate. It highlights an important sign. If your networking and value creation don’t feel like work but feel more like scratching your own itch, you’re on the right path.

I was waiting on the official offer letter from my domain name sales job to come through, and while I waited, my Mom gave some pretty epic advice.

”Apply for that Uber job now.”

JOB HUNT TIP - DON’T ASK FOR A JOB IMMEDIATELY

In reality, I didn’t apply right away. I had shown Andrew I was really interested in the company and was willing to do whatever it took to provide value to him and the team. I ensured I was providing value before approaching him to ask if he thought I would be a good fit for the role. I also wanted to ask him if there was anything I should know about before I applied to make my application as successful as possible.

That night, the official offer letter for my domain name sales position came through.

Thankfully, they had pushed my start date back to May 20th.

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013: My FTE Ask

After one week of temp work at Uber, I felt confident that I knew enough about the company and what they needed to ask Andrew about a full-time role.

They needed someone willing to get their hands dirty and manage all the manual tasks related to scaling the driver supply, and I had proved I could be the person to do that.

I asked Andrew if I could ask him some questions and pulled him into a conference room to see if there were any full time roles available and if he thought I would be a good fit.

Thankfully, he said I would be a good fit and would pass my information along to the recruiters.

I had secured a warm referral!

He also broke down what the interview process would look like.

It would be a take-home data analytics exercise followed by a recruiter interview.

JOB HUNT TIP - THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS

This is the power of relationship building. Referrals account for less than 10% of applicants but as much as 70% of interviews. Relationships can help you skip the application process entirely. I never sent in a resume, I just gave Andrew my email to pass along to the recruiters.

I immediately emailed my girlfriend with the good news!

And reached out to my Dad, who highlighted a trend I often see with job hunters.

JOB HUNT TIP - WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS

Your job hunt always starts off slow. But if you stay consistent with your relationship building and value creation you often find that 2 months into the hunt you have multiple opportunities to choose from. Once you get confident in the value you can provide and comfortable in your methods, results can come in multiples.

And, the same day I had a conversation with Andrew, the recruiter reached out providing me with detailed next step instructions.

I quickly responded to the recruiter doing a few things:

1. Making myself available to speak whenever she was available.

2. Sharing my eagerness in taking action on the exercise.

3. Highlighting how much I have enjoyed working with the team and doing the day-to-day work.

My last email of the day was to my girlfriend.

I was about to go into full freak-out mode over the analytics test.

I didn’t want some Excel cells to be what held me back from what I saw as a dream opportunity.

I want to hear from you!

What are you struggling with?

What’s an area that you’re excited about and you want me to dig into?

What company or leader do you want to learn more about?

Email your question to [email protected] or idea and you’ll likely find a complete breakdown in a future edition of the newsletter.

That’s where we’ll leave the story for this week.

The job hunt tips that Part 1 of the story highlights are…

1. Talk to lots of people and be willing and able to provide value. Get your name out there!

2. Create strong relationships with mentors by asking for advice, taking action, and reporting back.

3. If you lose yourself in the networking, company research, and value creation during your job hunt it’s a sign you’re on the right path. If it’s a struggle it’s a sign you should reassess.

4. Don’t ask for a job immediately. Provide value, learn about the company’s needs, and then approach your connections to ask if they think you would be a good fit.

5. Relationships land roles and let you skip the line. Referrals lead to almost 70% of interviews. This is why I recommend spending 80-90% of your time on networking.

6. The job hunt takes a while to get going but if you do it right, by month 2 or 3 you can have multiple opportunities to choose from. Set up habits that will allow you to execute consistently for months, not days.

Make sure you join next week for the conclusion of the story with details about the analytics exercise, my back and forth with the recruiter, the official Uber offer details, and my rejection of an alternative offer.

Let’s become career champions together 🏆

Kyle

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

#1: Free Job Hunt Strategy Call: Request a free job hunt strategy call with me to get closer to landing your next career-accelerating tech role. On our call, I’ll walk through your vision and how to make it a reality, cover the obstacles standing in your way, and help determine the best next step for you to take based on your short-term and long-term goals. Schedule a free call today!

#2: Want to get serious about accelerating your career in tech? Discover the small selective group program for ambitious professionals looking to land their next career-accelerating tech role in less than 90 days.

#3: Follow me on LinkedIn for more job hunt systems, productivity tools, and networking templates.

Share UpEmployment

The job hunt isn’t something you need to do alone.

In fact, if you surround yourself with other career champions, you’ll land your dream job quicker.

So share this newsletter with anyone you know that is currently looking for that next career-accelerating opportunity so you can win together!

Forward them this email or just copy and paste this link: https://upemployment.beehiiv.com/subscribe

See you again next week!