>I never got into Y Combinator but I'm now the CEO of a rapidly growing, well funded startup that actually SERVES an increasing number of YC companies
This this kind of thing always feels like a bit of a victory. I never came close to being admitted to Stanford, but years ago found myself on the campus, hiring a professor as a consultant to a startup I co-founded. As we walked around the campus and then sat in his office, this far-off universe of people that the Stanford admissions committee had long-ago decided were smarter and more capable than I was suddenly seemed far less so. I was already doing what many of the students, and even many professors, aspired to do.
A rejection from YC, Stanford, or any other exclusive club with limited space isn't necessarily an indictment of your abilities. In the case of a startup, launch your product and let the market tell you how valuable you are. Remarkable products will quickly spread, and investors will line up to write you checks. You can have VC partners worth hundreds of millions of dollars literally walking the streets [1] to find you, too.
I once tried to become a paramedic. I was working in a sort-of outpatient clinic at the time, talked a couple of times with an paramedic instructor, along with some regular officers. I never got in - the HR recruiters didn't like me for some reason. This made no sense to the instructor, who thought I was a prime candidate, nor to my medical colleagues, and I also later successfully coached two friends through the process. I often wonder how life would have turned out differently had I been accepted. Sometimes people on both sides of the wall think you'd be the best for the job, but if the gatekeepers don't think so... :)
Absolutely, and you've got to remember that the gatekeepers use heuristics meant to target the greatest chance at being the rightest, not ensuring that they don't miss a few obvious ones. Such it is with YC - their heuristics are designed to ensure that they catch the potential unicorns (among other things) and aren't concerned with missing a few that would seem obvious in retrospect.
And btw they seem to do well - all the "misses" are middling wins - for example Buffer (a poster boy for a YC miss) is an amazing company, but it's not a miss YC will ever rue. The misses for YC should actually validate so many founders - if you're looking to be a Buffer (which, if you want to live a good life, you should consider) you should bear in mind that I think even looking back on Buffer, YC would take them knowing about them what they know, but they wouldn't change their criteria for accepting founders to make sure they don't miss Buffer and they shouldn't. There are lots of great businesses and even big-win startups that YC isn't set up to catch, and that could be you.
I got a reply from a financial engineering consultancy HR person on Friday to say that they would not be able to process my application until I had submitted my high school results.
From 1997.
I have several applications on the go right now, so I do not have time to go historical for them. They miss a candidate.
I once quit halfway through an application to some company (a consulting firm? this was years ago) because the web-based form wouldn't let me advance without filling in information about my high school that I no longer have.
I did have all the information about my AA and BS, but apparently that wasn't enough.
that's not unreasonable, when applying for job you need to get your stuff together. So many companies have later found out employees claimed degrees they never got. HR protects against that.
This this kind of thing always feels like a bit of a victory. I never came close to being admitted to Stanford, but years ago found myself on the campus, hiring a professor as a consultant to a startup I co-founded. As we walked around the campus and then sat in his office, this far-off universe of people that the Stanford admissions committee had long-ago decided were smarter and more capable than I was suddenly seemed far less so. I was already doing what many of the students, and even many professors, aspired to do.
A rejection from YC, Stanford, or any other exclusive club with limited space isn't necessarily an indictment of your abilities. In the case of a startup, launch your product and let the market tell you how valuable you are. Remarkable products will quickly spread, and investors will line up to write you checks. You can have VC partners worth hundreds of millions of dollars literally walking the streets [1] to find you, too.
[1] http://youtu.be/8-pJa11YvCs?t=13m