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How to Actually Get Hired
Who reads applications, which channel gets a reply, and what they screen for.
Don't make these mistakes
Do not reference generic AI hype. Kevin built Clay, one of the best operational automation products of the past five years. He will filter quickly for people who understand workflow automation at a deep level.
What gets their attention
The $8M Pre-Seed is the signal. Initialized Capital leading at that size, with 8VC and YC participation, indicates conviction that Elly will be the category-defining AI-native ATS. Kevin's Clay pedigree adds execution credibility.
Why applying the normal way doesn't work
Elly is <50 people. No recruiter, no HR. Your application goes to a founder juggling everything. Cold outreach is how you actually get seen.
Who to contact at Elly
Founding team
Has been CSM, CRO, COO, and now CEO. She is not a first-time operator and she is not a technical founder cosplaying as a GTM executive. She built product and sold it. Previously Chief Revenue Officer at Typeform, overseeing all revenue-related functions, including marketing and sales. With nearly two decades of experience growing and scaling revenue organizations, she previously served as President and COO at Shogun, scaling product-led growth and raising their Series C. Prior to Shogun, she held leadership positions at Atlassian, running the Americas and APAC enterprise sales team. She was also the VP of Sales and the first revenue hire at Trello, leading them through their acquisition by Atlassian. Sorenson backed her before and moved fast to back her again. Reference her operator background specifically - she will respond to people who have lived inside the sales or recruiting process, not people who have read about it.
What to show them
Elly's core product is an AI agent that manages recruiting pipelines autonomously. That means building reliable LLM-powered systems for candidate evaluation, outreach sequencing, and feedback-loop learning. Core skills: production experience with LLM applications (prompt engineering, structured output parsing, RAG); familiarity with agent frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or custom orchestration); experience building systems that improve from feedback; ideally prior exposure to recruiting, HR tech, or operational workflow automation. For proof of work, build a small demo that takes a job description and a candidate resume, evaluates fit with reasoning, and generates a brief outreach message. Show how you handle ambiguous or incomplete information. Post it on GitHub.
A cold email that works at Elly
What Elly screens for
The $8M Pre-Seed is the signal. Initialized Capital leading at that size, with 8VC and YC participation, indicates conviction that Elly will be the category-defining AI-native ATS. Kevin's Clay pedigree adds execution credibility.
A tailored CV beats a generic one. Use Elly's job description language to clear filters.
Mistakes that kill applications
A recycled CV gets rejected fast at Elly (<50 people). They notice.
Don't open with what you want. Open with what Elly is dealing with right now — Greenhouse, Lever, and Ashby were built as databases, and what you'd do about it.
The wait-and-hope strategy fails. Follow up on day five — response rates roughly double.
Frequently asked questions
How do I apply to Elly?
Through the roles on our Elly jobs page, or directly to a founder or department head if you can reach them. At <50 people, direct outreach outperforms the form.
Does Elly respond to cold emails?
Not enough data yet on Elly's cold email response rates.
Who is the hiring manager at Elly?
At this size, hiring is usually run by a founder or department head.
How competitive is it to get hired at Elly?
Typical applicant count for AI roles (<50 people): 50-100 in two weeks. Apply fast.
Have your application sent for you
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