This is part of a series on building your career in venture capital:

• Reading list for working in private equity/venture capital, including all of the major online communities, programs, and educational options for people studying VC
• How to win consulting, board, operating, and investment roles with private equity and venture capital funds (video)

Whenever we recruit someone new to join Versatile VC, at any level and in any capacity, I tell them:

Welcome!

I first recommend you join the most relevant online communities for you, since building a network is so fundamental to VC. Good places to start are Confluence and GenZMafia. I’ve listed below other communities focused on VC, and suggest you also look for the other most relevant online communities for your particular industries and geographies of interest. (We keep a proprietary list of high-value online communities, but I can’t post it publicly here in order to keep a high signal-to-noise ratio.)

I suggest you also consider the steps below. I list here programs/degrees for people studying VC; all of the major VC organizations including those focused on diversity; and other professional training for investors.

Consider joining the major VC associations and online communities:

• Confluence
• Let’s Talk Ops, Venture Capital Operations Association – fund operations professionals
• National Venture Capital Association
• NYC: New York Venture Capital Association, New York Private Equity Network, New York City Venture Connection, New York VC Network
• VEECEE – European VCs
• VCPlatform – for portfolio acceleration professionals
• NextGen Partners – for pre-Partner VCs
• VCNetwork – for GPs in the Bay Area
• Emerging VCs, Nextgenpartners.org , Emerging Venture Capitalists Association, Baby VC (Europe) – for pre-Partners, and secondarily people trying to crack into the industry
• VCs who care

In particular, you may want to join some of the VC organizations focused on diversity: