I've had a career so far at larger tech companies with huge recruitment operations, so for the most part I've had the luck to have not directly applied for many jobs, instead getting referred from connections or recruited.

At this point in my life, I'm looking to try working at startups and some domains different from what I'm normally recruited to. For founders and people hiring at startups and smaller companies, how do you generally prefer candidates to apply? YC's WorkAtAStartup database seems to have a great overview of companies, but the application just being essentially an email makes me wonder if that feature is silently ignored - perhaps this is common knowledge. Do you tend to go through your applications on Linkedin or your company site before looking through WorkAtAStartup?